JUST THE FACTS...

WINTER BREAK BEGINS AFTER THIS WEEK AND SCHOOL RESUMES ON MONDAY, JANUARY 4TH, 2010! I wish all of you a restful and happy holiday with your children and a great start to the new year. It's hard to believe that we have completed our first trimester already. Please remember to return your child's report card envelope with your signature. This is my proof that you received the report.

This Friday morning, December 18th, the entire school will be participating in the BEYE SCHOOL HEALTH FAIR EXPO. We will travel with our reading buddies to 10 events that explore fitness and health. The students will be using all of their senses to learn how to take care of themselves while participating in workshops about dance, nutritional tastings, physical therapy, art, bones and body parts, stress, the heart, the flu, ear and throat health and personal training. This health expo is planned and coordinated by Mr. Tom Rocco, our physical education teacher.

2 ITEMS TO MARK ON YOUR CALENDARS NOW! The First Grade "Family New Year's Breakfast" will be held on Thursday, January 14th at 8:15. This POT LUCK event will take the place of classroom holiday parties. The first grade teachers are looking forward to this mid-year gathering with families and students. Stop by for a few minutes before work to enjoy breakfast with your first grader and other families. Room parent coordinators will be organizing this event. Watch for information from them right after the new year.

STUDENT-PARENT-TEACHER PORTFOLIO CONFERENCES WILL BE HELD THE FIRST WEEK OF FEBRUARY. Watch for sign-up information after break.

Wednesday, December 16th is our 3rd ZERO WASTE LUNCH DAY. For those who pack a lunch, please try to bring only containers that can be reused. We are trying to improve upon our ZWL percentage of 43% from last month.

Friday, December 18th is the student council sponsored "Wacky Day". Students are encouraged to wear mismatched outfits (wearing a shirt backwards, two different kinds of shoes, mismatched socks) as a fun way to show school spirit.

NEEDED: PAPER TOWEL TUBES for a math activity. Please send to school empty tubes as you finish a roll. We can't use other sizes. I will need one per student as soon as possible. Thank you!

LANGUAGE ARTS

We have started our 4th Open Court Reading unit, entitled Our Neighborhood at Work. In this unit, students will be exposed to a variety of occupations through photographic essay, informational text, and a poem. This unit will allow the students to learn more about nonfiction and poetry. They will learn to recognize the literary features of rhyming and predictable sentence patterning. We will work on classifying and categorizing, main idea and details, and drawing conclusions.

Our phonics lessons will include /ng/, /kw/, long vowel sounds and /s/ spelled ce, and ci__. We continue to work on handwriting and the use of capital letters and sentence end marks.

On January 4th, you will receive information about The Great Snowball Book Blitz, a reading incentive program that all three first grade classes will be participating in.

SOCIAL STUDIES

Our third unit covers the World of Work, which is a nice connection to our Open Court unit. The main focus of this unit is thinking about the choices people make to get the things they want. We will be talking about needs vs. wants and scarcity, as well as goods and services. Our first lesson identifies the needs and wants of most families and how families in this country and around the world meet those needs and wants.

SCIENCE

This week we finish up our weather unit with more work with thermometers and clouds. We collected data throughout November and most of December on weather conditions, sky conditions, precipitation and wind. In January we will begin our Physical Science study of Solids and Liquids.

MATH

Measurement and Basic Facts is the focus of Unit 4. The students are working with linear measurement. We began the unit using non-standard units, such as digits and hand spans as well as the United States customary units of inches and feet. We are using the tools of rulers, footprints, and tape measures.

During this unit the students begin the VERY IMPORTANT work of achieving automatic recall of basic addition facts. This will be a skill that you can help with at home.

We are also working on telling time to the quarter hour as well as reviewing telling time on the hour and half hour.

This week we worked on an important math problem solving strategy--Making an Organized List. We finished a workshop project that had the students trying to find all the combinations for wrapping a gift, using three different kinds of paper, three colors of bows, and 3 different tags. We discovered that there are 27 possibilities! Using real-life activities like this help students identify patterns, understand mathematical relationships, and make the jump to abstract representations.

CELEBRATIONS

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Jalen Bates

December 16th

JUST THE FACTS...

THANK YOU to our Halloween party planners, Michelle Hess and Amanda Sudimack for a great afternoon. Also thank you to the many others that helped run the party and join in the fun. I would also like to thank the parents that joined us on our walking field trip to the fire station. We are writing thank you notes to the fire fighters this week.

Please remember that there is no school on Friday of this week in honor of Veteran's Day. We will take our spelling test on Thursday of this week.

Book orders are due on Monday, November 9th. We are now doing the ordering online at www.scholastic.com/bookclubs. The user name is FenclFirstGrade and the password is Rm 103. You can order from Seesaw November, Lucky November, and Winter Gift Books.

FIELD TRIP: Please return the permission form and fee for our December 1st trip to Seussical if you have not already done so.

LANGUAGE ARTS

The students are enjoying our unit about "Animals". You may have heard about our reading of Mr. Popper's Penguins. The students are enjoying this very old and very silly tale. We have recreated the nest of Captain Cook in class. It is filled with an odd assortment of things including checker pieces, buttons, an old lemon, spools, etc. Some of the children have brought things in for this nest. We are still in need of a lollipop, golf ball, harmonica, pipe, ash tray, golf tee, and a radish. We have learned that the following items are not readily found in today's world: telephone slug, parchesi cup, darning egg and a buttonhook! We've been having fun building this nest, though.

Our phonics work has included rhyming, blending, and identifying final and medial sounds. We are using a sound spelling chain to spell a variety of words that just differ by one sound from word to word. The students are doing very well with this.

Our comprehension work is focusing on identifying the main idea and details. They use prior knowledge of the topic and text structures to find the important points of a selection. We continue work with antonyms and the use of prefixes like un- and dis- to change the meaning of a word to its opposite meaning.

We are also using Daily Oral Language (DOL) sentences to practice appropriate punctuation and capitalization skills. Students rewrite incorrect sentences and tell the punctuation rule that supports the change.

SOCIAL STUDIES

This week's lesson addresses natural resources. The first graders are learning what a natural resource is, and the variety of ways people use natural resources in everyday life. This unit also covers weather as it relates to seasons, which is a great connection to our science unit. Next week we will learn about different kinds of communities: cities, towns, and suburbs. We continue with our map skills, using a map key to compare a city to a town.

SCIENCE

This week we have begun recording the daily weather in three categories: cloud cover, precipitation, and wind. The use of a weather calendar will allow the students to summarize data, draw conclusions and make predictions.

Just as the students made their own wind flags, they will also make their own model thermometer.

MATH

This week we are working with odd and even patterns and number grid patterns. I will be sending home a number grid for the students to keep at home to discover skip counting patterns, and do addition and subtraction problems.

Math explorations this week cover sorting, pattern blocks, covering shapes, and number patterns.

Next week we will be doing a lot of work with the number line and reviewing the basic number line concepts:

•number lines can go in any direction

•the arrows at the beginning and end of number line show that numbers go on forever in either direction

•a number line can start with any number

•a number line can extend to the left of zero (negative nunbers)

The students will use the number lines to add and subtract to solve penny stories.

We will then move later in the week into telling time to the half hour. This is a skill to practice daily at home if your child has not yet mastered it. If he/she has mastered it, it's always fine to keep working forward identifying time at quarter intervals and five minute intervals. Even though mastery is not expected yet, telling time is a life skill that should always be practiced with analog clocks.

CELEBRATIONS

As we work on our second 100 Green Light Reading Books we are connecting this to a Scholastic Reading Incentive led by Eli and Peyton Manning. Their drive is to donate 1 million books to kids in need. This Classrooms Care Program challenges classrooms to read 100 books towards this cause. We will be adding our Green Light totals to Eli's team!

JUST THE FACTS...

CONFERENCES ARE THIS WEEK. Please try to be on time as it is very easy to get off schedule with even a five minute delay. Conferences are 20 minutes in length. This meeting is for parents and I would like to remind you that in February, the students will meet with us. I'm looking forward to meeting with each of you. Thursday and Friday of this week are half-days-- students will be dismissed at 11:00 a.m. Please make sure your child knows his/her plan on these half-days.

The Book Fair is open this week during conference time. Try to stop by when you are in for your conference. Students may bring money to buy items if you are very clear to your child and to me how much money he/she may spend and on what kind of items.

HALLOWEEN UPDATE: Most of you may already know that on Halloween we extend our morning an hour to give us optimal learning time on this exciting day. So that means the students will eat their lunch an hour later. Please make sure to send a healthy snack on that day. Students do not wear costumes to school. If you are at all able to have your child come home for lunch on that day to get his/her costume on, that is greatly appreciated. Families are invited to join us for the Halloween parade that begins at about 1:15. We will be walking with our reading buddies around the neighborhood and through Heritage House on Lake Street. You are also invited to join us in the classroom after the parade for our party that is being planned by parents.

Please note there is no school on Friday, November 6th, Veterans Day.

This week we started our second round of Workshops. Students look forward to these hands on activities that allows them to work in cooperative learning groups and practice skills. We have been very fortunate to have many parent helpers with these activities. This is record-setting parent attendance! I am most grateful to those parents as well as to our many Time and Money volunteers.

FIELD TRIPS: Please return the permission form and fee for our December 1st

trip to Seussical if you have not already done so. You will also receive notice later this week of a walking trip to the fire station on October 29th. Parent chaperones are welcome to join us for this short little trip.

LANGUAGE ARTS

We are now working in our 2nd unit of Open Court with the theme of animals. In this theme, students will be reading stories to expand their understanding of animals--their habits, characteristics and habitats. Most of the selections will be written in expository form. During the first few stories the comprehension strategies of Predicting, Visualizing and Asking Questions will be foremost.

Our phonics lessons will cover blending, segmenting, short vowel sounds, and various spellings for sounds. Language skills include antonyms, adjectives, proofreading marks and punctuation.

In writing we are using the 6 traits format that includes lessons on ideas, organization, word choice, sentence fluency, voice, and conventions. Our first unit has focused primarily on ideas.

SOCIAL STUDIES

Our second unit is entitled Where We Live. This unit covers the Big Idea of Earth and its people. Our first lessons address the different types of land and water and about ways people interact with the environment. The vocabulary terms of continent, mountain, natural resource, and season are introduced. Students will use the comprehension strategies of prediction and inference during our lessons.

SCIENCE

Our next lessons will have us making wind flags and collecting wind data over a week's time. We will then focus on thermometers, recording indoor and outdoor temperatures. We will also graph water temperatures of cold, hot and mixed water.

MATH

We have been working hard at finding the values of various combinations of nickels and pennies. This week will be working on writing number models for change-to-more and change-to-less situations. We will also be practicing making up and solving number stories, often with money as our unit. Next week we will begin assessments for Unit 2. Our Unit 3 work is all about patterns. Students will learn about the predictability of patterns and how to state rules about those patterns.

Telling time and counting money will continue to be revisited in this unit.

As you may have noticed, the assignment of Math Homelinks homework is not always the same each week. Generally, it is about 3-4 a week. I do not like to assign homework on the weekends, but often we will have a Homelink related to a Friday lesson. Students are free to complete it over the weekend or save it for the following week to turn in--whatever works best for your family schedule.

CELEBRATIONS

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Kylei Stigger-Blake
October 15th
Emmet Szewczyk
October 24th

Beye School Room 103

JUST THE FACTS...

You all should have received a conference invitation attached to this week's homework. If you have not yet done so, please return your requested times ASAP so that I can send confirmation notes home next week.

I would like to remind you that when it comes to homework, I am very flexible when it comes to expectations. Each child is different and at this young age I do not want homework to become the dreaded evening activity. The priority is reading and math Homelinks. Handwriting practice for written activities is always important, but the amount completed can vary if your child struggles or is tired. If there are 5 sentences to write and your child is overwhelmed, do one or two. Just jot a note on the Homework House that this was enough for your child. I would like each student to understand that there is some responsibility for their learning beyond the school day. It does help them to form good study habits to have some homework time scheduled during their week. Of course, as the year goes on, they will be able to handle more.

This week students took the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test. This test is a measure of general ability that requires the student to use reasoning and problem solving skills. This test also helps determine which students will work with Mr. Bulger.

Book orders will come home with your child on Friday, October 2nd. Please return these by October 9th. If you are interested in ordering books as a gift for your child and would like me to set aside an order for your "secret" pick-up, I am always willing to do that.

There is no school on Monday, October 12th and there are half days on October 22nd and 23rd. Please make sure your child is aware of going home plans on the half days. First graders are often confused by this change in schedule.

LANGUAGE ARTS

We are nearing completion of Unit 1 in our Open Court series. The strategy of Prediction was introduced and we also worked on the criteria to identify reality and fantasy in our reading selections. Comparing and contrasting has also been a part of our lessons. Our next unit's theme is "Animals." Phonics work has primarily focused on the segmenting and blending of sounds, syllables, alliteration, and sound/spelling patterns.

Our grammar and mechanics work has primarily consisted of the use of capital letters and periods. In writing this week, we have started autobiographies working with a web organizer. The students will continue with this assignment next week.

SOCIAL STUDIES

We finished up our first unit this week with lessons about community life, community helpers and why people move. During these lessons, the skills of cause/effect, classifying and comparing/contrasting are used. We learned how to read a simple map key and identify map symbols.

SCIENCE

In our first weather lessons, we brainstormed weather vocabulary words. We continued charting weather observations and made a class graph of our favorite kind of weather. Class discussions also touched on how we decide what to wear each day.

MATH

This week we completed written and slate assessments for our first unit and began our Unit 2 in Everyday Math. This unit will introduce "Math Boxes" which is a built-in daily routine for review. We are using number lines and number grids to develop place value understanding and addition and subtraction skills. We are working on complements of ten and will be exploring the use of the calculator.

Telling time to the hour on an analog clock is part of our work next week. We will revisit the concept of a.m. and p.m. and try to develop a sense of the duration of a minute. It is helpful to draw your child's attention to analog clocks when you are out and about or from your watch. Using words to reference time ("about ten minutes", "about an hour", etc.) helps young children begin to understand elapsed time.

CELEBRATIONS

We are 7 books away from completing our first 100 Green Light Books! Students who brought at least one book back to read to me will enjoy a popcorn treat this next week. Thank you for supporting good reading habits at home!

Beye School Room 103

JUST THE FACTS...

It has been a pleasure getting to know the students these past few weeks. We are working hard at learning our routines, the organization of the classroom, and how to work with others. First graders are learning to work independently and to identify tools that will help them become successful learners.

We will be partnering with Mrs. Bauman's fifth graders as "Learning Buddies" this year. This will be an "almost weekly" time for the students to pair up with an older student for reading and other activities in an informal setting.

Thank you to those of you who returned the math number cards that some of you took home on Curriculum Night to cut. I am still missing about 4 sets. If you have them at home--cut or uncut--, please send them back to school.

Worshops begin on Monday, September 21st. Mrs. Jane Sheth, our reading specialist, will be working with us for small group instruction and support activities in Language Arts. Parent volunteers will help oversee other activities with both a Math and Language Arts focus.

I am collecting old socks for classroom use. They are especially helpful as erasers for our dry erase boards.

Please help your child to remember to put his/her name on all homework--the Homework House and Homelinks. We are also working very hard at remembering to not use capital letters in the middle of our names or other words.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Our first Open Court Reading unit is "Let's Read". The students are learning the routines of phonics lessons, phonemic awareness, and are introduced to the comprehension strategies of Visualizing and Asking Questions.

We've been learning about the elements of poetry: rhyme, rhythm, and repetition.

Many students have been returning their Green Light Reading stories and have done a great job reading to me. As you read with your child take time to make sure they understand vocabulary. Rereading several times helps with fluency.

In Writing, we are learning about choosing and identifying a topic, and creating topic sentences. Our lessons focus on generation of ideas, organization, word choice, fluency, voice and conventions. Students will take turns sharing what they wrote, and the group learns how to be a respectful audience.

SOCIAL STUDIES

Our Social Studies curriculum in first grade focuses on School and Family. We have started our first unit, "People Everywhere". This unit covers how people learn together in various groups--home, school, and community. Vocabulary that has been discussed includes: culture, tradition, leader, citizenship, and community.

SCIENCE

The school district has adopted a new science program this year. We will be studying "Weather" this first trimester. In this unit, students will be expanding their awareness of weather, its features, and its effects on their daily lives. First graders will be collecting, organizing, and interpreting data. They will also be introduced to simple weather instruments.

MATH

Our first unit in Everyday Math begins with establishing routines and learning about the tools available to us. We are using tallying to record data, and have using the number line to count up and back. We have used dice to explore probability, and the number cards to play "Top It". Skip counting and identifying odd and even numbers are part of our daily work.

Last week we began our work with estimation. Each week the students will estimate the number of objects in a jar. We will determine the class range and discuss whether or not our estimations were reasonable or not.

Your child should have completed three Homelinks this week and as stated earlier, these should be completed and returned the next day. The first graders are learning about time as related to a calendar which also allows us to practice our number writing. Time and Money tutoring began last week with our parent volunteers. Appreciation is great for help with these important life skills.

If you have not yet been able to send in coins, each student needs 20 pennies, 5 dimes, 6 nickels, and 4 quarters.

CELEBRATIONS

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Maia Hess
September 14th
Cyrille Puyat
September 23rd