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!