Monday, October 1, 2012

Happy October!  I hope your first grader enjoyed their 3 day weekend!

DAILY REMINDERS:

• Homework tonight:  Spelling worksheet
• Parent-Teacher Conferences:  A green letter is coming home today in your child's Take Home folder.  Please complete the bottom portion and return it to school ASAP.  Thank you!
• Our field trip to Powell Symphony Hall is next Wednesday, October 10.  If you have not turned in your child's permission slip/money, please send it with your first grader this week.  Thank you!  If you are not sure whether or not you already sent it in, please send me an email, and I will let you know.

A day in the life of your first grader:

• Shared Reading-We read the book The Chick and the Duckling.  I introduced the short i vowel sound, and we highlighted words in the text with the short i sound.
• Word Work-I introduced Week 6 spelling words, and your first grader wrote them 2 times each.  They should have brought them home in their folder today.  IMPORTANT:  If you use www.spellingcity.com to practice the words each week, please note that words 6-10 listed under Week 6 are not necessarily going to be on Friday's test.  The lists on spelling city are my lists from last year.  So from now on, remember that words 1-5 on each list are the words on the test.  The other 5 words will always come from past weeks and word family words.  Eventually, I will also test them over words that I notice them consistently misspelling in their writing pieces.
• Daily 5/Guided Reading- I met with my guided reading groups today while the rest of the students went to their Daily 5 Centers. We discussed the rules and procedures for guided reading time.  We also talked about the Beanie Baby Reading Strategies.  I will be sending home these same strategies at our conferences.  I was VERY pleased with how well our first graders did on this first "real" day of Daily 5/Guided Reading.
• Math-We practiced making 10 today with different combinations of numbers.  We also used the order property at our math centers.
• Science-In our online science book we read about the 4 seasons and focused on spring.  Then we labeled and colored different trees showing the 4 seasons.