Hi families,
Warning! Super long message here!! Just some light reading for you all . Happy December!! This week will bring us day 50 of first grade. There are three full weeks in December before Winter Break and I am excited for all the exciting work that is to come. If you've spoken to your kiddos about some new routines that we've set in place, they may have told you that we recently changed the way that we do our literacy centers. Prior to last week, I've directed students to do various tasks in multiple rotations-- they are told what to do and when to do it. Part of 1st grade is learning and practicing how to be responsible. Our new routine in literacy centers allows for students to select what "just right" activities they would like to do within 3-twenty minute rotations each day. We started slowly practicing this new routine last week and continue that work this week. It is so great to see our students take responsibility for the work that needs to be done-- but also take ownership and pride in their work. This also lends itself for some great differentiation and personalization of instruction. In both reading and math, we are building our toolbox of strategies that are going to help us. In reading, it is in their reading binder and in math, it is with their math sleeve. I encourage you to ask your student about it because they are so excited to get their different strategies that is special to who they are and what they need to grow! Though it is not expansive right now, it will become rich with information to help them flourish this year. Homework Reminder I am so happy that our students are becoming more responsible as first grade progresses-- but this is not without your help! Please continue to support your little one in keeping organized and completing their homework. Students are assigned homework DAILY that is due the next day-- with the exception of the reading log and 2 responses. There seems to be some confusion still with students not completing and turning in homework the next day. Unlike kindergarten at Lenart, students are NOT given a weekly packet to be turned in by the end of the week. This is a transition from last year, but has been a daily expectation since the beginning of 1st grade. Please note that homework is 10% of your child's grade and when homework is not turned it, it does negatively affect their overall grade. I want your child's grade to be reflective of where they are in their mastery of skills, rather than a no-completion. Your child's homework is collected when they turn in their red homework folder at the beginning of the day. If their red folder is not turned in, or if their homework is not in their red folder, then the homework is not received to be graded. If you notice that your child's homework is still in their backpack, please help them put their homework in the red folder to be collected! Students are also expected to bring in their agenda to school EVERYDAY. We have a routine in the classroom where students write down their homework in their agenda and though paper is provided for students to use if they forget their agenda, it can become quite messy with all the loose papers in their backpacks if they are consistently having to use the papers. Peek into this Week Reading - Authors have intentions, so pay attention! We are learning that as we read various books, authors have intentions of how they want their readers to feel and react. Let it be how they phrase certain things, use illustration, organize a text. This is called author's craft. In order for students to recognize the author's intentions, they need to be cognitive of the feelings they are having as they read. In your child's reading homework this week, try it out! Whenever there is a special reaction of a gasp, scared, curiosity, laughter-- have them jot it down quickly on a post-it. Then turn that post-it into a response to write more about it. Answer the questions: what emotion did the author make you feel? How did the author do that? Why is this a powerful thing for an author to do this in your book? The more practice your child has in this, the stronger reader they will become in books that are higher in reading level and complexity. Writing - We are going to take those books that we've read in reading, and try it out in our own narrative writing! We are going to be descriptive and detailed in our character development and try out different writing techniques we've tried in our own books. Writing museum to follow! Math - We are beginning our unit in adding up to the thousands place. This is the beginning steps for introduction of various strategies such as using the hundreds chart, open number line, decomposing numbers, and the standard algorithm (we call it place-value line-up in class). THis will also transfer over when we do subtraction in our next unit. For those students that need an extra push, they will be looking at multi-step word problems where either subtraction and/or addition will be necessary. Those students will also be pushed to add and subtract with more than just 2 addends. For students that need reinforcement, it is highly encouraged to review math fluency up until 20-- however this is where the multiple strategies of utilizing the hundreds chart and open number line will come into place. Science - We are continuing our unit on plant and animal survival. Students will develop the idea that just like a superhero has special powers, every animal and plant has special parts and behaviors that help them to grow and meet their needs. Social Studies - Winter holidays and traditions around the world as well as a study into communities and our own! Upcoming Important Dates December 3rd - Picture Day December 13th - Quarter 2 Progress Reports Distributed December 15th - Genevieve O's birthday December 17th - Winter Performance
January 2nd - Return to School per updated CPS calendar*. *You may view the updated CPS calendar for this 2019-2020 school year HERE. Spelling Bee Students in grades 1st through 8th will have the opportunity to complete in the Lenart RGC Spelling Bee. Students will first compete at the classroom/homeroom level. Then, winners from each homeroom will complete in the school-wide bee on January 10, 2020 at 12:30 p.m. All local school spelling bee champions will be required to participate in the online test during the time frame of 1/21/2020 through 2/7/2020. The Citywide Spelling Bee will take place on 3/12/2020. The date for each homeroom bee will be announced soon! Students were sent home today with a yellow packet of spelling bee words. NWEA You should have received an email from me with your child's beginning of the year NWEA scores. NWEA for all Lenart students will happen in January, after winter break. More information to follow when I receive it from administration. Message from Mr. Coulter Below is an email from Mr. Coulter, our music teacher. Hello First Grade Parents, First I'd like to apologize for the information overload and lack of clarity in the dissemination of information regarding the winter festival attire. This was due to me not connecting the dots as Miss. Chin and I sought to enhance our gifted students highly anticipation Winter Festival performance. Count it to my head and not my heart and I will make every effort to do better as we move forward in helping our students be the best that they can be. Clarification- As stated in the letter I sent home last week: 6 points – Attire Attire for Grades k,- 8th grade All white long sleeve shirt with a collar or all white turtle neck. No T- shirts, stripes, polka dots or designs on the shirts. Solid black bottoms. Black pants for boys or girls, or skirts for the girls. No stripes, polka dots or designs on the pants or skirts. Absolutely no stretch pants, sweat pants or leggings worn as pants. Solid black shoes with black heels and soles. No gym shoes , flip flops, or open toe sandals. Absolutely no miniskirts or revealing cloths or cloths with inappropriate designs, language, profanity or inappropriate words.
Also stated in the letter; *ALTERNATE ATTIRE -If your class decides on a particular attire to enhance your performance, It must approved by your classroom teacher and I in advance and parents must be aware of the alternate attire, it must be specific and uniform with the entire class and you must wear it in order to receive 6 points for attire. In recent years teachers have asked if their class can wear something else besides the black and white attire, something that coincides and enhances their performance. I always keep an open mind about this. Although I am the coordinator of our annual festival this is not MY but Lenart's festival so I try to assure it's fun, educational, and inclusive. Kindergarten and 1st grade re the only classrooms that have 2 separate performances this year. What does this mean - Yes they will need both attires. Hard Knock Life will be early in the program which will allow them plenty of time to change without being rushed. I'll make an adjustment to the rubric for 1st grade only so that they will receive points for both attires. My apologies for such a long email but I wanted to be clear. If you have any additional questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you for your understanding and support. We appreciate you more than you'll ever know. Thanks, Ms. Chin
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Hi families,
Today was day 39 of 1st grade! We are officially back in the swing of things! We are still fixing up and making adjustments from where we left off pre-strike, but it's so great to be settling back into our normal routine. This time of year tends to be a little crazy so please take note of our upcoming important dates section! Upcoming Important Dates November 27th - Originally a no attendance day for students but is now a proposed possible make-up day for students. Date will be confirmed as an attendance day by Nov. 20th. November 28th - No School (Thanksgiving) & Abigail S's birthday November 29th - No School (Thanksgiving Break) December 3rd - Picture Day December 13th - Quarter 2 Progress Reports Distributed December 17th - PreK-8th grade Winter Performance @ 8:30a (families are invited to attend this) / PreK-3rd Winter Performance @ 6pm (families are invited to attend this) December 18th - PreK-8th Winter Performance @ 8:30a (Students only) / 4th-8th Winter Performance @ 6pm (families are invited to attend this) December 23rd - Start of Winter Break Scholastic Book Orders Students will be sent home with Scholastic Book Magazines. You may either order online or with cash-- though ordering online is preferred. The books will be shipped directly to our classroom for free. I do not set due dates and have a rolling order date. Any submitted orders using our class code of PFCTF will be sent for approval to Scholastic through within 1-2 days that I receive notification that you've paid. There is also a larger selection of books online HERE. You may place an order the same way as the paper copies by using the class code PFCTF. Homework changes You will have noticed that there has been an addition to your child's reading homework. In addition to our weekly reading log, students are to complete 2 readers response entries from two days that they've read. At this time they do not need to write an entry at home every day-- just pick two days! This is not a new assignment for students to complete as we have been practicing writing about our reading every day since the beginning of the school year. This is a way for students to really practice what we've been doing in reading in class back at home. Added benefit is for you to see what we've been working hard on at school! As the year progresses, students will be sent home with their reading binder which will have their goals and reading strategy tools that we use in class. Their reading binder will help them as they continue to develop and grow as readers and write about their reading in their entries. Winter Assembly Show You may have heard your child singing a silly little tune called "It's A Hard Knock Life" from the musical Annie. Mr. Coulter has set this year's winter assembly music show theme to be songs from movies. We will be singing the popular tune from the 2014 version of Annie. You can find the *slightly adjusted* lyrics HERE. Normally Mr. Coulter requires students to perform in a white dress shirt, black dress slacks/skirt, and black shoes. However in order to really set the stage for the performance, I was thinking that maybe we could have the students dress down a bit to match the characters in Annie. Nothing too fancy! Overalls, aprons, handrags, clothing that may be a little too big and worn out, regular jeans. If you have any questions, please email Mr. Coulter at [email protected]. NWEA You will be receiving a PDF document from me that will be your child's Fall NWEA score and their student profile. I was going to print physical copies to give out during report card conferences last week, but the document ended up being 600+ pages. I'll be sending you the digital copy of the data for you by this week. Thanks for your patience with me on this. It takes a while to download the file, then separate and save by each student's information, and then send back out to the respective families. Birthday Treats Birthday treats are more than welcomed in our classroom! However, let's keep them as non-food related items. I am noticing that as of late there have been edible treats-- and though they are much loved and appreciated by the kiddos, we have classmates with food-related allergies. Let's limit our birthday treats to trinkets such as erasers, small toys, pencils, etc. A Peek into our Classroom We will be finishing up our math unit on numbers up to 1,000. This week we will be covering comparing numbers as greater than, less than, and equal to. There will be a test that is given on the different forms of writing numbers, skip counting starting at any number by 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s, 100s, and 1000s, and comparing numbers up to the thousands place. The test is scheduled to be on Monday, November 25th and I will send home a study guide on Friday. In spelling we are reviewing digraphs. After our last spelling test on digraphs, our students didn't do well so I am taking this week to slow down and review the digraphs a few at a time with this week focusing on "ch" and "sh." In reading we continuing to work on being cognizant of how we solve tricky words using various strategies. As great readers, we don't just rely on ONE strategy-- but we pull on multiple to double check and become stronger readers. We will also be paying attention to authors by reading like an author, trying different writing techniques we've read in our own writing, and noticing how an author connects parts of the story together to create an ending that can sometimes teach a lesson. In science, we are learning why certain animals behave in special ways and why certain animals have special parts of their bodies to help them survive (i.e. a polar bear having a white body). Thanks for reading this super long email and have a great week! Ms. Chin Good afternoon families-
My apologies- no idea if this is considered week 7 or week 10. Also have lost track of what day of school it is! Important Dates 2nd - Rex M's birthday 7th - Breyonna W's birthday 8th - No School (End of Q1) 9th - Kelly Y's birthday 11th - No School (Veteran's Day) 13th - No School (Report Card Conferences) 28th - No School (Thanksgiving) & Abigail S's birthday 29th - No School (Thanksgiving Break) (please note that due to the strike, dates may change) CPS just sent the proposed 5 instructional days that will be made up from the strike. These proposed days need to be approved by the Board of Ed who is meeting on November 20th. I want to share these days so that you can plan accordingly. Again, please note that these are not official- but just proposed. Wednesday, November 27th, 2019 Thursday, January 2nd, 2020 Friday, January 3rd, 2020 Wednesday, June 17th, 2020 Thursday, June 18th, 2020 Peak into this Week Reading - We will be backtracking this week to review what our expectations and reading strategies are and how to reflect on them in our readers' response notebook. We will also be moving forward in learning strategies of how to break apart difficult words to read them fluently. We will also be paying attention to authors by reading like a writer, trying the different writing techniques they've read in their own writing, and noticing how an author connects parts of the story together to create an ending that can sometimes teach a lesson. Math - I had originally planned on finishing up our place value unit up to the thousands and moving on to adding numbers up to the hundreds place. Unfortunately due to the strike, we are a bit behind. There will be a quiz this Wednesday, November 6th on place value of numbers up to the hundreds. Students should be able to write a number in standard form, word form, and expanded form. Students should also be able to name value of a number-- i.e. the six in 261 as sixty and should also be able to represent a number through base ten blocks. Report Card Pick-Up Conferences Please use the following link to schedule your report card pick-up conference with me. Report Card Conferences will be on Wednesday, November 13th from 11:00a-6:00p. Each time slot is 10 minutes and if we need to schedule for a longer time, please let me know so that we can extend it to another day. If none of the available times work for you, please let me know so that we can set up an alternative time/day. SIGN UP HERE. Sickness Going on in the Classroom We, unfortunately, have strep that is currently going around the classroom. If your child is feeling sick, please keep them home. The custodians and I will be deep cleaning the classroom to try to eliminate any germs being passed around. Hi families-
I didn't send an update to the beginning of the week so here is your week 6 closing bulletin. Thursday Folders I am having a bit of technical difficulty with ASPEN Gradebook so I am a bit behind this week in inputting grades. Because of this, I did not send home Thursday folders this week. I am expecting to send all the graded work that will be put into ASPEN by Monday. Thank you for your patience with me on this! Homework I have received several questions regarding how I collect homework. Students are to bring in their red homework folders in class in the morning. Their homework should be in the "homework" compartment on the left side of the folder. Either myself or Ms. Penny (the paraprofessional in our classroom) will go through the folders and collect the papers. Most students have been really great at bringing in their red folders when unpacking their things, however if no red folder is turned in, then homework can not be collected. Another thing about homework is that unlike Kindergarten, homework is given on a daily basis and due the next day. Though homework is supplemental practice to what is being taught in the classroom and it can be done independently, students DO still need your support. Please check over your child's homework to make sure that it is fully completed. I am noticing that many students have incomplete homework assignments and/or not following directions. Potential Teacher's Strike Information You may have heard on the news that the Chicago Teacher's Union has set a strike date for next week, October 17th and are still in negotiations. For the most up-to-date information on what will happen and contingency plans, you can visit CPS's website and watch your local news station. Please note that if the teachers do go on strike, that I will not have access to my email and any emails that are sent to me during this time may "bounce" back to sender. Peek into This Week We have been continuing to practice using post-its to help jot down important ideas in the book that we read. These important ideas can vary from changes in the characters, something that happened that was shocking to us, our favorite part, something that we want to share with buddy, and everything in between. We are learning that as great readers, we don't just read the words but we are conscious of the THINKING we are are doing as we read. In math we started a new topic where we are looking at the place value of numbers up to the 1000s place. Afterwards, we will be adding and subtracting numbers up into the 1000s place. In writing, we have completed our first drafts of our ouch stories and will be going through the editing process of adding more juicy details. In science, we are learning about why animals have certain body parts to help them survive. This week we started an observation of how bird beak sizes help birds get their food. We've been using a straw to demonstrate a narrow beak, such as a warbler versus a dixie cup as a bird with a wider beak, like a duck. Upcoming Important Dates 14th - No School (Indigenous People/Columbus Day) 18th - Gary S's Birthday 31st - Halloween Parade (more information to follow) 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 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! |