Week of January 15th

Last week I completed the Kindergarten DRA assessments and I will begin 1st grade DRA assessments this week. DRA assessments will determine your child’s independent reading level and instructional reading level.  1st grade will be given their math unit 4 assessment along with their social studies assessment at the end of the week (study guides will not be coming home for these, students did very well on their pre-test). Please be looking out for assessments that will need to be signed and returned (for both grades). Kindergartners will be assessed on their rhyming, syllables, and sight words this week also.

Upcoming Dates:

1-17-18: Late start

1/22-1/25: Students will be taking their mid-year NWEA test. I will communicate the results to you so we are on the same page for the 2nd half of the school year and can work together to achieve your child’s end of year goal! Please visit my last blog post for NWEA review cards.

1-26: End of 2nd card marking, half day for students.

Reminders:

Please make sure your child is reading each night. Sight word bags should still be coming home in their reading bag and should also be practice nightly.

 

Parent Volunteers: With the beginning of the new year, schedules may have changed. If you would like to volunteer in the classroom– please let me know when you are available 🙂 It does not need to be every week, you can send me a dojo message anytime (all I need is at least a day notice to prepare an activity for you to do with the kids).

 

NWEA Practice

Image result for extra practice

Hi families!

A lot of parents have asked for math and reading packets for their student as extra practice for the upcoming two-week break we have. Instead of printing off two big packets for each student, I will be attaching two links to this post for you to use right from your smart phone or computer to help review common core reading and math standards over break.

These are GREAT resources because they are directly aligned to the NWEA test that will be taking in reading and math the week after we come back from break (the second and third week of January. I will announce specific dates when the schedule comes out). It would be great if you could spend maybe 10-20 minutes every day (maybe even every other day, I know this is vacation time), read the question to your student, show them to answer options and let them choose the correct answer. You do not have to print these cards out and no writing needs to be involved; they can just read the card, read the answers and make their choice. From there, you can have a conversation about why they chose that answer and if it is correct or incorrect. Feel free to start at the beginning of each bundle and work your way through the packet.

If you have any questions, please ask!!

Mrs. Chammout

Math NWEA Review Cards

Reading NWEA Rewiew Cards

Sight Word Check In

Today during daily 5 I assessed the class on their sight words so far. Thanks to all the practice at home and our wonderful sight word moms working with them in class also, there has been amazing progress!! The check-in forms will come home today for you to see.

Here is the bench mark they should be at by JANUARY:

Kindergarten: should all know 40 pre-primer words to be on track for the end of year (end of year is all pre-primer and primer).

1st grade: All pre-primer and primer along with 20/41 First grade words.

I explained to the class that I did not want them to just be good at sight words but I want them to be exceptional and know more than they have to. They are excited for the challenge!

Week of December 11th

Happy Monday!

Below are the announcements for the week:

 

  • Popcorn sale is this week.
  • School store will be open during lunch on Wednesday.
  • On Thursday December 14th there is a change in the lunch menu— Fish sandwiches
  • Tomorrow is the Ann Arbor hands on museum- hope to see everyone there!

Have a great week 🙂

Updates and Announcements

Happy Wednesday!

As the weather gets cold, please be sure to send your child in with the proper attire for recess. They do go outside each day after lunch. If your child cannot zip their jacket, please practice this at home, I am not with them on recess to ensure their jackets are zipped.

Sight word sticker books- please keep these in your child’s sight word bag. We are very fortunate to have WONDERFUL moms that are able to come in each week and help the class with their reading and phonics skills. The sight word booklets can be practiced at home but myself and the sight word moms will take care of all stamping and writing of the words with your child in class 🙂 As your child masters a booklet, they will be given the next booklet (old booklets will stay in their bag for review). Once they have finished recognition through 2nd grade- we will go back and begin mastering the spelling of each word.

Kindergarten

  • Spelling words will come home on the cover of the next homework packet. You will  be given 9 words to practice and there will be one word that we call an “application word” that the students will have to spell without practicing at home. The application word is to test their understanding of the word family and not having them rely on memorization. Their spelling booklets will come home on Mondays and should be sign and returned on Tuesdays.
  • Science tests were given on Tuesday 1 on 1, the test will come home later this week with a stamp that say sign and return- please sign their test letting me know you have seen it and return it in their blue folder.
  • Math test will begin next week also and will cover +0 (4+0, 3+0, etc)

1st Grade

  • Math test is on Friday
  • Science test will be Thursday or Friday (this is a continuation from card marking 1- light and sound)

ALL PARENTS WITH YOUNGER CHILDREN

  • This is a message from Dearborn Public Schools that we have been asked to share (great opportunity!)
  • Attention: Families with Preschool age children who are 4 years of age by December 1, 2017.  There is an immediate possibility of free full day preschool beginning in January 2018 in the Dearborn Public Schools (next month). The family must be eligible based on risk factors and not currently enrolled in a GSRP program.  If interested, families may pick up an application at the Cotter Early Childhood Center, 13020 Osborn or call Nadia Berry at 313-827-6150.
    Please respond immediately as slots are limited.
    Families must live in the city of Dearborn.

 

Have a great week!

Mrs. Chammout

Week of 11/27

Happy Monday! I hope everyone enjoyed a nice relaxing Thanksgiving break with family. Below are the weekly updates and upcoming events!

12-5: Field trip to the theater (please be sure to pack a lunch this day)

12-12: Ann Arbor Hands on Museum (flyer came home today)

Kindergarten

Spelling tests will begin the week of December 11th. The spelling words will come home on the weekly homework packet and tests will be on Fridays. You will sign and return their spelling book each week 🙂

We will also begin our math fact test the same week. Each week I will let you know what the problems will be. We will begin with +0 and continue on from there. These tests will also be on Fridays.

1st grade

We have now finished our time portion of unit 3, students should be able to read and write times to the hour and half hour. We are still reviewing the vocab of “half passed” instead of saying 2:30, we would say half passed two.

We are continuing to work on addition and subtraction vocab to be able to identify what story problems are asking us to do. (more, less, how many are left). We will have our Unit 3 test as soon as we finish our story problem section, study guides will come home prior to the test and will have the test date on top.

 

I hope you have a wonderful week!

Mrs. Chammout

 

Week of 11/13/17

Parents,

Below are the announcements for the week, I am going to continue following the format of listing school related things at the top and then Kindergarten & first grade separately to help keep everything organized 🙂

11-14: The class will be visiting the Book Fair at 10:40 am

11-17: No school for Kindergarten students

11-15,11-16: Conferences

11-22,11-23,11-24 No school, Enjoy Thanksgiving with family and friends

Kindergarten

Spelling tests will begin the week of December 11th. Weekly spelling words will be listed on the homework packet and tests will be given on Friday’s. We have been working on stretching out words each day during our mini lessons and in our reading groups. Students will be expected to be able to spelling basic cvc (constant, vowel, constant) words for their test.

Please make sure students are reading the books in their bags and sight words each night for fluency.

I posted an anchor chart on 3D shapes. Students have now been taught both 2D and 3D shapes. We will continue working on our addition facts this week!

1st grade

Please make sure you have sent back your unit 2 math test. Reading bags were cleaned out today, your child should now only have one book in their reading bag, we will continue adding books to our reading back over the next 1-2 weeks.

We have now reviewed all blends and most digraphs, students are expected to be using these in their writing (I will have a chart out and available at conferees if you would like to take one).

I have posted many of our anchor charts to class dojo for you to view and refer to while you are working on homework at home. There is a poster for both addition and subtraction strategies the students were told they would be able to use to help them determine whether the math story problem is asking them to use addition or subtraction.

Math unit 3- time (hour and half hour), addition/subtraction on a number line, story problems.

 

Have a great week 🙂

Week of 11/6

Reminder: No school tomorrow for students.

Conference reminder times will be sent via class dojo.

11/15: Late Start

11/17: No school for Kindergarten students

Kindergarten 

  • We will continue working on rhyming, syllables, and stretching out CVC words this week. This week for math, we will begin only placing touch points on one number in our addition problem to work on the “counting on” strategy.

1st Grade 

  • We will be taking our pre-test for Math unit 3 this week and beginning unit 3.
  • We have now taught beginning blends and have discussed medial vowels. Please make sure your child is now using these skills in their writing (we will talk about this more at conferences).

Week of October 30th

Happy Monday! Below is the curriculum and announcements for the week:

Kindergarten-

  • New sight words this week! They will be learning the list of 10 words from their homework packet for 4 weeks and will be tested on them at the end of November. The sight word bag words are in addition to the class words. Students are expected to know 100 sight words by the end of Kindergarten, you will be amazed how quickly they learn them!! (Thanks parents for your support at home and to our sight word moms!!)
  • We will be working on addition fluency. They did WONDERFUL with sums to 5 and we are now working on sums to 10.
  • We will continue with rhyming, syllables, and CVC words.

1st Grade-

  • Spelling lists come home today. We are working on the ending -th sound. Please encourage them to find chunks they know in the words so they learn the pattern and can transfer that knowledge to the 5 additional words (we talked about this last week and they did great on Friday’s test).
  • Math Unit 2 test will be on Thursday, we are finishing the study guide today. We have been working on a variety of problems that imitate the study guide so they have a complete understanding of the concept.
    • Things to review:  number sentence is just a math problem 🙂
    • Sum: How many all together
    • Using a picture to solve a math problem! If they are not sure whether to add or subtract when completing a story problem, please encourage them to draw a picture to help figure out what the problem is asking them to do.
  • Social studies unit test will be this week also.
  • We are continuing to work on fluently reading long vowels and blends in our stories.

EVERYONE 

  • The Halloween celebration will be on Tuesday,October 31st. Parents are invited to attend the party and celebrate with us. Please DO NOT send your child in their costume. We will change into our costumes at 1:00 pm.
    Parent arrival: 1:00pm
    Party: 1:15pm-2:15pm
    Costume Parade: 2:30pm

    If you plan to attend the party tomorrow and/or the costume parade– please let me know so I have an estimate of how many adults will be present.

  • Friday is a 1/2 day for students. 

From the PTA:

There was a mistake on the calendar that was sent home. Kindergarten and Young 5’s do not have school on Friday Nov 17th, not the 10th as it states on the calendar. There IS school on the 10th for Kindergarten but not on the 17th.

1st grade math test

1st grade parents:

We will work on the study guide for unit 2 today and it will come home today or Monday, depending on how long it takes us to finish. I use the study guide as a concept review so we will be doing multiple problems for each study guide question… this may take us more than a day 🙂 The unit 2 test will be on Thursday, October 2nd.