Newsletter October 24 - October 27

I hope that you all enjoyed our three-day weekend.  I traveled to Colorado for a family event and the vibrant yellow leaves were beautiful along the way.  We had a great time at the pumpkin patch last week.  Thanks for sending in your 1.00 donation.  Today we finished up our Pumpkin Life cycle flip book in conjunction with that field trip.  Ask your child to read their book to you. Fall in first grade is a very magical time! 

Here are this week's happenings:

• Next week on Halloween students can wear their Halloween costumes all day.  They can't be
  "bloody or gory" and no masks.  We will have a school-wide Halloween sing at 2:15 and a traditional Halloween costume parade from 2:45 - 3:15.  The Halloween sing will be in the gym and with all of the students in there is too crowded for parent visitors, but you are welcome to come and watch the parade.  Tables will be set up in the cafeteria for you to sit around as we circle through the school and cafeteria.  Those two activities will mostly be our Halloween party, but I will contact you if you signed up to help for Halloween and ask for a healthy snack before we head down to the sing.  We will finish our apple head witches the day before on October 30.  They are looking old and shriveled and are ready to "get dressed".  
• On October 30 at 3:00 in the cafeteria we will have our First grade awards.  These awards are attendance and behavior awards (perfect, excellent, Catch the Vision and Most improved).  I will contact you through e-mail if you child will be receiving an award.  You are welcome to come to this ceremony. Watch for an e-mail in the next couple of days.
• In math we are continuing with addition strategies.  We are working on doubles plus 1 and will continue with doubles minus 1 tomorrow.  That strategy is helpful for addition problems like 5 + 6 were the numbers are one apart.  Students use a known fact of 5 + 5 = 10 and then "add one more".  If they know 5 + 5 = 10 then one more than 10 is 11 so 5 + 6 = 11.  This is a tricky concept and we'll work on it.  We are have also learned the counting on strategy as well.  In the next few weeks, I will start timed addition and subtraction quizzes to help students with the facts through 20.  We want them to be somewhat automatic :)
• In reading we are finishing up our unit and I will assess their knowledge of the "silent e" spelling at the end of this week.  We have enjoyed reading about Gran and her adventures with Jen and Josh.  We will start a new unit next week.  Spelling words and spelling tests with start shortly.  Also in reading we are now reading versions of Little Red Riding Hood.  Today we read a version from China called Hu Gu Po.  Ask your child to retell this story to you :)  We will read another version from Botswana Tselane on Thursday and then do some group culminating activities around these versions.  Especially we will note the differences and similarities in the stories and point out the setting, characters, conflict and plot.  

I'm going to try and post a picture from the pumpkin patch at the end of my newsletter so scroll down.  Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns and.......
Happy Reading!

Robinson Family Pumpkin Patch October 2017