Fencl's First Grade Facts

2010-05-20T14:56:00.000-07:00

JUST THE FACTS...

Of course the next two weeks are very busy at Beye School as we wind down the school year. Here are the special events happening in your child's school life for the remainder of the year!

Student Council is sponsoring the last fundraiser of the year called COINS 4 KIDS. This is to benefit children with cancer. Students will realize how even the smallest coin can make a difference to someone.

MATH MONEY? I still have the coins that you sent in for our math work this year. My intent was to save them for use in 2nd grade math. If you would prefer they are sent home and then sent in again in August, please let me know.

If I don't hear from you I will assume it is okay for me to keep them for second grade Everyday Math. Or...if you want to donate them to the fundraiser just let me know that as well!

Wednesday, May 19th Brookfield Zoo Trip

What great weather we had! Thank you to the many parents that joined us! We had great discussions about what we saw and wrote descriptive paragraphs about the animals we liked best!

Thursday, May 20th

We planted the first grade garden under the guidance of Sue Ryba. Thank to Sue for all her hard work on this project! We hope to harvest what we grow and use it next year at nutritional tastings!

Friday, May 21st

This will be our last Reading Buddy Get Together.

We will end our "partnerships" by wishing our 5th grade friends a great learning adventure at the Middle School.

Monday, May 24th

Passports Around the World is our kickoff to International Week. The students will be visiting mini-exhibits from various cultures.

Tuesday May 25

As our final PBIS celebration, the students are invited to bring in a favorite board or card game for Tuesday afternoon. Please no electronic games. Encourage your child to bring a game he/she enjoys playing and knows well enough to teach others how to play. Please make sure your child's name is on the game.

Wednesday, May 26

Near the end of the day the students will meet their Olympic Day captain and then the entire school will meet for our "opening ceremony" which will include reminders of good sportsmanship and the recitation of the Olympic Oath.

Friday, May 28

Olympic Day! All students participate on multi-grade teams for an all-day extravaganza of fun indoor and outdoor events! The students will come home tired and happy and quite ready for the 3 day weekend...

Monday, May 31

Memorial Day holiday!

Tuesday, June 1st

It's Read-A-Lot and Clean-A-Lot day. Students should come to school with a large shopping bag or 2 to take home lots of school materials. They may also bring their favorite book.

Wednesday, June 2nd

We will spend some time moving out the first grade materials and bringing in the 2nd grade curriculum to our classroom. We will then have our end of the year picnic planned by our room parents. We will be at Stevenson Park from 10:30-1:30. Families are welcome to meet us there. Students must return the permission form sent home to join the walking trip. $5.00 is being collected from each family to cover the cost of food and fun. Students are welcome to bring soft, labeled, safe, outdoor toys for this event. Please send in permission and money ASAP so our planners can start the preparation.

Thursday, June 3rd

Please make sure your child arrives for our last meeting as first graders. SCHOOL IS IN SESSION FOR ABOUT AN HOUR. Each student will be bringing home a large envelope that will hold your child's report card, probably some additional school information and a lot of things that can be worked on to stay ready for next year. If your child returns to second grade in August with evidence of some learning over the summer, they will be invited to an ice cream party in September!

And finally...

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

FIRST DAY OF 2ND GRADE!

2010-03-08T08:30:00.000-08:00

JUST THE FACTS...

A belated thank you to all the parents that helped out at our ice skating party. We could not have done it without you. We had a great time. The first graders turned out to be great skaters!

Report cards will be sent home on Friday, March 12th. Please sign and return the envelope as proof of your receipt.

EVENTS:

March 24/25th are the Drama Club "Annie" performances. We will most likely be attending the performance on the 25th.

March 26th is Beye School's 130th Anniversary celebration. All-school activities will be set up much like the health fair during that morning.

SPRING BREAK begins at the end of the day on March 26th and school resumes on April 5th.

STUDENT COUNCIL

Student Council is sponsoring a supply drive for the people of Haiti. You are encouraged to donate any of the following supplies: kids' clothing, games, French books or movies, coloring books and crayons, adult and older girl sized underwear, premie and newborn diapers. There is a collection box in Mrs. Walsh-Kallay's room.

WELLNESS COMMITTEE

The school Wellness Committee is sponsoring a food drive. The food drive is going on now until the 26th of the month. Please send in any canned or preserved goods.

FAMILY MATH NIGHT

Family Math Night is a chance for you to come and work with your child on a variety of math activities! You will work your way through different concepts and learn ways to help your child at home! Hope to see you there!

Date: Thursday, March 18
Time: 6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Where: Beye School Commons
Who: K-5 Families

Each participant will receive a raffle ticket for a chance to win a prize!
Baby-sitting will be available!

LANGUAGE ARTS

We are nearing the end of Unit 6 "Journeys". Next week we will begin Unit 7 "Keep Trying". The students will now be reading from an anthology and will be given weekly reading comprehension tests. These tests will have some multiple choice, some short answer and extended response kinds of questions. This will be a big change for the first graders as they learn to respond in complete sentences, and to make written connections related to their readings. There will also be weekly vocabulary tests and "spelling in writing" tests. The "Keep Trying" theme will include stories of perseverance. In this unit the students will work on story structure, use prior knowledge, and make and explain inferences. Our language conventions will cover past tense verbs, possessive pronouns, and comparing adjectives. We will also work on concept words, antonyms, classification, and short and long vowel spellings.

SOCIAL STUDIES

Our next unit in Social Studies is entitled "Everything Changes". The first graders will be learning that history is the story about people, places, and events from the past. We will be reading and talking about customs and traditions of groups of people from the past.

HEALTH/SCIENCE

This week we will be finishing up on some health lessons. These remaining lessons have to do with empathy training, impulse control and problem solving, and anger management.

The past few weeks we have also been working on our Physical Science unit of Solids and Liquids. This unit teaches students to describe solids and liquids by their properties. The students have been observing and comparing a variety of solids and running observational tests on color, shape, the ability of solids to roll or stack, hardness, magnetic attraction and floating and sinking. Future lessons will cover viscosity and fluidity.

MATH

We continue our work with fact triangles, the addition/subtraction table, and place value for tens and ones. The "What's My Rule" routine is a weekly part of this unit. Our explorations will be with pattern blocks, triangle shapes and geoboards. The quarter will be introduced in lesson 6.9. We will finish up the unit with digital clocks, timing in seconds and data collection. Please make sure your child is using the triangle flash cards that have come home as Homelinks. This is crucial to achieving "FACT POWER"!

CELEBRATIONS

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Nora Wollen

March 11th

Andrew Kitzman

March 20th

Savannah Broderick

March 29th

2010-02-04T11:42:00.000-08:00

JUST THE FACTS...

Thank you to everyone for your on-time arrivals at conferences. I enjoyed meeting with everyone.

VALENTINES' DAY

Your child is allowed to bring in Valentines on Friday the 12th. The rule is: if you choose to participate, you must bring one for everyone in the class. I will attach a list of student names to Monday's homework to help your child address envelopes. We are not having a "party" but will have a small treat and enjoy reading our valentines. Our Art Awareness parents will be leading us in decorating valentine boxes earlier in the week.

SNOWBALLS!

Yes we made our goal. As of Friday morning the first graders read a grand total of 2,337 books. We thank you for your support. Now we get to go ice skating!

Look for a permission form to come home on Monday outlining our plans for the afternoon of February 19th.

Don't forget there is no school on Monday, February 15th due to President's Day.

If you would like to read a great article and view some pictures from last month's Peace Concert led by Mrs. Friesen go to

http://blogs.pioneerlocal.com/oakpark365/2010/01/jan_30_2009_-_beye_sing.html.

SIX FLAGS READING

This is a reminder to you that if your child is working towards the free admission ticket to Six Flags the reading log is due by February 26th! Late entries will not be accepted! If your child has completed the 6 hours you can send the log in at any time and I will hold them until collection day.

LANGUAGE ARTS

This week the student's began writing a story about the best day of their life--so far! They are using a graphic organizer to answer the where? when? who? and why? details of their chosen event. We continue to work on sequencing, capitalization, and punctuation in telling our stories.

The students are also working with DOL (Daily Oral Language)sentences. They find errors in sentences I write on the board and make corrections. They must identify the grammar or punctuation rule that goes with each correction.

In our reading, we will be focusing on cause and effect , making inferences, making connections and summarizing. Determining the main idea of a story will be part of our discussions. Next week we will be reviewing adjectives and verbs.

SOCIAL STUDIES

Our last lesson in Unit 3 discusses how goods are brought to market. We will learn about the process of making orange juice-- getting food to market.

We will use a Compass Rose to give and find directions on a map. These social studies lessons often use the same comprehension strategies used in our reading--- such as cause/effect and compare/contrast.

HEALTH

This week we worked with our personal safety curriculum. This curriculum gives the students rules, information, and role playing to help them protect themselves in unsafe situations. Our discussion centered on bicycle safety, gun safety and safe and unsafe touches.

MATH

We finish Unit 5 next week with work on doubles facts (5+5=10) and facts related to doubles (5+6=11). Assessment will follow. Unit 6 starts out with learning about the addition/subtraction facts table. We will be working on equivalent names for numbers, fact families, and turn around facts. The students will be working with triangle flash cards. The "big idea" of unit 6 is to develop "fact power" -- the instant recall of sums of 1-digit numbers without stopping to figure them out. Working at home on math facts is always a help to the development of fact power!

CELEBRATIONS
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Nathan Tirone
February 14th

2010-01-13T05:09:00.000-08:00

JUST THE FACTS...

“In Concert!” Grades 1 and 2

Wednesday, January 20th

The Art and Music classes of Ms. Sundquist and Mrs. Friesen present:

SING ME TO PEACE

The first grade concert is at 6:15. Students should arrive at 6:00 and go directly to our classroom. Students are encouraged to wear blue and/or white.

Many thanks to everyone who participated in our First Grade New Year's Family Breakfast. The food was great and the company was lovely. We enjoyed the opportunity to meet with families in an informal setting and to welcome in 2010 together! Extra thanks to room parent organizers!

This month's book order is now available online at www.scholastic.com/bookclubs. The user name is FenclFirstGrade and the password is Rm 103. You can order from January Seesaw, January Lucky and from Club Shop that carries over 600 additional items. Orders are due by January 22nd.

There is no school on Monday, January 18th in honor of Martin Luther King's birthday and there is also no school on Monday January 25th, due to Teacher Institute Day.

Conference appointments confirmations have now gone home. Please let me know if you did not get one. Remember these portfolio conferences in the first week of February include your first grader! I'm looking forward to meeting with all of you.

Supply update: At this time of year, many of our pencil supplies start dwindling. Please check in with your child to see if he/she has an ample supply of pencils and erasers.

Winter wear: As I am sure you know, many hats, mittens, and scarves are lost this time of year. If you put your child's name in/on these items and there is a greater chance that these items will find their way back to your family. Also, please remember that the playground gets very wet. Boots are a must and having an extra pair of socks in a backpack is very helpful.

THE GREAT SNOWBALL BOOK BLITZ IS UNDERWAY! Thank you for your support with this reading incentive. Please remember that this is a homework component for the next few weeks. Most children have been bringing snowballs in. If your child has not, please work towards that so we can all go on our ice skating trip. Our train has now reached the second wall and at this typing our class has a grand total of 183 books!

THANK YOU FOR ALL OF THE PAPER TOWEL TUBES! We now have enough and do not need any more sent in!

DOES YOUR CHILD NEED SOMETHING TO DO ON MONDAY? Students are invited to participate in the Martin Luther King Health Challenge which is being held at OPRF High School on Monday, January 18th from 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM. It is organized for Kindergarten through 8th grade and is for all children. There will be games, fun fitness activities, food and prizes. All participants will receive a Tshirt and lunch. There will also be drawings for prizes - including bikes. The event is free. For more information call the Multicultural Education Department or come and register at the High School on Monday between 9:00 and 9:45 AM.

LANGUAGE ARTS

This week Mrs. Sheth, our Language Arts Specialist, is assessing all the first graders for a mid-year check. Next week we will be finishing up and assessing Unit 4 in Open Court. Our assessments include compound words, vocabulary, grammar, listening for details, as well as sounds. Unit 5 revolves around the theme of Weather, which is a nice connection to our previous work in science. Stories in this theme cover the genres of Expository Text, Poetry, Realistic Fiction and Informational Writing. All the comprehension strategies are addressed with some skill work on main idea and details, comparing and contrasting, cause and effect, sequencing, and classifying and categorizing.

In writing, last week the students concentrated on learning how to write an invitation. This week they have been writing thank you notes. Within the next few weeks, they will be learning how to write instructions, labels, and how to summarize text.

SOCIAL STUDIES

The students are exploring the differences between goods and services and to identify examples of goods and services jobs in the community. We will be learning how people acquire goods--with money or through trade or barter--and why they save money.

MATH

The first graders have been working hard on their number scrolls. This activity will be ongoing for the rest of the school year and even into the summer! This is a great exercise for number writing practice and increasing knowledge of our base-10 place-value system.

Unit 5 is about extending understanding of addition and subtraction. We will be working with number stories increasing our knowledge of concrete/pictoral/verbal/and number-model representations. We are using base ten blocks often and will also be using more of the relation smbols of <, >, and =. Our explorations will cover area and weight.

CELEBRATIONS
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Benjamin Brandt
Katie D'Ambrogio
January 23rd

2009-12-14T12:09:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-02T14:39:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-10-19T12:35:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-01T04:50:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-16T16:26:00.000-07:00

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