November 25th Newsletter

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

As you might be writing letters to Santa or working on gift lists with your children, I 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!  We will also learn about syllables and identify syllables in one and two syllable words. We will look at the syllables in a word to read it. We will also say and clap the syllables to notice them in words.

This week in Math, we will...

• Make trains of unifix cubes and compare the quantities verbally and by writing the inequality symbols < or >.
• Express the difference between quantities by writing subtraction equations. 

**There will be no math homework this week. Enjoy time with your family and friends over the Thanksgiving Holiday!

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

Reminders and Upcoming Events:

• November 25- Parent-Teacher Conferences 
• November 25 & 26- Book Fair
• November 27-29- Thanksgiving Break- No School
• December 2-13- Kapko Kids 2 Kids Toy Drive
• December 6- Student Council Buy an Ornament Day ($1.00)- donations go to Kapko Toy Drive
• December 9- PTO Meeting (7:00 pm)
• December 12- Student Council Hat or Stuffed Animal Day ($1.00)- donations go to Kapko Toy Drive
• December 23-January 1- Winter Break

November 18th Newsletters

Dear Parents and Guardians,

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.  

This week we will begin to wrap up our work with the narratives we are working on.  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 and into next week we'll focus on editing and publishing by giving our narratives a title and a cover, like a real book!

We will also be writing letters to Santa!  We will be mailing them off to the North Pole and hope to get a response by winter break.

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.  

This week in math...

• Play a game called Fifty or Bust! While playing this game, students will group and count objects by 10 to understand that 10 can be thought of as a bundle of 10 ones, called a ten. 
• Write addition expressions to match Unifix cube trains. We will examine the trains and expressions to find equivalent expressions. 
• Compare pairs of Unifix cube trains and notice how many cubes the two trains have in common. The extra cubes on one train will be the viewed as the difference between the two trains. We will write subtraction equations to show the difference.
• Divide brownies into halves and fourths as we continue working with fractions. Yum!
• Continue working on telling time to the hour. 

We will continue working on our Communities unit in Social Studies.  We will discuss how people work together to make their communities a good place to live.  We will also work with reading and making maps of our classroom, home and neighborhood.

Please label your child's winter gear! There are a lot of mittens and hats making their way to the Lost and Found already!

Special Points of Interest

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  • November 21- Parent-Teacher Conferences 
  • November 25- Parent-Teacher Conferences 
  • November 21-26- Book Fair
  • November 27-29- Thanksgiving Break-No School
  • December 9- PTO Meeting (7:00 pm)

  
  

November 11th 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...

• Use number racks to show and discuss various combinations of 10.
• Explore part-part-whole relationships through 20. 
• Solve addition and subtraction story problems using number racks.
• View double ten-frames with matching "10 and some more" equations, build the sum with Unifix cubes, and write the equation. 
• Play a game called Fifty or Bust to group and count objects by 10s, understand that the digits in a 2-digit number represent amounts of tens and ones, and use concrete models to add with sums to 100.
• Continue working with the fractions whole, halves and fourths.
• Continue learning about telling time to the hour.

In social studies we will learn about families and communities.  We will make a family tree and talk about all of the responsibilities we have within our family.

Scholastic Book Orders are due this Friday, November 15th. Shop Online: scholastic.com/readingclub Class Activation Code: JBVLX

Special Points of Interest

• It appears that winter is here!  Now is the time to start thinking about packing an extra pair of socks and mittens in your child's backpack.  Please label your child's winter gear if you haven't already!
• Please continue to remind your children to bring their take-home books back to school.  Nightly reading is so important!
• November 11-15- Stuff the Bus Food Drive
• November 13- Dining for Dollars-Brandywine
• November 21- Parent-Teacher Conferences (Sign up for your time slot on Skyward!)
• November 25- Parent-Teacher Conferences (Sign up for you time slot on Skyward!)
• November 21-26- Book Fair
• November 27-29- Thanksgiving Break-No School

November 4th 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 are working on finishing up 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 thought.  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...

• Build our knowledge of doubles and near doubles facts using number racks.
• Learn that even numbers can be arranged as equal halves. We will identify whether numbers are odd or even. 
• Solve addition and subtraction story problems using number racks. 
• Make combinations of numbers through 10. The children will have the opportunity to practice decomposing numbers while playing a new game in Math Workplaces called "Tower Race".
• Practice adding with sums to 20 by playing a new game in Math Workplaces called "Doubles Plus or Minus One".
• Explore wholes, halves and fourths.
• Learn about parts of a clock, discuss the numerals on the clock and their meaning and compare an analog clock to a linear timeline. 
• Identify a variety of patterns on our Calendar Grid Markers during Number Corner. 

This week in Social Studies, we will learn about bullying prevention with Mrs. Kikkert and continue our unit on land and water. 

Please sign up for parent-teacher conferences if you haven't done so already.  Also, if you need an alternative date/time, please don't hesitate to ask!

Special Points of Interest

• November 11-15- Stuff the Bus Food Drive
• November 11- Veterans Day Program, PTO Meeting
• November 13- Dining for Dollars-Brandywine
• If you aren't able to make it to the Book Fair at school, I plan on placing a Scholastic Book Order on November 15th. Shop Online: scholastic.com/readingclub Class Activation Code: JBVLX
• November 21- Parent-Teacher Conferences
• November 25- Parent-Teacher Conferences
• November 21-26- Book Fair
• November 27-29- Thanksgiving Break-No School