Weekly News

Open House was a great success. Thank you so much for your attendance at the Open House. I hope you found it informative and enjoyed spending some time in the classroom! If there are any lingering questions or concerns about first grade, our routines and policies or my philosophies, please let me know. I am happy to clarify or discuss further. If you were unable to attend, we’ve place the packet of information in your family mailbox. I am putting the finishing touches on the family contact lists. I will distribute them as soon as I have all of the information.

I realized a few details I left out of the Open House presentation:

HOMEWORK: My goal for homework in first grade is that it is an enjoyable family experience. If that means parents help with the writing or a child opts to draw vs. write, that is fine. It is more about the content than the output at this point.

READING: Similar to homework, my goal for reading is also that it be an enjoyable experience for children. It is absolutely fine for parents, siblings, babysitters, or any other adults to do the majority of reading if that is most comfortable for your child. In fact, there are many benefits to children of all ages listening to fluent readers read. They are hearing what good reading should sound like and will try to replicate this in their own reading.

Also, some children are reluctant to read aloud to adults or family until they are sure they’ve got it right and will make minimal mistakes. If this is the case for your child, we are happy to send books home with them that have been practiced in reading groups. It may ease that initial reluctance to read aloud at home.

FLEXIBLE GROUPING: I mentioned that we place children in groups for reading and math based on a number of factors (skill level, interest, prior experience with the topic, specific skill to practice, etc.) These groups are very flexible. We might change groups on weekly or monthly depending on individual progress and need.  This is quite different from the grouping some of us may have experienced during our school years in which groups stayed the same the entire year, regardless of progress. If you have any questions about your child’s progress or placement in various groups, please ask. We are happy to share about what skills we are working on.

READING BUDDIES

We had our second meeting with our reading buddies. It is so wonderful to see both groups excited to read together and get to know each other.

LITERACY CENTERS    

We will continue Literacy Centers this week. This week, we are practicing choosing centers and moving among the centers. Other centers currently include: Name-Face Match, Making Books, Word Study (make our Word Wall Words with play dough), Read the Room, and Read to Self.  As we become comfortable with these Centers, I will add more choices.

WORD WALL WORDS:           a     I      the

We will be including Word Wall words in the newsletter every week. Word Wall Words are high frequency sight words. They usually cannot be sounded out like some of the other words we will study in first grade. Please help your child to learn these sight words. Some ideas for practicing and learning these words are:

1.  Make flash cards.

2.   Post the words on your refrigerator or other location for daily practice.

3.   Ask your child to find these words in books, magazines, or newspapers.

We added 3 words to our Word Wall this week.  We will try to commit these words to memory, but the Word Wall will serve as a permanent place to look for spelling clues.

COMMUNITY

Last week, we used the answers to our Friend Questions to create individual pages for our first class book: Meet 1MC. We have each illustrated our page with things we like and attached a photograph. The book will be displayed in the classroom library for all to read!

We will also used Venn Diagrams to compare and contract our interests with another peer in the class. We thought about 2-3 similarities and differences and placed them in the correct spots on the Venn Diagram. W eused the information from our Friend Question Posters, talking with peers and asking our friends additional questions. These diagrams will be displayed in the hallway.

This week, we begin to explore our families and learn about all of the different kinds of families there can be. We will continue to use the language of “something in common…...” as well as build on the practice of celebrating differences.

FIRST GRADE WISH LIST

We welcome donations of the following items for our classroom:

·      Legos, old ones that your family is no longer using.

ASK YOUR CHILD…

These questions can be conversation starters to discuss the week in school.

·      What did you do during Choice Time this week?

·      How did you decorate your page for our Meet 1MC book?

·      What math games did you play this week?

·      How do you play Sparkle?

·      What books did you read with your third grade reading buddy?