Dear Families,
Happy
2017! It is good to be back at school and with the kids. We hope all of you had a great holiday and
were able to spend time with friends and family.
It is
hard to believe, but we are about half way through our school year. March conferences are quickly approaching and
we have stepped up the pace for getting ourselves ready for second grade. Please
be sure you are working on sight words (26-75).
Also, don’t forget to have your child practice SPELLING the first 25
sight words. If you have lost your
child’s sight word list please contact Ms. Mason for another one. :)
This week in language arts, we are finishing up
our study of Non-fiction text features.
We have been “pouring over” baskets and baskets of non-fiction books and
studying the purpose of all the
different features. We are also working
on identifying the main idea and supporting details of the non-fiction books we
have. The children LOVE reading non-fiction
books! If your home book collections
don’t contain any NF, please consider visiting the library or book store for
some. It is a GREAT way to recharge your
child’s interest in reading…especially during these cold winter days.
“All About Books” is the new buzz word during
Writer’s Workshop for the weeks to come.
We have been studying the experts of “ALL About books”, defining what “parts”
are included in this type of non-fiction, discussing topics in which we are
experts in such as Dogs, Cats, Soccer, School, Airplanes, etc., picking topics
and creating our own table of contents pages.
The EXCITEMENT for writer’s workshop continues!!!
During Spelling through Phonics this week, I
introduced the qu- sound and short vowel u and introduced contractions. The children are able to spell 5 and 6 letter
words with blends at the beginning correctly.
Yay!!
In math workshop this week we started Unit 4 on
measurement and fractions. Students are
comparing lengths of objects, measuring objects using cubes, practicing telling
time to the hour, and more!
In social studies we are working through our
mapping unit. We are making a “Me on the
Map” book of our rooms, streets, houses and learning about our city, state, and
country as well! When these map books
come home, you may be interested in the last page as students are deciding on
some places around the world they would like to visit, lots of great ideas for
future family vacations! J Students have enjoyed investigating many
different types of maps and sharing their observations. We will use the Bing Maps website to see maps
of the world, our continent, our state, city, and even some of our homes! Feel free to check out bingmaps.com and try
typing in your address.
In Science we continue learning lots of new things
about the weather and seasons and we began discussing/observing topics such as
snow, sleet and ice! We will also read a
true story about “Snowflake Bentley.” Wilson Bentley was fascinated with
snowflakes and studied them his entire life.
We will be observing snowflakes and will catch them on black paper and
look at them under magnifying glasses, we will discover if snowflakes all look
alike or different (as soon as the wind chill is above 0 degrees!). Our first grade scientists have lots of
excellent scientific questions!
Don’t forget that January 25th, 26th, and 27th we
have 1/2 days of school. Our dismissal
is at 11:25. Please make sure to send a
morning snack and have their after school plans in place. Also, January 27th is sock day J
Enjoy your weekend with
your family and thanks for your continued support.
Jennifer Mason and Kelly Putnam
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