The kids did great last week. They completed their NWEA testing, we learned 4 types of workstation rotations, and all of our Developmental Reading Assessments are finished. They were also the best behaved, well-mannered grade level during lunch, so they earned ice cream on Friday. Yay! I am so proud of them.
Please encourage any of the parents you know from our classroom to sign up for this blog. Again, it is my main form of communication for the week. https://iblog.dearbornschools.org/kortej/2022/09/25/weekly-newsletter-for-september-26-30-2022/
Please be sure to check the weather and temperature in the morning. It has been pretty chilly lately to start the day. Then, sometimes it warms up in the afternoon. It would be a good idea to have your first grader wear a coat in the morning. We can always take it off if the temperatures warm up.
Buddy Reading
Spelling Homework
Starting the first week of October, I will be sending home a composition to practice spelling words every week. This week, we will do all of the practice in the classroom. That way, the kids and you will know what I expect for the practice. This will help expand their vocabulary for writing and reading.
This week’s words are: ran, can, fan, pat, bat, hat, had, mad, go, the, see, she. There will be 3 cold words on the spelling test that will apply the understanding of how words rhyme. For example, if your child learns how to spell: ran, can and fan, then they can spell tan, man, and pan.
Again, no spelling homework this week. It will begin the week of October 3.
Chromebooks
We will be starting to use our chromebooks in class soon. I worked all weekend on the schoology page. It has quick links for the students. I worked on their assigning usernames and passwords too. We are almost set. I have a few technical difficulties that I am working through. For example, I purchased a licence for the students to use a reading program. It is not working. I’m a bit disappointed because it was expensive. I hope I can either get it working or get my money back. I am hoping for the best.
As soon as everything is set. I will send home username and password information to you. Thank you for your patience.
- Wednesday, September 28 – Parent Education Meeting at 9:30 in the library. There will be opportunities to see some classrooms in action, including ours. Please consider attending.
- Friday, September 30 – Our first spelling test. Please practice with your child.
- Monday, October 3 – Library Day – Please make sure your child brings back their library books.
- Friday, October 7 – 1/2 day the release is at 12:05 and it’s PAJAMA DAY!!! Fundraiser – Students pay $1 and wear pajamas all day! Yay!
English Language Arts
Writing
Throughout the school year, we will have formal writing instruction: Writer’s Workshop. We will be writing a narrative for the first time to get a baseline assessment of what the students know this week. After this week, I will have writer’s workshops sessions.
Reading
I have finished our Developmental Reading Assessments. We will start reading groups soon. I will see how they fit into our day. When the book bag comes home in your child’s backpack, please let your child read to you. Sign the literacy log card. Send them back the next day.
Spelling
The rhyming words have a short a vowel sound and 5 high frequency words. High frequency words are words that appear most often in print. The goal is for your child to recognize them immediately when reading instead of “sounding them out”.
- pat
- bat
- hat
- can
- ran
- fan
- had
- mad
- and
- go
- the
- see
- she
- ? Something that rhymes with pat
- ? Something that rhymes with can
- ? Something that rhymes with had
Math
We have a topic quiz on Monday. This will be on adding to find the sum and also figuring out missing addends.
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday your child will be identifying the greater number in a number sentence and then counting up or counting on by 1, 2, or 3.
We will have another topic quiz on Friday.
Topic quizzes are formative assessments that test your child’s understand of mathematics concepts in small chunks.
Social Studies
Last week, we learned about rules at school. Then we talked about rules at home. Some are the same. All rules help us to get along with one another. This week we will learn about the word consequence. We will discuss consequences at school and consequences at home. Then we will learn about the concept of Power with Authority and Power without Authority.
Power with Authority = people who have the right to make the rules and enforce the consequences. (Mom, Dad, guardians, principals, teachers, etc.)
Power without Authority = people who do not have the right to tell you what to do. (Bullies, strangers, sometimes your peers.)