Mrs. Armstrong's Awesome First Grade: Newsletter October 30

We had a fun time putting together our "apple head" witches today. Tomorrow will be a full day with Halloween. We will still have regular reading groups in the morning along with PE and Computers. We will do some Halloween math in the afternoon and attend the Halloween sing at 2:15 and participate in the costume parade starting at 2:45. Remember that you are welcome to attend the costume parade, but for space reasons there is not enough room in the Halloween sing for parents to attend. I have explained several times the requirements for costumes tomorrow. If you child's costume has a hat, or partial helmet type mask, glasses or gloves they can wear those for the parade but not during school. Full masks, gigantic costumes and blood and gore are not acceptable at any time during the day or the parade.

Here are this week's happenings and notes and announcements:

We are starting the month of November this week--October reading calendars will be due on Wednesday, November 1. I will send November reading calendars home that day also.
Today I sent home a spelling list. We have just started our Unit 3 in our CKLA reading program. We will now have spelling tests every 5 lessons. That means that students will come home with a list and five days later I will test them in class on that list of words. The words will come from the spelling patterns that we are learning. The spelling test for the first list will be on Monday, November 6. We won't have a traditional "Friday" spelling test, but on each spelling list I will have my students write the date of the test at the top of the list. Some students may need a bit more practice than we have time for at school. If you study these words with your child, you can count those minutes as part of their 10 minutes of reading. I would rather see 10 minutes of reading though nightly, than 10 minutes of studying spelling words. Helping them practice these words at home though might help with some initial frustration on the spelling test.
Next week on Tuesday, November 7 I want to take my class over to the Paiute Tribal Center for their program for Native American Month. It will be a walking field trip. We will leave the school at 1:15 and return by 3:00. I need to get a confirmation from the tribal office, but plan on that day for a field trip. I would be happy to have someone walk over with us to the tribal building. If you think you could do this please let me know through e-mail.
This week in addition to starting our new reading unit where we will dive into vowel combinations such as /oo/ as in soon and narrative writing we will also start a new "Listening and Learning unit" about Early World Civilizations specifically Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. I love teaching these next two units both about early civilizations. I love too that this program incorporates these subjects into first grade curriculum. It's amazing what first graders can learn and retain if given the chance.
In math, we have learned how to add 10 to a number (10 + 4 = 14) and today we used that knowledge to "make a ten" to add (ex. 9 + 5 = 14, students learn to take 1 from 5 to "make a ten" then they will compute 10 + 4 = 14 so 9 + 5 = 14) Later this week we will learn how to add three numbers together and then problem solve (story problems) using the addition strategies we have learned. The test for this chapter will be next week. I will let you know a specific date as the concepts have been taught and reviewed.
Today was our first quarter first grade awards. Congrats to those receiving attendance awards and to our Catch the Vision recipients, Elizabeth and Wes. Our next PTA reading awards will be November 16 in our classroom. I will send home information about that (a note in your child's folder) if they will be receiving one of those awards).

Happy Reading and Happy Halloween!! Don't forget Sight word soldiers this Wednesday. Send those signed lists (blue notes) back before Wednesday.