I hope that you all enjoyed your holiday break with loved ones. I have to say that as much needed the last couple of days relaxing has been, I am so thrilled to finally have a full week of school. The wacky weeks in month of November has thrown off our classroom schedule and I am anxious to get us back on track with a bit of normalcy. Here are your updates:
Peek into this week in 1st grade In reading, we've been diving into naming character traits based on what a character says, does, or thinks. We have gotten really good at making inferences about a character in the books that we have read (2nd grade standard; RL.2.1, RL.2.3), and now we're going to push it a bit further into the 3rd grade standard (RL.3.1, RL.3.3) with stating where/what in the text helps support their inference about that character. In math, we are continuing to work on subtraction. We've worked on subtracting a one-digit number from a two-digit number and we'll be moving forward this week with subtracting a two-digit number from a two-digit number. We will eventually move onto subtracting numbers up to 100s and 1,000s. By the end of this week, I plan on giving the students a quiz to see how we are mastering these math skills and how if it's appropriate to move forward to working on one/two-step word problems involving subtraction and/or addition. After this unit on subtraction, we will be looking into telling time by the minute. Last week, students received their social studies textbooks. They were all so excited to do a walk-through of the textbook and to write their names in it. It was very adorable seeing the looks of excitement on their faces to have a textbook for the first time. The social studies curriculum in 1st grade really dives into our own and different communities: seeing and understanding laws, rules, recognizing and understanding how different community roles play a significant part in our lives. With writing, we're working on writing in complete sentences-- ending our sentences with the correct punctuation. We've also continuing to work on our narratives stories with our focus on finding a small moment and being detailed in our writing the events that happened. Also making sure that our narratives have an actual conclusion. Emergency clothes A couple of weeks ago, the students had outdoor recess. Many of them came back inside with their socks and pants wet from playing in the snow. I allowed them to change into some their emergency clothes that were brought in the beginning of the school year. If you know that your child has dipped into the emergency clothes that was in their locker, please send back to school emergency clothes for future instances. STEM night Join us for a night of STEM on December 6th from 5:30-7:00. Celebrate Hour of Code with coding activities and sphero maze, help the snowman safely glide down the Lenart mountain. Build a snowball structure with unique materials and meet and greet with real engineers! Fish Test Many parents have asked about how they can work with their child on our weekly math fluency test-- also known as "Fish Test." Though the test is never for a grade, it is important for students to know their basic addition and subtraction facts. The following website would be a great place for the math addition fluency. http://www.math-aids.com/Addition/Addition_Drills.html. Check off the appropriate boxes for what kind of problems you want.
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Hi families,
These are your updates for the week. There will be no school on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday this week for Thanksgiving Break. School will resume on Monday, November 26th. Students will be assessed on their List 8 sight words tomorrow. The list of words were given out last week Monday, November 12th. The words are: east, choose, single, touch, information, express, mouth, yard, equal, decimal, yourself, control, practice, report, straight, rise, statement, stick, party, seeds. Spelling words were also given out on Monday. The spelling test will be given tomorrow. The spelling words followed the "ou" and "ow" pattern. They are: loud, sprout, out, round, found, now, down, crowd, brown, owl. The 1st grade class had 96% attendance during Report Card Conferences. If you have not had a meeting with me in regard to your child's report card, please set up an appointment with me as soon as possible. During report card conferences, I also passed back a yellow portfolio folder with your child's graded work. Thank you to those who have returned them today emptied and signed. If you have no done so, please send the folder back by tomorrow so new graded work can be placed inside of it and returned home. As a reminder, the yellow portfolio folder will be sent home every Thursday. Please take the weekend to review the graded work, sign the turquoise folder that is stapled inside the folder, and return the folder to school with your child on Monday. Lyrics were sent home for the upcoming Winter music performance. The two songs that the 1st grade class will be singing is "Roar" by Katy Perry and "Light the Candle." Mr. Coulter asks that you practice these lyrics with your child at home in preparation to the performance. A letter with details on how the students will be graded in music was also sent home today. If you have any questions, please email Mr. Coulter at [email protected]. Thanks and have a wonderful Thanksgiving break :). Hi first grade families!
November is such a crazy month with all of the non-attendance days for students. These two weeks (week of November 12th and week of November 19th) only have five school days. This upcoming Wednesday, November 14th is a non-attendance day of students as the day will be dedicated to Report Card conferences. Thank you to everyone who has signed up online. If for whatever reason, you need a reminder or need to change the time: please feel free to update on the website. If we need to make alternative arrangements, then please let me know :). Next week, we will only have school on Monday and Tuesday, November 19th and 20th respectively. The school will be closed from November 21st-23rd for Thanksgiving Break. Since our schedule is so hectic, I will be combining these two instructional weeks into one. What this means is that the sight words and spelling words given for this week will be extended until next week and students will be tested on Tuesday, November 20th. As we are going into Quarter 2, one of my goals is to return back student work in a more efficient manner. As I reflect onto Quarter 1, I returned work as they were graded into students red homework folders and realize this may not be best way to ensure the work is returning home. Moving forward, I will be returning graded work and completed rubrics on a weekly basis in a "portfolio folder" every Thursday. Please go though the folder of work, empty out the folder, leave comments as needed, and return the folder signed back to school with your child. Please be on the look out for this on Thursday :). Ms. Chin We're a fourth of the way done with 1st grade! Here are your updates:
Writing Museum A reminder that our writing museum will be open to parents on Wednesday, October 31st from 9:00a-10:00a. The students are so excited to show off their hard work in writing their narrative stories. Halloween Parade Parents are welcomed to join us for Lenart's Halloween Parade on Wednesday, October 31st. The parade will begin at 1:00p. Please refer to the Lenart Weekly Updates email from Ms. Sims that was sent yesterday or my Week 8 updates that was sent last week for more information about costume non-negotiables and expectations. No School There will be no school for students on Friday, November 2nd due to it being the end of the quarter. Field Trip First grade will be going on a field trip to watch a film at the Logan Center for the Arts. This field trip is on Monday, November 5th. Chaperones are being communicated with to confirm. Please note that students will need to bring a bagged lunch to school. We will be still on our field trip during our normal lunch time and will each our bagged lunches in the classroom when we return. The field trip is $5. If you have not paid/turned in your signed permission slip form, please do so as soon as possible. The last day to pay is by Wednesday, October 31st. Due to all the events this week, end of the quarter, and it being a shortened week-- students will not have a new set of sight words. Instead, please go over the last lists for review. Students will also not have a new set of spelling words. We will continue sight words and spelling words next week in the new quarter. Math Chants We have been practicing our math chant at the beginning of our math block. Students are really excited to do them. They are to practice skip countingThese chants are going to help when we move onto multiplication, division, time, etc. If you would like to do the math chants at home with your child, the link is here. Lots of follow up things to address from my initial week 8 updates from yesterday.
Picture Day and Gym Picture day falls on a Friday (October 26th) which also so happens to be a gym day for 1st grade. I've spoken to Mr. McCracken and he says that students will NOT need to wear their gym uniforms. He will not be grading students on this day for uniforms due to it being picture day. Autumn Party - BACK ON!!.. but change of date! Several parents have responded to my email after deciding to cancel it. With this new number of volunteers, our party can go ahead. For those that responded saying that it would work out for them to come in and help, I will send a follow up email by the end of the day today. Please note that I am changing the date from October 31st to Thursday, November 1st. The 31st is our writing museum and the day is going to be a bit too crazy to have that and the Halloween parade. The Autumn-themed party will be from 12:45-2:00 (or later if need be). Please let me know if this new update works for you and you will receive an email with more details later. Sorry for all the confusion and thank you all for your flexibility and willingness to help! Halloween - October 31st Students are invited to come to school dressed in orange and black or in a costume. 1. Students will wear costumes that are appropriate for the school setting – The Lenart dress code applies as normal. 2. Students should wear a safe costume that is not disruptive to the school process; nor prevent the child from participating in typical school activities. 3. All costume preparations are to be completed at home. 4. Students will not be allowed to wear any type of mask and/or covering of the face. 5. Costumes may not include ANY type of weapon. If any of these rules are not followed or the costume is found inappropriate, the student will be asked to change. All parents are welcome to come join us for the parade. Other non-Halloween activities will be available for students that do not wish to participate in the Halloween parade. No food treats are allowed to be brought to school for Fall / Halloween classroom celebrations. Your children may bring pencils, stickers, or other small trinkets to celebrate with the class, but we are asking that no candy, cookies, cupcakes or other food treats be brought to school. Here are your week 8 updates :)
T-Shirt Size Request Every year around the holidays, students receive a Lenart t-shirt from Ms. Sims and Mrs. Lee. Please fill the following Google Sheets form with the appropriate size for your child. The size options are: youth small, youth medium, youth large, adult small, adult medium, and adult large. Please note that these shirts will be the same sizing as the gym shirts for comparison. CLICK HERE FOR FORM Autumn Themed Party Update Due to low number of parent volunteers, we will not be able to have the Autumn Themed Party as I would have liked. Thank you to those few who stated they were interested and volunteered. Hopefully that we will able to have one later on in the school year! Writing Museum We have been working on our narrative stories. Maybe your child has talked to you about it at home! We've been working writing our worst ouch stories in class and we are now putting our final touches on it! Whenever we finish a big writing project, I like to invite the parents and school to "show off" our hard work. I did this previous years in my third grade class and it's always been such a huge success. The 1st graders are excited to have you come in and read all of their stories! Please save the date for Wednesday, October 31st at 9:00am-10:00am. Hi families!
We are in week 7 of the first quarter! Here are your updates: Out-of-Building Tomorrow As part of the Personalized Learning team at Lenart, I am in the pilot group to implement the program within our school. Alongside with other teachers in the building, we have been participating in a year-long cohort that requires us to be out of the building for meetings/school visits. I am excited to bring back what we've learned in cohort to Lenart and be one of the classrooms starting this project. I will be out of the building tomorrow Tuesday, October 16th. Students were given their homework for today and tomorrow that is due when I return today. Picture Day - October 26th Picture day is next Friday, October 26th. Picture day forms were passed out yesterday. You can also order online at www.my.lifetouch.com. Our School Picture Day ID is RN068106Q0. Student Sickness :( Please be aware that we have had several students out due to being sick in the last 2 weeks. I have tried my best to wipe all tabletops down and any other areas in the classroom where the virus can be easily spread. It seems that whatever bug has been going around through our classroom has *hopefully* passed! OktoberFest LPCG (Lenart's Parent Community Group) will be hosting its annual OktoberFest on Friday, October 26th from 5:30-7:30. Flyers with more information were sent home yesterday. Autumn Themed Party - October 31st In previous years, I have thrown a Halloween themed/Autumn themed party on October 31st. In respect to those in our classroom who do not celebrate Halloween, I am leaning towards having an Autumn themed party where students will make "fall season" crafts/games. I will need volunteers to help with this: coordinate and run 3-5 stations of crafts/activities. If you are interested in helping, please let me know and we can start planning :). Walk-A-Thon First grade is currently in 2nd place (grrrrr.. behind Ms. Flaherty's kindergarteners) for raising funds for the Walk-A-Thon. This Friday, October 19th will be the last day to turn in any Walk-A-Thon money. School Fees If you have not already, please pay your school fees here. Hi families!
We're onto week 6 and officially in the second half of first quarter. Progress reports were distributed on Friday. To see the breakdown of grades, be sure to check Parent Portal. Directions to gain access to Parent Portal were given in the blue folder on Curriculum Night. If you need further assistance, please contact the office. This week we will continue sight words. Students received their new set of sight words today and will be tested this Friday. Please note that this is a change to previous weekly sight words where students were tested on the following Monday. Our updated sight words routine will be for students to receive their new words at the beginning of the week and be assessed on the words on the following Friday of the same week. Students who receive below a 70% accuracy rate are expected to study over the weekend to be retested on Monday. Students were sent home today with a bag of base ten tools. We are continuing to build our "backpack of strategies" for adding up to 100. They are to help students with their math homework today of regrouping while adding. Some students do not need to use this tool-- but I gave all students the opportunity to take the manipulatives home for help. Please have students bring back the bag to school as we continue our unit. Short updates for this weeks. Please check our classroom website for the latest announcements and posting of daily homework. 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. 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 |
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