Happy Saturday, Families!

Reminder: No school on Tuesday

Conferences: I sent home reminder notes for parents who are scheduled for this Thursday. If you are unable to meet with me at that time, it is VERY IMPORTANT that you contact me so that we can reschedule. I am committed to meeting with 100% of you, so I will be very flexible and accommodating.

Here are our plans for the week:

Spelling
Words
1. she
2. shop
3. shut
4. show
5. ship
6. shout
7. him
8. he
9. us
10. on

Reading: We are continuing to read informational (nonfiction) texts, so it is important for students to use the correct language when identifying nonfiction text features. These features help readers find information in the book: Title page, table of contents, glossary, index, captions, headings/subheadings, labels, photos, bold words. We will look at these features more closely this week to gather information about a main topic. We call that information KEY DETAILS.
I strongly urge you to have your child watch the videos on my blog. They always reinforce what we are talking about and learning in class.

Writing: We will begin our unit on informational writing this week. We will begin by writing about a topic that we have been learning about in science: weather/seasons. They will use informational resources to find facts or key details about as season and write an informational piece about it. Here is an example of a first grade informational writing piece about summer:

Summer is the season after spring and it lasts until September (topic sentence). One fact about summer is that the temperature gets very hot. Many people wear shorts and head to the beach. Another fact is there are more hours of daylight, so many people stay outside until late evening. Finally, we do not have school during the summer. I miss my teacher! Summer is coming soon!(closing sentence)

Math: Please continue to practice telling time with your plastic clocks at home. We are learning to tell time to the hour and half hour. When it is 3:30, we say “It is half-past 3 o’clock.” We are also learning about place value, counting tens and ones, and solving word problems with drawings, counters, and other strategies.

Social studies: We are learning about Needs and Wants this week. A need is something that we must have to live. A want is something that we wish to have, but don’t need to survive. We are also talking about goods and services. A good is something that is made or produced. A service is something that someone does for us, like getting a haircut, going to the car wash etc.

Science: We are looking at data (information) on a weather graph and interpreting that information. We are learning that a meteorologist uses many tools (anemometer, thermometer, wind vane, rain gauge) etc to study and report about weather.

I hope you have an awesome weekend!