Happy Weekend, Families!
I hope you are all enjoying this gorgeous fall weather 🙂

Here are some important things that we are learning this week:

Reading: We are continuing to learn about parts of speech (nouns, verbs, and proper nouns). Friday, we learned that verbs are words that show action. While your child is reading his or her books, ask her/him to find the verbs in the sentence. This will help them understand how sentences work. Proper nouns name a specific person, place or thing. While you are out driving with your child, point out proper nouns such as “Kroger,” “Target,” “Greenland,” “Dearborn.” Knowing the different types of words will help them in their reading and writing. Please, Please, Please continue to read with your child EVERYDAY. It brings me great joy to see their progress and excitement about reading so far. They are doing great, and they need you (and me) to keep encouraging them and motivating them to keep reading.

Writing: We are still working on personal narratives (true stories about ourselves). This week we will work on a personal narrative about a time we were scared…YIKES!

Math: We are beginning to work on addition and subtraction, especially in story problems. It is important for them to learn when to add and when to take away. We will learn that the sum is the answer to an addition problem and the difference is the answer to a subtraction problem. Also, we will continue skip counting by twos, fives, and tens. There are plenty of songs on Youtube that can help with this. Reading graphs has been quite challenging for our first graders, especially when they are asked questions like “How many more red skittles were there than blue ones?” We will continue to work on this skill and I would appreciate any extra help you can give them at home. I will upload the pre-test for chapter 2 this week, as I think it helps you to see what their chapter test will look like.

Social Studies: We are continuing to learn about how to be a good citizen and providing examples of good citizenship. We will learn that some people have the right (power with authority) to make and enforce the rules. Those who do not follow the rules or expectations have consequences. For example, if someone is speeding, a police officer (enforcer) can give him a ticket (consequence). We always try to scale these concepts down to a relevant level for our children. For example, if a student is talking during a test, Mrs. Klan (enforcer) can give him a consequence (ask the student to flip his card.)

Science: We are learning that matter has three states: solids, liquids, and gases. Solids have a shape of their own and it is very hard to change their shape like books, blocks, markers. Liquids pour and take the shape of their containers like water, milk, and pop. Gases take the shape of whatever they are inside like balloons, inflatable tubes, and balls.

Here are our spelling words for the week. The pattern is short e.

1. red

2. bed

3. sled

4. men

5. then

6. when

7. not

8. one

9. my

10. me

Reminder: We go to the zoo on Tuesday. Please have your child dressed appropriately with a jacket, as it is colder in the morning. They must bring a disposable lunch, not one that they have to carry all day. Please do not send glass containers. Tomorrow is the last day to hand in their permission slips and money. Thank you for your time!!