Monday, January 28, 2019

Week 23!

Happy Monday, 1A families,

This Friday is field day!  Please read the announcements below carefully for important information regarding attire, items needed and volunteer opportunities. Field day presents a wonderful opportunity to practice sportsmanship and perseverance. Please discuss these two important virtues with your child to ensure a successful field day for all! We are looking forward to an enjoyable day.

Have a wonderful week! 

Homework

Nightly: Read for 15 minutes, practice poem (1 minute; recitations on Thursday), practice rocket math (1 minute) Phonograms: ee, ai, ay, ng, gn, kn, aw, au, y, k

Monday: see, seen, felt, full, fail, set, setting, stamp, light and test B 

Tuesday: come, coming, night, pass, shut, ease, easy, bone, cloud, draw, drink and WB pg. 38-40

Wednesday: review all words; Spalding test on Thursday due to Field day and WB pg. 41-43

Thursday: WB pg. 44-46

Friday: read for 15 minutes (book of your choice) 

Announcements

Athletic Field Day is Friday, February 1st from 8:30-11:00 for K-2.

Attire

Each year classes are assigned a Greek City State for their team. This year, your child’s team is Sparta, and our team color is red. Your child may wear a plain yellow shirt (no logos) with their athletic bottoms or they can create a shirt with our Greek City State name and logo. Please ensure that your child wears sunscreen, and athletic shoes.

Snack and Class Volunteers

Our class will be in need of a few volunteers to bring snacks, water bottles, and to help our class while we rotate through the field day activities. Please sign-up here to help out https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f094aaba72eabf94-1afield

Volunteers for the Athletic Field Day Events

Coach Gethings &Coach Warren need volunteers setting up and running the event. Please sign up at https://www.signupgenius.com/go/508084aacaf28a4fd0-field to help with the events. 

Lunch

There will be no school lunch offered on Athletic Field Day. Please send your child to school with a lunch on this day.

Academics

Poem: I Know The Sounds That The Animals Make by Jack Prelutsky (recitations this Thursday) Idiom: Let The Cat Out of The Bag

Spalding: Due to Athletic Field day on Friday, this week we will only have 20 words Spelling Test on Thursday!

Monday: see, seen, felt, full, fail, set, setting, stamp, light

Tuesday: come, coming, night, pass, shut, ease, easy, bone, cloud, draw, drink

Phonograms: ee, ai, ay, ng, gn, kn, aw, au, y, k

Writing: Copy work and narration exercises will be from The Light Princess by George Macdonald.

Grammar: We will begin learning about adjectives this week. We will practice describing nouns and coming up with special details to use in our oral and written language.

Math: We will continue to explore double digit addition as we make groups of tens and add ones. Students will explore two-digit numbers as they learn how to identify the place value of tens and ones. On Friday, students will participate in various math activities to celebrate the 100th day of school!

Literature:  This week we will begin reading ‘A Bargain for Frances’. Please ensure that your child brings their copy to school. Thank you!

History: We will learn about the importance of the Inca Empire as we finish our unit on early civilizations. On Wednesday we will learn what a quiqu is and the kids will have the opportunity to make one of their own.

Science: This week we will continue our adventure through the human body with the circulatory system! We will learn how blood can travel all around our body, through our arteries to transport blood away from our heart and through our veins to bring blood back to the heart. 


Enjoying lunch outside in the beautiful weather for our marble jar reward! 



Counting out our 100 items!

Wearing our 100th day hats! 


Enjoying our hands on 100th day treat! (how many ways can you make the number "100"?)



Celebrating those with a January or summer birthday by
Listening to special stories from our birthday scholars and their parents :)

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Week 22

Good Morning! 

I hope everyone had a fun and restful 3 day weekend!

We have a few exciting upcoming events so please be sure to read the announcements below to stay in the loop! Have a wonderful week!

Homework

Nightly: Read for 15 minutes, practice poem (1 minute), practice rocket math (1 minute)

Phonograms to practice: ou, ur, ea, ei, oo, sh, si, igh, i, ti 

Tuesday: behind, around, burn, camp, bear, bare, clear, clean, spell, poor and math WB pg. 30-32

Wednesday: finish, hurt, maybe, across, tonight, tenth, sir, these, those, club and math WB pg. 33-35

Thursday:  Review all 20 words and phonograms and math WB pg. 36-37

Friday: read for 15 minutes (book of your choice) 

Announcements

100th day of school: In honor of the 100th day of school (this Friday, January 25th), students are encourage are encouraged to fill a sandwich size bag with 100 items.  Items can be the students choice but need to be large enough to be sorted but small enough to fit in a sandwich bag.  We will celebrate with special math and reading activities throughout the day and end with a special snack. 

Athletic Field Day is Friday, February 1st from 8:30-11:00 for K-2.

Attire

Each year classes are assigned a Greek City State for their team. This year, your child’s team is Sparta, and our team color is red. Your child may wear a plain red shirt (no logos) with their athletic bottoms or they can create a shirt with our Greek City State name and logo. 
Our wonderful class mom Nicole Burns has offered to make custom shirts for our class!  If you are interested, please send a plain red shirt along with your child's name to class by FRIDAY, January 25.  You can purchase a plain red shirt at Hobby Lobby.  The shirt will be ready for them when they arrive at school on Athletic Field Day.

Snack and Class Volunteers

Our class will be in need of a few volunteers to bring snacks, water bottles, and to help our class while we rotate through the field day activities. Please sign-up here to help out https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f094aaba72eabf94-1afield

Lunch

There will be no school lunch offered on Athletic Field Day. Please send your child to school with a lunch on this day.

Academics

Poem: I Know The Sounds That The Animals Make by Jack Prelutsky (recitations the week of 1/28) Idiom: Fish Out of Water

Spalding: Due to MLK Day on Monday, this week we will only have 20 words Spelling Test on Friday!

Tuesday: behind, around, burn, camp, bear, bare, clear, clean, spell, poor

Wednesday: finish, hurt, maybe, across, tonight, tenth, sir, these, those, club

Phonograms: ou, ur, ea, ei, oo, sh, si, igh, i, ti

Writing: Copy work and narration exercises will be from Winnie-The-Pooh by A.A. Milne.

Grammar: We will review all forms of verbs learned this year including action, being, linking, and helping. We will take a verb assessment at the end of the week.

 Math: Students will explore two-digit numbers as they learn how to identify the place value of tens and ones. On Friday, students will participate in various math activities to celebrate the 100th day of school!

Literature:  We will read our final fairy tale; The Princess and Pea! On Wednesday, we will review all 9 fairy tales we have read and on Friday we will read a special story about the 100th day of school. On the 28th we will begin reading A Bargain for Frances.  Please ensure that your child brings their copy to school by this date. Thank you!

History: This week we will continue to learn about the Aztec people. We will learn more about where they lived, who their leaders were and what religion they followed. 


Science: This week we will continue learning about the human body. We will explore the muscular system and its purpose. We will practice using our muscles and will observe different pictures to understand the importance of how strong muscles allow our bodies to function properly.

Monday, January 14, 2019

Week 21!

The scholars came back from break ready to learn. Here they are enjoying their marble jar reward after great teamwork all week!


We’re back in full swing this week with math and reading groups resuming!  Thank you to those who have signed up to help with math and reading groups.  We are still in need of a few parents.  Your support is vital to our learning and we greatly appreciate your help!

Have a wonderful week!  

Homework

*Please read the about the homework changes under the announcements portion.

Nightly: Read for 15 minutes, practice poem (1 minute), practice rocket math (1 minute)

Phonograms: ee, ey, e, ou, oo, er, ur, or, o, th

Monday: mile, seem, even, without, afternoon, Friday, hour, our, wife, state and math WB pg. 21-23

Tuesday: July, head, story, open, short, lady, reach, better, water, round and math WB pg. 24-27

Wednesday: cost, price, become, class, horse, care, try, move, delay, pound and math WB pg. 28-29

Thursday:  Review all 30 words and phonograms and Test B 

Friday: read for 15 minutes (book of your choice) 

Announcements
Clubs 

Spring club sign-ups have begun! If you are interested, please visit: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18DwPk4-JICmHZG_1ECNFz_ObqUlNc4rkamFSJ_a30t0/edit?usp=sharing

Homework Change

Thank you for taking the time to complete the latest homework survey.  We looked carefully at the numeric data and anonymous comments and had good conversation as a team.  Every child is unique and homework experiences vary widely, but there are occasional patterns in these surveys that help us to adjust our homework assignments.  With this in mind, we are going to make a few adjustments in the third quarter that will hopefully make the homework experience more joyful without sacrificing good learning.  We will continue to discuss as a team and will send another survey near the end of third quarter.  Beginning January 7th, parents and students can look forward to the following changes:

 1.  Spalding words will only need to be written once using the scholar’s best handwriting. As always it is crucial that parents read the words aloud to their child. Students will also write one sentence using one or more Spalding words.

 2.  Math homework will take place Monday- Thursdays. There will not be any math homework on Fridays.
Academics

Poem: I Know The Sounds That The Animals Make by Jack Prelutsky  Idiom: Fish Out of Water

Spalding: This week we have 30 words Spelling Test on Friday!

Monday: mile, seem, even, without, afternoon, Friday, hour, our, wife, state

Tuesday: July, head, story, open, short, lady, reach, better, water, round

Wednesday: cost, price, become, class, horse, care, try, move, delay, pound

phonograms: ee, ey, e, ou, oo, er, ur, or, o, th

Writing: Copy work and narration exercises will be from The Reluctant Dragon.

Grammar: We will review action verbs and how we use them in sentences. We will also learn about linking and helping verbs and practice using them orally and in written sentences.

Math: This week is all about graphing! We will collect data to create bar, picture and tally graphs. Literature:  We will continue to explore various fairy tales as we read Puss in Boots, Rapunzel and Jack and the Bean Stalk.

History: This week we will begin to explore the culture of the Aztecs. On Wednesday, we will learn about the daily life of this ancient culture and how they decided on where to settle.


Science: This week we will continue learning about the human body. We will explore the muscular system and its purpose. We will practice using our muscles and will observe different pictures to understand the importance of how strong muscles allow our bodies to function properly.

Friday, January 11, 2019

Sign Ups For Reading & Math Groups

Good Morning,
I apologize in advance for the lengthy post! 
Thank you to everyone that participated in the reading/math group survey, we sincerely appreciate your feedback and suggestions! After reviewing the results, it seems best for the majority of parents that we have reading groups on Thursday’s in the afternoon and math groups on Wednesday’s in the afternoon. We would like to invite you to bring in your young children for these groups if you feel that they would be able to remain engaged either in the class activities or something else that you bring in. We will see how it goes having them in the classroom during this time and will touch base as things progress. 
This quarter reading groups will be conducted in the following way: 3-4 parents will lead small groups of students as they read for 30-40 minutes. Mrs. Moore will pull her own group that she works with daily. During this time, I will pull each student to read one on one with me. This will allow me to more closely assess each student and their unique reading skills and abilities on a more regular basis.
For math groups, we will have 3-4  rotating small group activities. Each activity will allow students to practice the skills and topics being learned in class in a more hands on and individualized way. Math groups will also give students the opportunity to review past topics and to develop their critical thinking skills by practicing more challenging concepts. 
If you would like to participate in reading/math groups this semester, please strongly consider attending a training session on Tuesday, January 15th, from 3:00-3:45 in our classroom. 
Please sign up for math groups here
Please sign up for reading groups here
Please let me know if you have any other questions, comments, or concerns as we proceed with groups this year. I am SO beyond thankful for all of your support and dedication to 1A, we could not do it without you!  

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Reading & Math Group Survey

Good Morning!

In an effort to increase the rate of volunteering for math and reading groups going forward this year, I have created a survey to collect feedback from all of you in regards to what would make for the best volunteering experience!
Having math and reading groups in class each week is essential! These opportunities allow for individualized and consistent assessment and intervention for each student at their own level. My goal for 2nd semester is to read one-on-one with every student every single reading group session. This will only be possible if we have at least 3 volunteers every time. We appreciate every single minute that you give to support 1A and we could not deliver such a high quality of education without you! 


Please fill out the survey here:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NCD6SFS

If everyone fills it out by tomorrow morning, we will reward the class with an extra recess ;) ;)
But seriously, it would mean so much if we had 100% class participation on this survey.

Thank you!


Monday, January 7, 2019

1st Grade Homework Changes

Homework Change
Thank you for taking the time to complete the latest homework survey.  We looked carefully at the numeric data and anonymous comments and had good conversation as a team.  Every child is unique and homework experiences vary widely, but there are occasional patterns in these surveys that help us to adjust our homework assignments.  With this in mind, we are going to make a few adjustments in the third quarter that will hopefully make the homework experience more joyful without sacrificing good learning.  We will continue to discuss as a team and will send another survey near the end of third quarter.  Beginning January 7th, parents and students can look forward to the following changes:

 1.  Spalding words will only need to be written once using the scholar’s best handwriting. As always it is crucial that parents read the words aloud to their child. Students will also write one sentence using one or more Spalding words.

       2.  Math homework will take place Monday- Thursdays. There will not be any math homework on Fridays.

  Please let me know if you have any additional questions or concerns moving forward. 

Week 20! Welcome Back!

Good Morning, 1A Families!

I am overjoyed to be back at school this morning and cannot wait to see all of your children! It's going to be a great quarter as we continue to learn and love together in class! Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns regarding Q2 evaluations and report cards, I'd love to set up a meeting to discuss your child's progress and goals.

Homework:
Nightly: Read for 15 minutes, practice poem (1 minute), practice rocket math (1 minute)
Monday: 1st 8 words, Workbook pages 7-8
Tuesday: 2nd 10 words, WB 9-10
Wednesday: 3rd 10 words, WB 15-16
Thursday: All 28 words, Test B
Friday: Practice Phonograms, No Math Homework

*Please note that we will begin a brand new math workbook for tonight's math homework. The math workbook from last semester should stay at home.

Poem: I Know The Sounds That The Animals Make by Jack Prelutsky  Idiom: Fish Out of Water
Spalding: This week we have 28 words Spelling Test on Friday!
Monday: mail, male, female, eye, I, glass, party, upon
Tuesday: two, twin, twice, twelve, twenty, between, they, would, could, should
Wednesday: any, many, city, only, where, week, weak, first, sent, cent
phonograms: ai, ey, ar, w, t, ou, sh, wh, ea, ir
Writing: Copy work and narration exercises will be from Master of all Masters and Aesop's Fables.
Grammar: Students will observe Diego Rivera's painting of La PiƱata. We will identify nouns, verbs, and adjectives that exist within this painting. We will write a full sentence about this painting based on observations made throughout the week.
History: This week in history we will be studying the ancient culture of the Maya.  We will learn about the cities they built in the rainforest, their ancient writings and other aspects of their everyday culture.

Science: This week we will begin a new unit on the human body! We will start by learning about the skeletal system. The class will be able to explain the different functions of the skeletal system. We will also put together and label our own skeletal system using q tips! 

Literature:  We will be reading a variety of fairy tales this week including Sleeping Beauty, Frog Prince, Rumpelstiltskin, and Hansel Gretel.  As we read each fairy tale, we will also work to identify various story elements.  We will also learn how to use the decoding skill “stretchy snake” to help us become fluent readers!  
 
Math: This week is all about comparing and ordering numbers. We will compare by using the phrases “__ more than” “__less than” and we will also compare by subtracting.

Week 38! Last Week :'( :')

Happy Monday 1A families, It’s hard to believe that we have made it to the final week of school! Each day, we are going to do something...