Hi 1st grade families,
I hope you are having a great start to week 5. As I reflect back on the past couple of weeks, I am finding myself so happy with the growth that our class has made. I also am looking forward in all of the work that needs to be done before the end of 1st grade— though that may seem very far away, it goes by a lot quicker than we’d like to think. Because of all the content that needs to be covered this year, I am asking for you to have conversations with your children of what does it mean to be a student. I am finding that a lot of instructional time has been lost in transitioning from one activity to another (i.e., putting our book buckets away for reading and moving on to the carpet for writing). We also have been very limited in the instruction that is happening because students are unfocused during my lesson— which is about 20 minutes, at most. We have a lot of wiggly bodies and distracting/distracted eyes and ears. Ideally, I would have loved to move forward toward more intensive content, however we are still a bit stuck in the routines and how to “do” school and what our role is in being an active participant as a learner. I welcome you to please have these conversations with your child at home to help connect the conversations/lessons we are having at school. Here are some updates for this week: Tonight's Homework Please disregard "math homework" written on your child's agenda. We write down our homework in the afternoon after lunch and have math afterwards. Our math lesson on adding and subtracting within 20 with word problems didn't go as quickly as I anticipated so I had to hold the homework to continue the lesson for tomorrow. We will have a math test on adding and subtracting fluently within 20 (word problems included) on Thursday, October 3rd. I will send home a practice test/study guide for you to use at home on Wednesday. Please make sure that your child is doing their daily reading log. More information can be found in the syllabus that was provided during curriculum night. Because we are still going over routines, we are continuing the "basics" of spelling patterns with short u and short o sounds. We will be starting a new literacy center activity this week and I want students to learn the routine of what to do during that activity and not overwhelm the kiddos with learning new, difficult content AND a routine. Please be patient as we gradually get to more challenging things-- as eager as I am in wanting to hit the ground running with content, the importance of reinforcing routines and procedures are what truly makes our classroom run seamlessly. Homework Homework does get graded in 1st grade and is inputted as part of your child's grade. Please check over your child's homework to make sure that it is completed and accurate. If no homework is submitted, then the grade will result in a 0% F. I want your child's grade to be reflective of mastering concepts rather than no completion. I emphasize with students to use the red folders and many of them are amazing at organizing their papers going home-- please reinforce using the red folders and each of the components at home! Curriculum Night Thank you to all those who came to Curriculum Night. It was a jam packed day full of information. Please take time to go over the syllabus and contents that were provided during Curriculum Night. If you were unable to attend and have questions regarding what was inside the Curriculum Night folder, please feel free to reach out and we can set up a meeting date. Thursday Folders During Curriculum Night, Thursday folders were sent home with parents who attended. If you were not able to attend curriculum night, the folder was sent home with your child on Friday. Students will be sent home with their graded work in the Thursday Folder every Thursday. Please take the weekend to empty out the folder, go over the papers, and sign the pink sheet that has been stapled to the cover. All Thursday folders need to be returned to school by the following Monday to have new graded papers sent home by the next Thursday. Fire/Bus/Lockdown Drills In these last weeks we have completed 3 different drills-- fire, bus, and lockdown. Fire drills happen on a monthly basis while bus and lockdown drills happen at least once a year. This is per CPS protocol. We briefly went over the importance of drills being that even though the likeliness of these events happening are very rare, we want to be prepared. We emphasized in class the importance of being silent and keeping our full attention to the staff member/adult/teacher to fully understand directions of what to do next. Last Friday, the school had a lockdown drill. This happened during indoor recess with Ms. Daniels, our paraprofessional, and Ms. Jasmine, our recess monitor. When the lockdown drill was over, I checked-in on the students to make sure they were okay. Some kiddos had some remaining questions of what exactly a lockdown drill is for and why we have them. While I emphasized that we want to be prepared for anything that may happen, I also encouraged the students to please direct any further questions they had to their parents because I also want to respect how you and your family want to handle tough topics such as lockdown drills. Upcoming Important Dates 3rd - Xoe K's Birthday 4th- Quarter 1 Progress Reports Distribution 14th - No School (Indigenous People/Columbus Day) 18th - Gary S's Birthday Thank you and have a great rest of your week, Ms. Chin
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Hi parents!
Welcome to week 4 of first grade. You will have noticed the students have another subject added for their homework this week-- spelling! There should be a total of three assignments for this week: reading log (due Monday, 9/30), math (due tomorrow), and spelling. Weekly Spelling Homework Students will receive a list of 10 words that follow the same spelling pattern. There will be daily homework assigned. Students will be tested on the 10 given words and an additional 4 words that follow the same weekly spelling pattern. The spelling test will be on Fridays. The spelling words for this week are:
Peek into our week! In reading we are continue to learn how we as readers can grow like beanstalks. We are continue to practice taking a sneak peek in the books that we read to figure out how the author intends for us to read the book. This week we are beginning to use our readers notebook as a place for us to jot down our writing. I will be teaching the students how to respond to their reading with this week focusing on "readers do something at the end of their book"-- by looking back and thinking it over, going back to their favorite part, and telling someone about their book. This week we will also dive deeper in how to solve tricky words by "scooping up word parts." In math, we will be continuing to fluently add and subtract within 20. This will set a foundation for the multi-digit math work that we will be doing. Please practice math facts with your child!! Curriculum Night We hope that you can join us for Curriculum Night on Thursday, September 26th at 5:30 - 7:30 pm. Parents will have opportunity to gain information regarding 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 consent forms and other outstanding paperwork such as medical compliance forms. Book Fair All students were allowed to take a "sneak peek" at the book fair today and make a wishlist of what they would like to purchase. The book fair will be open all week during school hours. For the remainder of the week, only students who bring money will be able to visit the book fair. The book fair will also be open on Thursday evening, during Curriculum Night. We are still in need of volunteers to assist with set-up and sales. You can sign up to volunteer here! All volunteers have to complete the CPS volunteer process for at least a Level II. Important Upcoming Dates September 26th - Curriculum Night (5:30p-7p) September 24th - Kayleen L's birthday September 26th - Thomas F's birthday Thanks and have a great rest of your week! :) Hi families-
I can't believe we are already in Week 3 of school. These last couple of weeks we have been working hard in getting settled with our routines so that we can begin learning content this week. This week our focus in reading will be growing as readers- we will be learning and practicing reading books in different voices and then reading the words of a book with how the author intends for us to (ie, scary, cheerful, sick, etc). In math, we are reviewing what students have worked on in math last year by fluently adding and subtracting within 20. Here are some other important updates to note! In science, we are sorting thing by whether they are living or non-living. Eventually we will study and observe the different life cycles of living things-- from animals to plants! In writing these next coming weeks, we will be beginning to write narrative stories-- starting off with brainstorming our biggest "OUCH" stories in our own lives. In spelling/phonics, we will start off simple and begin spelling CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words to help spell harder multi-syllabic words. Agenda & Homework 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 two things written in the agenda for today: "reading log and math worksheet." Reading logs are due the following Monday and math homework is to be done daily and collected the following day. Students will bring their agendas home every day and will need to bring them back to school each day. Reading logs Students were sent home with a new reading log for the week while the one from last week were collected today. This is a weekly homework assignment that students will have every week. 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%) Forms Students were sent home with a "Acceptable Use Policy" form from our Technology/STEM teacher, Mr. Sidarous. Please read over the form, sign, and return back as soon as possible. If you have not completed and turned in the "Back To School" packet forms from the first week of school, please do so as soon as possible-- the office needs them to update all information. NWEA 1st grade took their NWEA math and reading test last week. There are still a few students who have not finished their math test- Mrs. Lee will finish testing them sometime this week or the next. You will receive your child's scores during Curriculum Night. Important Upcoming Dates September 26th - Curriculum Night (5:30p-7p) September 22nd - Asha P's birthday September 24th - Kayleen L's birthday September 26th - Thomas F's birthday Thanks and have a great rest of your week! :) Good afternoon,
Students were sent home with a reading log for the week. This is a weekly homework assignment that students will have every week. 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%) Ms. Chin Hi families-
We made it through the first week of 1st grade. Below are some quick end of the week updates. Thanks and have a great weekend. NWEA schedule 1st grade will be taking their NWEA Reading test on Tuesday (9/10/2019) at 8:00am and the NWEA Math test on Thursday (9/12/2019) at 12:15pm. Please make sure that your child is well rested in preparation for the test. Parent Volunteers If you would like to volunteer in our classroom by helping out, chaperoning, or attending a 1st grade writing museum (a day where you are invited into our classroom to read students' finished writing products), you will need to sign up as a volunteer through CPS. If you were approved last school year, you MUST renew your application again by accessing it through the CPS website. I recommend that all parents who would like to volunteer/visit the classroom be approved as a Level 1. Though Level 2 volunteers are acceptable, there is more flexibility in what you can be involved in as a Level 1. You can access the CPS volunteer application HERE. Back to School Forms Students were sent home with a back to school packet on the first day of school. There is a booklet of forms that need to be completed and turned into the office as soon as possible. These forms need to be updated and completed every year. If you have already submitted your forms, thank you! Students were also sent home with a "parent survey form" yesterday. This form is for me to get to your student a bit better from your perspective. If you haven't done so, please fill it out and return in your child's red homework folder. Ms. Chin Hi families!
Happy first day! We made it through the first day of first grade. We did a lot of get-to-know-you activities today and started introducing routines that allow for our classroom to run smoothly. Our next couple of weeks will be creating rules for our classroom as well as continuing to build out and practice our procedures in class. This will lay the foundation to the rest of the year! :). We start off slow but it is all intentionally done for the growth and success that is to come. All students should have a RED homework folder. The folder should be pronged and I have placed a pocketed divider into the folder. I will distribute the red folders later on this week after I teach the students how to organize their papers. 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 back 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 front 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! :) The students' homework for this week is to make sure that YOU, the parent, fills out all the appropriate forms in the "back to school" packet-- including the fee waiver forms! If you have already filled the papers out and have turned it in to the office for the year, you can disregard. Specials Class Schedule Monday - Technology (9:20-10:05); Spanish Tuesday - Music Wednesday - Gym Thursday - Art; Spanish Friday - Gym (8:00-9:00); Music Thank you all for being so supportive and amazing partners in this 1st grade journey! Looking forward to a powerful year! |