November 28th Newsletter

Dear Parents and Guardians,

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving break, it sure is great to be back!  This week we will be working with more blends, or as we call them "letters that go together."  Our students have been learning to hear those consonants that blend together at the beginning of many words, like: star, flame, climb, and snap.  

We will wrap up our work with the narratives we are working on this week.  We started the piece with oral storytelling to a partner, moved to illustrating a story board to guide our writing and then began our writing.  This week we'll focus on editing and publishing by giving our narratives a title and a cover, like a real book!  

This week we will also be circling back to the topic of friendship.  We'll be reading some stories and discussing how to be a good friend.  If you can find a few minutes to have a conversation with your son or daughter about kindness and respect for others it would be much appreciated.  Your support really helps strengthen these concepts.  

In math, the children will practice measuring and comparing lengths using nonstandard units, such as paper clips.  We will also be introducing the inch and how to use a ruler.  The children will learn to estimate and measure the length of objects in inches.  Look for Home Links 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4 to come home this week.

We will be finishing our communities social studies unit this week.  The children will be learning about maps and creating a make-believe neighborhood with a partner.

Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to come to parent-teacher conferences.  It was great to meet with you and talk about your wonderful children!  As always, if you have any additional questions or concerns please feel free to email me.

Special Points of Interest

• Scholastic Book Orders are due Monday, December 12th.  You can view the flyers online and order books by going to www.scholastic.com/bookclubs and using the online code:  JBVLK

November 21st Newsletter

Dear Parents and Guardians,

As you might be writing letters to Santa or working on gift lists with your children, we wanted to let you know that during this short week we are working on "letters that go with r," otherwise known as blends.  While we do want children to listen for sounds and write what they hear, if your child isn't hearing those blends at the beginning or words (such as truck, pretty, crib, freeze)  it would be great if you could help them stretch the word by saying it really slowly.  We are really focusing on getting both those sounds into our words.  Remember, it isn't necessary to spell the word correctly but those beginning sounds are really important right now!  

This week we will begin unit 4 in math. Your child will be learning how to read a thermometer.  Please practice counting by 2’s to help them read a thermometer.  As you help your child with homework, please guide them with directions as necessary.  The Family Letters we send home for each unit have all of the answers listed and will help you assist your child with their homework.  Look for Home Link 4.1 and the Unit 4 Family Letter to come home this week.

We will continue working on our Communities unit in social studies.

Special Points of Interest

• No school on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Scholastic Book Order

Shop Online: scholastic.com/readingclub
One-Time Class Activation Code: JBVLX

Dear Families,

Please remember to place your Reading Club orders by Friday, November 18th.

You can shop and submit your order online or return the order form with payment directly to me. No matter how you order, every purchase you make earns FREE Books and educational supplies for our classroom.

The arrival of the book box is always a highlight - thanks for making it happen!

Happy reading,

Mrs. Majinski

Ordering online is fast and easy:

• REGISTER at scholastic.com/readingclub
• ENTER the Class Activation Code at the top of this letter
• CHOOSE from thousands of print titles, value packs, and Storia eBooks
• SUBMIT the order to me by the due date at the top of this letter
• EARN FREE Books for our classroom too!

November 14th Newsletter

We have been working very hard on fluency for the last few weeks, but this past week we marked one of our poems in phrases of two to four words.  We read the lines in different ways to see what sounded better.  When we were all done, we read the poem, paying attention to the phrases we had marked.  What a difference it made!  Our first graders are starting to really understand how reading should sound.  We are also working hard on this in guided reading.  When you read the take home books with your child, be sure prompt him or her to "read it like this," as you model it, in a few places.  Remember that reading picture books to your child is still very important.  They need to hear you model that phrased, fluent reading!  Keep up the great work!

This week in math we will be practicing finding the values of collections of pennies, nickels, and dimes.  We will continue to explore domino/dot patterns to provide practice for basic addition facts.  This week’s homework will include Home Link 3.12 and an addition practice sheet.  Also look for the Unit 4 Family Letter to come home this week.

We will continue working on our Communities unit in Social Studies.  Thank you in advance to all of the parents that are coming in to talk about your jobs!

Special Points of Interest

• Winter is quickly approaching.  Now is the time to start thinking about packing an extra pair of socks and mittens in your child's backpack.
• Please continue to remind your children to bring their take-home books back to school.
• Scholastic Book Orders are due Friday, November 18th. Flyers will be coming home sometime this week.  Shop Online: scholastic.com/readingclub Class Activation Code: JBVLX
• Parent-Teacher Conferences are this Thursday, November 17th and the following Monday, November 21st.  I am looking forward to meeting with you to talk about your wonderful children!
• No School next Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday

November 7th Newsletter

Welcome to second quarter!  It's so exciting to reflect on the growth of our class from the beginning of the year to now!  In just a little over two months our students are thinking about what would make sense when they are stuck on an unfamiliar word, and then they cross-check that with the letters on the page to make sure it looks right too.  Just to be sure, they know how to "slow check" the word by running their finger slowly under the letters of the word to see if the letters match the sounds they make as they slowly say the word.  This strategy also works great in writing too!  

In writing, we finished working on our small moment stories and this week we'll be doing a study of punctuation.  We've learned a lot about how writers write about what they know, and so we've worked on writing about small moments from our lives.  We take one small moment and write lots about it.  We write about what happened, how we felt and what we though.  Many of us are remembering to punctuate some of our sentences already, and hopefully we'll get closer to punctuating every sentence soon!  

This week in math we will be introducing dimes and adding combinations of pennies, nickels, and dimes.   We will review graphing by creating our own class graphs.  The children will be exploring dot patterns on dominoes to find the sum of the two parts.  Remember to keep practicing addition and subtraction facts at home.  This quarter, we will be working on addition and subtraction facts to 10.  Look for Home Links 3.9, 3.10, and 3.11 to come home this week.

This week we will be starting a new social studies unit on communities.  Please return the parent letter that came home last week if you would like to come into our classroom to tell the students about your job.

Special Points of Interest

• Scholastic Book Orders are due November 19th. Flyers will be coming home sometime this week.  Shop Online: scholastic.com/readingclub Class Activation Code: JBVLX

Math Homework

Your child will be bringing home two math Home Links today (back to back).  We got a bit behind on our planned lessons as we are getting back into our normal routine now that I am back.  Please have your child complete this homework, but feel free to keep it at home.

It is so great to be back in the classroom with your children.  I missed them!  I am looking forward to seeing you soon at conferences.

Have a wonderful weekend!