Here are this week's happenings in first grade:
- I sent home a list of spelling words today. The test will be this Friday, Feb. 2. The words are pretty straightforward, but may take a bit of study time to ease with test anxiety. But, as always I would much prefer reading take-home books over studying spelling words.
- The January reading calendar will be due this Thursday, February 1. I will send home the February calendar that day. I have changed some students' reading levels (take-home books level A-Z). Let me know if you feel that the level your child is currently bringing home is appropriate. This should be the student's independent level. They should be able to basically open up the book and read it to you without missing many words. If they are struggling with every word, it's too difficult, if they breeze right through it then it's too easy. We want a "good fit" for each student.
- Today we started two new Units--both in our CKLA reading program. We began Unit 5 in the skills portion and in the Listening and Learning portion we began our unit on Astronomy. My students already seem to have a good background about "outer space" so this unit will be especially fun. In the skills portion, we will continue to learn spelling patterns. We will especially concentrate on word endings. Today we learned about root words and suffixes and when to double the ending consonant when adding an ending to a root word (for example; stop becomes stopping or stopped). The rules are if it's a one syllable root word, with a short vowel followed by one consonant then you double the last consonant before adding the ending. We will review this throughout this unit. We will also begin a new fiction book called Kate's Book. It will follow Kate and her grandma on many adventures. We will continue our writing of paragraphs using opening and closing sentences and a middle full of supporting sentences.
- In math, my plan is to test on our place value unit this Friday. We are on course for that to happen. I will let you know if we need an extra review day and instead take the test on the following Monday. Today we showed two-digits numbers two different ways (example 64 = 6 tens and 4 ones and 64 = 5 tens and 14 ones). This will set the stage for regrouping in second grade.
- I plan on having a Valentine's Day party in my classroom on Wednesday, February 14. I will send home a note about that in the next couple of days. It will have a list of students in our classroom so that your child can hand out Valentines if they want to. We have 22 students in our class right now if you wanted to get Valentine's before I send the note home :)
- We will again have library tomorrow, Tuesday, instead of our regular Wednesday time as our librarian is again away for a family emergency.
- Thursday is our "Toy day" in PE. Please talk to your child about leaving their toys in their backpacks except for their PE time. Also, toys any other days really should be left home--that includes fancy notebooks, pencils that make noises or become toys, old phones etc. They really are a distraction in a school setting in and out of the classroom. An exception for this might be for Show and Tell on Friday :) I do though encourage "learning" show and tell though so things like shells, or rocks, or a special family picture something like that would be very appropriate to show.
- I hope that you read the note about our 100-Book challenge. I know that you have a lot of things to sign when it comes to reading (calendar, PTA bookmarks etc.) and now another thing. If I could figure out a better way to keep track of the books read for the 100-book challenge I would do it. This is very achievable if your child continues to read their take-home book every night. Don't leave it until the end because then it's frustration for all involved. This is an optional activity, but I would encourage positive reinforcement and participation.
No comments:
Post a Comment