Hi families!
Can you believe next week is the start of October?! Here are your week 4 updates: Book Fair Lenart has 2 book fairs each year-- next week and another one later on in the school year. This book fair will last from September 24th-28th. Students had a "preview" day today where they wrote down what they were interested in purchasing. Throughout the week, only students with money will be escorted down at a scheduled time to the book fair to make purchases. Curriculum Night This Thursday, September 27th is Lenart's Curriculum Night. Parents will also have opportunity to gain information regarding curriculum content, standards, expectations, procedures and communication avenues. This evening will be a great time to ask questions and clarify procedures. We encourage parents to find childcare to provide for adult communication. This evening will allow us to partner together in complete understanding of goals and strategies to accomplish them. This is also an evening to turn in school fees, consent forms, and other outstanding paperwork such as medical compliance forms. Donor's Choose Update Early in the summer, I sent out a link about a Donor's Choose project to raise funds for building our classroom library. This project totaled to over $700. A huge THANK YOU to those who contributed as the project was just completed! We should be receiving over 100 books for our classroom library in about three weeks! Woohoo!!! Sight Words We are now in week 4 of sight words. There will be no new sight words assigned for this week as this week is a "cumulative" week where students will be assessed on Monday, October 1st on all the previous weeks' words. There were 60 words and you can find the powerpoints for each of the week's words here: week 1, week 2, week 3. Starting next week (week 5), I will be giving new words on Monday and assessing students ability to read them that Friday. Due to our hectic school schedule, I'm trying to figure out what best works for our class. More info on this later. Spelling Homework Last week students were sent home with a packet of pages/activities that assisted in learning the weekly spelling focus. We have finally received our phonics book (where I made copies of the packet pages last week). My apologies that some of the copies didn't come out as clearly as I intended them to. Thankfully now that we have our workbook... no more blurry copies are necessary! Woohoo!! Every day, students will write down what pages/activities they will need to practice with their spelling words. This Week In a Glance Math - We have been working on learning different strategies of how to add up to 100. We have covered using a hundreds chart and on an open number line. Students will be introduced to one more strategy-- decomposing numbers. Students will be quizzed on using any one of the three strategies of their liking on Friday. Spelling/Phonics - Our focus this week will be words with short "o" and "u" sounds. Reading - We have been practicing answering and asking questions about the books that we are reading. In class, we are currently working on reading for a whole 20 minutes with stamina. Students have been practicing identifying the main characters of a story, as well as the problem and solution in the story. Practice these skills and ask your child at home with the books that you are reading on your reading log :). Science - Students are super excited about our current science unit. We have been discussing the different things that all living things need to survive: food, air, water, shelter, and space. This week we will be studying the parts of a plant and how those parts contribute to helping it survive. We will be growing lima beans in our classroom this week and watch them grow!! Writing - We have been editing our first narrative story where students are adding juicy details, like our feelings and thoughts! Thank you all for being patient as we slowly get acclimated to 1st grade. As always, please let me know if you have any questions.
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Oh my goodness. We are into week 3! This week is where we begin teaching content. We've worked hard in this last two weeks to set up routines and expectations in order to make the most out of our class time together. There are a lot of things to look out for in your child's backpack as well as different important dates to take note. Please do not hesitate to ask any questions.
Red folders The red folder must be brought home and back to school each day. Inside you should find any homework that needs to be completed as well as any important papers that must be given/filled out. So far the students have been amazing at making sure to bring in their folders every day to school! Sight words A new set of weekly sight words are given every Monday and students are assessed on them the following Monday. Last week we started a "sight word notebook" that is your child's backpack. Please use that notebook to complete any sight word practice activities. I will also be using that notebook to track what words your child were able to read successfully. Every Monday the class writes down the new set of 20 words and then when I assess them on the following Monday, that is where I will mark down if your child did not read any sight words correctly. Unfortunately, I only got to assess two students on the Week 2 words and will finish all students tomorrow. However, all students got their new Week 3 sight word lists inside their sight word notebooks. Reading log Reading logs are a part of a student's grade in 1st grade. Students are expected to read 20 minutes/day and track their minutes on the sheet. I collect the reading sheet the following Monday. The expectation is that students should have logged at least 100 minutes for each weekly log (I am not counting the weekend). You and your child may decide how to disperse those 100 minutes/week that fits best to your schedule. For example, Johnny may have swim practice on Tuesdays and can not complete the 20 minutes on that day, he can then read for 40 minutes on Wednesday which will give him his minimum of 100 minutes. Link: Why it's important to read for 20 minutes each day. 1 day read (20 minutes) - 3 out of 5 (60%) 2 days read (40 minutes) - 3.5 out of 5 (70%) 3 days read (60 minutes) - 4 out of 5 (80%) 4 days read (80 minutes) - 4.5 out of 5 (90%) 5 days read (100 minutes) - 5 out of 5 (100%) Spelling packet A spelling list was sent home today. Attached is also a packet of worksheets. Please practice spelling all 10 of the words. This week's focus will be on short vowels-- specifically "a," "e," and "i." The worksheets attached are to assist students in learning the letter sounds in different words. The entire packet of spelling homework is due and collected on the day of the spelling test: Friday, September 21st. Students will be assessed on FOURTEEN words. These 14 words will comprise of 10 given words and an additional 4 words with the same spelling pattern. Agenda Today was the first day that we used our agendas. Time was given during class for students to write down the homework for the day. Please get in the routine of using the agenda at home to keep track of what homework needs to be done and what has been completed. Today in class we discussed how when we are done with each assignment for the day, that we cross out our completed work. There were four things written in the agenda for today: "Reading log, Sight words, spelling packet, and math." Math homework worksheet Today was the start of our math lessons! Our focus today was being able to use a hundreds chart to help us add up to 100. This week we will be visiting different strategies/tools we can use to help us add and subtract up to 100. Math homework was sent home (pgs. 127-128). Students need to complete the following problems: Another look's #1-4; #1-3, 7, 9-10. We have covered this entire lesson in class but I tried to emphasis to students to please raise their hand if they have any questions or if they need me to slow down. I will begin pulling small groups for supplemental support tomorrow, but would also really appreciate if you had a conversation with your child about how it is okay to ask Ms. Chin to slow down or asking questions if they need help! I do not send math homework home that hasn't been taught in class. Homework is an extension of what has been taught in class, so if you notice that your child is really struggling on a homework assignment, please email me or leave a post-it note on the homework so that I know to pull them in a small group for reteaching. Gym Syllabus Mr. McCracken has informed me that only NINE students have turned back in their gym syllabus. If you have not already, please return the syllabus signed in your child's red folder. If you need another copy, please let me know so I can send one home. The signed syllabus must be brought back no later than Thursday, September 19th. Phew... that was a lot! I *think* I covered everything! Again, please feel free to email me if you have any questions! Ms. Chin Hi families! Here we are starting week 2! We are continuing to practice our routines in our classroom. We have been practicing stations and creating classroom expectations for everyone. With this in place, our classroom will run smoothly with minimal hiccups! We will be slowly incorporating academic content this week, but aiming to really start new lessons and homework next week. Students will be receiving their homework agendas next week. In their homework agendas, students will be writing their homework down daily. Since there isn't a difference in homework each day this week/there is nothing due each day this week, I am holding back from giving out agendas. For homework this week students are to study their new list of sight words (they will be tested on 9/17/2018) and to track reading their books in their reading log, also due 9/17-- students need to read for 20 minutes each day. These two sheets of papers were sent home in their red homework folder. There will be a slight change in how we do sight words. On every Monday, students will write down their new 20 sight words in their notebooks. Feel free to utilize the notebook for sight word practice from the "sight word menu." The activities will not be graded-- words will only be assessed by reading fluently the following Monday. On the day that students are tested on the word, I will write down which words students missed and if they need to retest in the notebook. Be on the look out tomorrow after school for their new sight word notebook. I will be reviewing this in detail during Curriculum night! We will be NWEA testing this week on Thursday and Friday. This assessment will serve as a baseline for creating instructional groups. Please let me know if you have any questions! :) Woohoo! We made it through day 1 of first grade!
Today we went through and sorted out our supplies. There were a couple of bags/boxes of supplies that were brought in without any student's name. We tried our best to sort out all of our supplies (community things like dry erase markers, paper towels, pencils, etc) came to me whereas students kept some supplies for their desks. I have received emails about supplies and there has been some confusion. My apologies-- sorting things out amongst 26 six year olds can be very chaotic and things can sometimes get lost in the shuffle. Please ask your child if they have in their desk/locker the following supplies (if you brought them) so we can make sure that they do, in fact, have them. If you find that they don't, please let me know so we can sort it out. I have several unclaimed items still in the classroom! Students should have the following "personal" supplies in their desk/locker:
A preview into our week.. In math, we have been exploring our math manipulatives and practice station rotations. We have discussed what are expectations when we are in stations. We read This School Year Will Be the Best and shared why we think we come to school and our hopes for 1st grade. This will lead into creating classroom rules and expectations to having a successful school year. All students should have a RED homework folder. The folder should be pronged and I have placed a pocketed divider into the folder. For those who did not have a folder today, I provided one. Please bring the red folder back to school every day. There will be 4 sections in the folder. The left pocket of the folder will be where homework goes, the right pocket of the folder will be where "keep home papers" will be. The front side of the colored divider is where students' behavior calendar is (every day, students will color what color the ended their day on: purple [amazing day], green [good day], yellow [warning], or red [behavior requires parent contact]). More on this during curriculum night! On the back side of the color divider is where parents can leave notes from home. All of this will be labeled by me hopefully by the end of this week! :) For homework this week: please study the 20 sight words using the "sight words" menu. Students will be tested to read all the words on Monday, September 10th. Each week students will receive a new list of words. The last piece of homework that was assigned was homework for parents: please fill out all necessary forms inside the "back to school" packet. Thank you all for being so supportive and amazing partners in this 1st grade journey! Looking forward to a powerful year! Ms. Chin |
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