Dear Parents,

We can’t believe it is October already and we are quickly approaching conferences and Halloween. 

Halloween Parties

Our Halloween party will be on Friday, October 28^th. Please send your child’s costume to school in an extra bag marked with their name.  We have an all school recess from 1:30-1:45 (this is when we will set up the classroom for our party).  The students will start dressing at 1:45 and will then parade around the building starting at 2:00 with the party following the parade from 2:15-3:00.  If part of your child’s costume is something like a black turtleneck or sweatpants, they may wear them to school and add the rest of their costume later.  Just a reminder, no toy guns, swords, or knives are allowed.

Morning Snack

Please remember to send your child to school everyday with a healthy snack (even when having hot lunch).  This is important to their learning!  Thank You.

Language Arts

        During Spelling through Phonics we have added more consonants to our learning as spellers. The children are anxiously waiting for their first vowel to be given in this program.   This is because we have discussed that you have to have a vowel in EVERY word in order to spell words correctly.  What could be more exciting!!  Early next week, I will introduce the short a vowel sound when it is found in the medial position.  Then we will finally be able to spell the entire word during Spelling!  J

  During Readers Workshop, our comprehension strategy for the next month or so will be learning how to identify the beginning, middle, and ending stories. This organization of text is important to understand because it supports our comprehension.  The reading strategies that your children have been taught are, when we get stuck on a word…1. look at the picture and think of what word would make sense and 2. Back up and reread the sentence while getting our mouth ready for the first sound in the unknown word and 3. Stretching and blending the sounds we hear in the unknown words.   Next week, we will work on backing up and rereading, knowing sight words in a snap, and bringing up our schema about the information in the book before we start reading. 

During writer’s workshop, we continued to work on stretching our words to hear more sounds, using spaces between our words and adding details about a personal experience. Next week, I will introduce quotation marks and suggest they try to add dialogue to their writing pieces. I am so impressed with how much writing the children are producing!  Many are stretching their stories across 4-5 pages. We are also working hard on making our sentences a 5 star sentence.  (Start with a capital letter, spaces, neat, make sense and punctuation)

                 Math

        We wrapped up our initial introduction to addition with lots of story problem practice and addition math games.  I’ve heard that many of you are enjoying playing “Double Compare” at home!  Our focus during math workshop now is on subtraction.  We are sharing many strategies with one another on how to solve subtraction story problems and are applying these skills to math practice games as well, I am very happy with the progress being made!

       

Science

In science, we have been taking full advantage of the beautiful weather we’ve been experiencing!  We will be studying weather and the seasons all year long and last week we wrapped up our summer portion of the unit as it is officially fall now!  We went outside to observe the weather using our senses and we made wind and temperature observations- ask your first grader for more details!

Social Studies

We are continuing our study of National Symbols.  In a couple of weeks we will play National Symbols Jeopardy at the completion of our learning about the American Flag, The White House, Mount Rushmore, The Liberty Bell, and The Statue of Liberty.

Computer Lab

During our computer lab time each week we have learned the names of the parts of the computer, we’ve learned about computer lab expectations, and we are even able to use two word processing programs (Microsoft Word and Power Point)!  Your child now knows how to capitalize letters, change the font and size, and insert a picture into their document.

***Thank you so much for your at home help and support.  First grade is fast paced; your child would not be having a successful experience without the team effort of home and school.  Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions, we look forward to meeting with you soon at conferences!

       

Have a great weekend!                             

       

Sincerely,

Jennifer Mason and Kelly Putnam

Upcoming Dates:

-        Friday, Oct. 7^th-

Howard Christensen Nature Center

Field Trip- DRESS FOR OUTDOOR WEATHER and remember you SACK LUNCH J

-        Wednesday, Oct. 12^th- Walk/Ride your bike to school day

-        Friday, Oct. 14^th- ½ day, 11:25 dismissal, also Walk-a-

thon, 9:30-10:15

-        Week of Oct. 17-21: Book Fair

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-        Oct. 17 & 20^th: Conferences

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-        Oct. 20^th: spirit Day- Hat Day (also, last day for mileage

club)

-        Friday, Oct. 21^st: NO SCHOOL

-        Tuesday, Oct. 25^th: PTC Meeting, 7pm

-        Friday, Oct. 28^th: Halloween Parties (see above)