This will be a very busy week at school.
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We have gotten into our groove here at school! Routines are falling into place, expected behaviors are occurring, and many smiles and laughs happen during the day.
Our Painted Lady Butterflies have arrived – the “Math Giraffes” have taken on the role of Scientists. Scientists ask lots of questions and make lots of observations. We will be learning more about the life cycle of the Painted Lady Butterfly: egg, caterpillar (larva), chrysalis (pupa), and butterfly. Using our Science Journals we have begun recording our observations. Make sure you check out our journals when you come to Back-to-School Night on Monday. This week our learning will take us deeper into the insect world. What is an insect? What is not an insect? We will continue to observe and record in our Painted Lady Butterfly journals and then take this knowledge and apply it to another insect - - fireflies. During our Numeracy Block, we have learned some fun math games. The directions to these games were sent home for you to enjoy with your child. Has your child told you about Rekenreks? These are fun math tools that we use to help us add and subtract numbers. With our Wonders program, we will continue to review letters and sounds – as well as Sight Words. I will be sending home a list of the First Grade Sight Words for you to practice with your child. Since these words usually can’t be sounded out, your child needs to know them quickly and with accuracy. We practice our sight words daily but reinforcement at home is necessary. During Writer’s Workshop we will focus on sentence structure (beginning with a capital letter, ending with correct punctuation), developing ideas for our writing, and adding details to our writing. Our new handwriting program starts this week: Size Matters. Your child will soon be producing “star-worthy” letters and words. Get ready for your child to tell you all about this. I’m looking forward to seeing you Monday night at Back-to-School. There are always so many wonderful things to share! So much has happened in our first eight days of schools. Routines have been established, wonderful and kind friendships have formed, and smiles are constantly appearing on all of your children’s faces.
This week we will continue reviewing the Kindergarten sight words that your children learned last year. This week’s words are: this, is, my, look, little, where, here, play, the, week With numeracy we will continue to strength our number sense mathematical tools: Rekenreks, number lines, blocks, our fingers. We will also be learning some fun math games. Be on the lookout for your child’s first homework assignment Monday night. Homework will always be a reinforcement of skills that have been introduced or expanded upon in school. Your child’s “nightly” homework is to read 20 minutes. Reading is “brain food” for your child and strengthens your child’s network of knowledge. It also improves listening skills, builds early literacy skills, strengthens reading ability through practice, improves academic performance, and improves relationships. Just a reminder...Picture Day is Tuesday. The first four days of school were outstanding! Our classroom was buzzing with activity. Friends were getting reacquainted and new friendships were being formed. Establishing routines, both inside the classroom and outside our classroom doors, took up a good portion of these first four days. Your children did an outstanding job of practicing and remembering these routines. By Friday...we were all exhausted and looking forward to the weekend.
We had our first Community Meeting on the morning of our first day of school. This year our whole school will focus on “Growth Mindset”. More to come on this later! We had our first two Fire Drills. We spent quite a bit of time talking about the importance of practicing this very important routine. We also learned about our three rules at school: Be Safe....Be Respectful...Be Responsible We read so many outstanding books and made connections to ourselves and our classmates. Worrying and New Experiences: Wemberly Worried and First Day Jitters Creating and Maintaining Friendships: Will You Be My Friend?, The Crayon Box That Talked, Crickwing, Pig the Winner Following School Rules/PBIS: Seven Rules You Absolutely Must Not Break If You Want To Survive The Cafeteria Active Listening to our teachers and friends: Wordy Birdy Another fun-filled week is ahead for us. We will start our Wonders reading program, Writing with Six Traits, Mathematics with Everyday Math, and Science with Mystery Science. We will have our first Sight Words this week: do, like, he, to, can. Please help your child to practice these words. Each week new words will be added. Here is the schedule with our outstanding Integrated Arts team: Monday – Library, Social Thinking and Second Step Tuesday – Music Wednesday – Physical Education (remember to have your child wear sneakers) Thursday – Visual Arts I will be updating our web page weekly to keep you informed about all the exciting learning that is happening in our classroom. As always, please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns. I am looking forward to an outstanding year with your amazing children. |
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