Friday Flyer

Dear Families,

         Book Bingo

          During March is reading month, the first graders will be playing Book Bingo on Fridays.  The purpose is to get more books in the hands and homes of all our first graders.  This will re-energize readers to read more often if they have more books, new books, and for some…just books in their home.  You can help support this by cleaning off your children’s book shelves at home and sending in any new or gently used books.  The books will be used as prizes during our bingo games.  Several years ago we did this and children were leaving school with arm loads of new books to read.  What a great experienceJ!!  Stay turned for more information on March is Reading Month activities we will be participating in as well.

Language Arts

       The past few weeks we have been working hard on preparing for our upcoming conferences.  The children have done very well with the assessments given thus far. J On Thursday the children were introduced to the strategy of “Asking questions before, during and after reading a story”.  I modeled this for them and then they were given the opportunity to practice the first part of writing down questions they have as they review the cover of the book.  This strategy helps readers to activate any schema they may have, as well as do some predicting which helps the brain get ready for words they may see in the text.

During Spelling, we began our unit on long vowels and words that contain the silent e at the end.  As a challenge, I even chose some words with blends at the beginning that also had the silent e.  We have also reviewed / practiced words that begin and end with th-, sh-,and ch-……the children did awesome!!  Super spellers in the making!!

Math

This week we celebrated 100 days of school with lots of activities centered on the number 100!  We rotated through each of the first grade classrooms and did 100 second exercises, did estimation jar activities, read 100’s Day books, and much more!

In math workshop, students continue working on solving addition and subtraction problems and understanding place value.

                                 Science

In science we are doing lots of experimenting in our “Sorting It Out” unit.  We have sorted objects using the properties rough and smooth, flexible and rigid, and we have begun experimenting sorting objects that are magnetic and not magnetic.  Next week we will go “fishing” in our classroom to see which items in our “pond” will attract to our magnets.  We also did some research in computer lab to learn more about magnets. 

                                            Social Studies

We watched a video clip, read non-fiction books, and made Valentine “Glyph” Ladybugs to learn about Valentine’s Day last week.  Thank you for all of the wonderful donations to make our Valentine Party a huge success!

Upcoming dates:

Friday, February 24^th- Conference Time Sheets come home in Friday Folders

Tuesday, February 28^th- PTC meeting 7:00-8:00pm

Thurs, March 2^nd- PTC Roller Skating Party @ Kentwood Fun Spot 3:30-8:00pm

Friday, March 10^th- ½ day dismissal 11:25

Monday, March 13^th- Evening conferences (and Spring Book Fair)

Thursday, March 16th- Evening conferences (and Spring Book Fair)

Friday, March 17- No School

Friday, March 24- Family Fun Night at the high school 5:30-8:30

Thanks for your continued support at home!

Ms. Mason & Mrs. Putnam