Thursday, May 5th: PTA Meeting, 6:30 in the Bennie cafeteria
Friday, May 6th: Half day for Students
Monday, May 30th: No School, Memorial Day
I cannot believe it’s already May! This year is flying by. Please check out the blog below for important dates, classroom updates, and of course, pictures!
We had a great time with some hands-on learning projects! Contraction Surgery was a success, and we wrapped up our Compound Word unit with a little Compound Word Construction activities!
The biggest highlight of April was our Publication Party when our books came in! They had the best time and were so proud of themselves! I hope you are enjoying the books at home!
We have also had a lot of fun with our 4th grade Book Buddies!
Chromebooks
It would be a huge help if you could remind your child to charge their Chromebook each night when they come home. We only have a few extra in our class to use and several students have needed them lately. Also, please check with your child if they have working headphones. Sometimes they forget to tell mom and dad that they are broken and we do use them. Thank you for your help with this!
Phonemic Awareness
Each month your child has been bringing home a monthly activity calendar. These are quick and simple activities that will strengthen basic reading skills in your child. It would be a great idea to put this on your fridge and just do one a day while you’re cooking dinner or hanging out at home. They take less than five minutes and make a huge difference with consistent practice. Check your child’s reading bag for the copies, and if you need more please just let me know.
Phonics Skills
During the month of May we are learning about the vowel teams ee, ea, ai and ay. We will be continuing to review some previous skills that we have covered in class, such as digraphs, CVCe words and some beginning and ending blends.
Heart Words for May: sure, all, are, from, what, there, have, give, one, very
We are still chart tapping and I hope you are at home! We are now using both charts daily to reinforce the letter-sound connection. The link to the blends chart is below for you to use at home!
If your child says that they know all of the first chart, see if they can do it backwards!
We are introducing the vowel teams chart which can be found using the link below!
We are working a lot with place value and writing numbers in standard form and expanded form. We are also going back and reviewing some concepts that we covered early on this year.
Writing
This month we are getting a lot of practice with revising our writings and will also be writing some opinion stories!
Welcome back from Spring Break! I hope everyone had a restful and wonderful week off. It was great seeing smiling and energetic first graders this morning!
March was quite a busy month! We had a great time beginning to work with our fourth grade book buddies, had some guest readers for Reading Month, and got to enjoy some nice weather (finally!) outside!
April is going to be a busy month with a lot of fun learning and activities coming up! Keep reading to find out more!
If you are interested in learning some more simple and easy ways to support your child’s phonics skills at home, please come to the Parent Workshop at Bennie on April 12th from 6:30-7:30! If you can come, please use the SignUp Genius Link below to register!
It would be a huge help if you could remind your child to charge their Chromebook each night when they come home. We only have a few extra in our class to use and several students have needed them lately. Also, please check with your child if they have working headphones. Sometimes they forget to tell mom and dad that they are broken and we do use them. Thank you for your help with this!
Phonemic Awareness
Each month your child has been bringing home a monthly activity calendar. These are quick and simple activities that will strengthen basic reading skills in your child. It would be a great idea to put this on your fridge and just do one a day while you’re cooking dinner or hanging out at home. They take less than five minutes and make a huge difference with consistent practice. Check your child’s reading bag for the copies, and if you need more please just let me know.
Reading Bags
Reading at home is so very important for your child! Your child always has a reading bag that comes home each it. When you have time, please make sure to read the phonics poems in the bag. These are all decodable and we have covered all of the sounds this year in these poems. Reading these over and over will provide your child with more practice with the phonics skills that we are working on in school.
Phonics Skills
During the month of April we are are wrapping up learning about beginning consonant blends and moving on to ending consonant blends. These include -ch, -tch, -ng, -ang, -ong and -ung. We are also going to begin to introduce vowel teams.
New Heart Words for April: sure, all, are, from, what, there, have, give, one, very
We are still chart tapping and I hope you are at home! We are now using both charts daily to reinforce the letter-sound connection. The link to the blends chart is below for you to use at home!
If your child says that they know all of the first chart, see if they can do it backwards!
We are introducing the vowel teams chart which can be found using the link below!
We are going to continue to work on number sense and adding and subtracting through 20 as our main math focus. We are currently working on finding missing addends, place value, and skip counting by 2, 5 and 10s. We have been doing a lot of this work during small group time for math.
Writing
Our book has officially been sent off to publication! As soon as they come in we are going to be having an Author’s Party to celebrate all of our work! In the meantime, we are continuing to work on writing conventions and writing a full sentence with a subject, adjective and a setting. First graders have had a lot of fun sharing their writings during our Author’s Chair time!
Science and Social Studies
During the month of April we are talking about Earth Day and Arab American Heritage Month for Social Studies. Light and Shadows will be our main topic for the month of April in Science.
March 7th: All Student Treasure forms due! (See below!)
March 11th: Mobile Dentist (Rescheduled)
March 28th: Spring Break
Hallway Award!
We were so excited to earn the Golden Hallway award! Everyone was able to book shop at our brand new book vending machine and got some great books!
Chromebooks
It would be a huge help if you could remind your child to charge their Chromebook each night when they come home. We only have a few extra in our class to use and several students have needed them lately. Also, please check with your child if they have working headphones. Sometimes they forget to tell mom and dad that they are broken and we do use them. Thank you for your help with this!
Phonemic Awareness
Each month your child has been bringing home a monthly activity calendar. These are quick and simple activities that will strengthen basic reading skills in your child. It would be a great idea to put this on your fridge and just do one a day while you’re cooking dinner or hanging out at home. They take less than five minutes and make a huge difference with consistent practice. Check your child’s reading bag for the copies, and if you need more please just let me know.
Arm Spelling
I know we had many conversations about practicing Arm Spelling at home. This is a strategy that we use in the classroom to help with blending words and in writing. I know this is not the best picture, but the image below talks a little bit more about Arm Spelling and why it is beneficial. Your child will be able to do this at home.
Reading Bags
Reading at home is so very important for your child! Your child always has a reading bag that comes home each it. When you have time, please make sure to read the phonics poems in the bag. These are all decodable and we have covered all of the sounds this year in these poems. Reading these over and over will provide your child with more practice with the phonics skills that we are working on in school.
Phonics Skills
We are going to be learning about consonant blends in March and are starting with beginning blends with an l. We have been practicing them when we chart tap, but will be doing some more practice with them. Here are some words to work with at home: flat, clap, glad, clip, slid, glut, slot
Here are some friends talking about the correct spelling of the word “cute”. It’s amazing to hear them use what they have learned to explain!
Vocabulary and Sound Charts
Each week we will be focusing on specific vocabulary words in our classroom. This month we are learning about setting, syllables and poems.” Ask your child what they mean and what they think of when they hear those words!
We are still chart tapping and I hope you are at home! We are now using both charts daily to reinforce the letter-sound connection. The link to the blends chart is below for you to use at home!
If your child says that they know all of the first chart, see if they can do it backwards!
We have started small groups for math to practice all of our skills and it’s going very well! During group time tables are practicing skills that we have talked about this year, such as number patterns in 120 charts, place value, adding, and skip counting! We are going to work on subtraction, fact families, and more number sense in our whole group time. We have been working on using a number line to add and subtract!
Writing
We are very excited to be working on publishing our very own book! If you haven’t done so already, please return the order from indicating if you would like to order a book or not. If everyone returns the form (even if you don’t order!) our class earns a free book to keep in the classroom and enjoy!
Science and Social Studies
During the month of March we are going to be learning about Women’s History Month. We are wrapping up our learning about the superpowers of plants and animals and are starting to learn about light and sound.
Progress Reports went home on Friday, January 28th. They are yours to keep. As always, if you have any questions, please reach out and let me know. There has been so much progress to celebrate this year!
Chromebooks
It would be a huge help if you could remind your child to charge their Chromebook each night when they come home. We only have a few extra in our class to use and several students have needed them lately. Also, please check with your child if they have working headphones. Sometimes they forget to tell mom and dad that they are broken and we do use them. Thank you for your help with this!
Phonemic Awareness
Each month your child has been bringing home a monthly activity calendar. These are quick and simple activities that will strengthen basic reading skills in your child. It would be a great idea to put this on your fridge and just do one a day while you’re cooking dinner or hanging out at home. They take less than five minutes and make a huge difference with consistent practice. Check your child’s reading bag for the copies, and if you need more please just let me know.
Sounder and Friends
Sounder and Friends is a new app that will be available on December 7th, but I believe there is an early release version available now. It focuses on those phonemic awareness skills and would be a great addition if you’re looking for new apps for your child. It is also a TV show on PBS that is airing now.
Arm Spelling
I know we had many conversations about practicing Arm Spelling at home. This is a strategy that we use in the classroom to help with blending words and in writing. I know this is not the best picture, but the image below talks a little bit more about Arm Spelling and why it is beneficial. Your child will be able to do this at home.
Reading Bags
Reading at home is so very important for your child! Your child always has a reading bag that comes home each it. When you have time, please make sure to read the phonics poems in the bag. These are all decodable and we have covered all of the sounds this year in these poems. Reading these over and over will provide your child with more practice with the phonics skills that we are working on in school.
Reading Buddies
Here is a WONDERFUL YouTube channel that would another great resource to incorporate at home to practice basic skills. Here is the link!
We have learned the V_E pattern with the vowels a, o and i. This month we will be reviewing those as well as introducing u and continuing to practice the previous sounds. The pattern of V_E, shows that there is a vowel, consonant, and then magic e. This is a huge skill that takes some time to develop and work with. Be on the lookout for new decodable books and poems coming your way with this new skill!
Our words that we will be practicing these next few weeks are tune, tube, nuke, pure, mule, cube
Heart words: little, you, is, the, was, for, said, of, been, want
Each week we will be focusing on specific vocabulary words in our classroom. This week we will focus on the words “fairy tale” and “nursery rhyme.” Ask your child what they mean and what they think of when they hear those words!
We are still chart tapping and I hope you are at home! We are now using both charts daily to reinforce the letter-sound connection. The link to the blends chart is below for you to use at home!
If your child says that they know all of the first chart, see if they can do it backwards!
If you are looking for a quick way to reinforce the proper letter sounds, here is a great video that we use in the classroom and you can play for great reinforcement!
We have started small groups for math to practice all of our skills and it’s going very well! During group time tables are practicing skills that we have talked about this year, such as number patterns in 120 charts, place value, adding, and skip counting! We are going to work on subtraction, fact families, and more number sense in our whole group time.
We have also had a lot of fun using a new game, Blooket! It’s a great way to practice adding and subtracting and having fun at the same time!
Writing
We are working on writing strong sentences that include a character, setting and an action. They are doing a great job so far! As always, we are focusing on starting sentences with capital letters, putting spaces between our words, and ending with punctuation. Blend Chart Tapping
Science and Social Studies
We have a lot of budding scientists in first grade! We have had so much fun with Science in January. Our favorite lesson was learning about how animals can use their superpower of camoflouge to protect themselves from predators. First graders did a great job hiding moths all over our classroom!
January 14th: Teacher Professional Development, no school
January 17th: Martin Luther King Jr. Day, no school
January 25th: Bennie Family Fun Night, 6:30
Snacks
Snacks will now be available to purchase in the lunchroom. They will be available to purchase at lunchtime and are 50 cents each. You can add money to your child’s lunch account if they would like to purchase! First graders can still bring in a small snack from home to eat during the afternoon in class.
Working at home
It was so wonderful to meet with all of you and celebrate your child’s accomplishments this year! I truly appreciate your support and your willingness to work at home with your child. Many of you asked about extra resources to use at home, or things to do. Here a few ideas that you can do to continue to support your child!
Phonemic Awareness
Each month your child has been brining home a monthly activity calendar. These are quick and simple activities that will strengthen basic reading skills in your child. It would be a great idea to put this on your fridge and just do one a day while you’re cooking dinner or hanging out at home. They take less than five minutes and make a huge difference with consistent practice. Check your child’s reading bag for the copies, and if you need more please just let me know.
Sounder and Friends
Sounder and Friends is a new app that will be available on December 7th, but I believe there is an early release version available now. It focuses on those phonemic awareness skills and would be a great addition if you’re looking for new apps for your child. It is also a TV show on PBS that is airing now.
Arm Spelling
I know we had many conversations about practicing Arm Spelling at home. This is a strategy that we use in the classroom to help with blending words and in writing. I know this is not the best picture, but the image below talks a little bit more about Arm Spelling and why it is beneficial. Your child will be able to do this at home.
Reading Bags
Reading at home is so very important for your child! Your child always has a reading bag that comes home each it. When you have time, please make sure to read the phonics poems in the bag. These are all decodable and we have covered all of the sounds this year in these poems. Reading these over and over will provide your child with more practice with the phonics skills that we are working on in school.
Reading Buddies
Here is a WONDERFUL YouTube channel that would another great resource to incorporate at home to practice basic skills. Here is the link!
We are kicking off the year learning about all of the jobs that “Magic E” can do! We are focusing first on how magic e will skip over a consonant and make the vowel say it’s name. We will focus first on the vowel a and progress through the other vowels. First graders will learn the pattern of V_E, showing that there is a vowel, consonant, and then magic e. This is a huge skill that takes some time to develop and work with. Be on the lookout for new decodable books and poems coming your way with this new skill!
Our words that we will be practicing these next few weeks are ate, late, lane, case, pave, name, maze
Each week we will be focusing on specific vocabulary words in our classroom. This week we will focus on the words “fairy tale” and “nursery rhyme.” Ask your child what they mean and what they think of when they hear those words!
We are still chart tapping and I hope you are at home! This month we are going to start chart tapping blends. A copy will be in reading bags this week to practice at home. We are starting with just the first line of blends. Check out the link below!
If you are looking for a quick way to reinforce the proper letter sounds, here is a great video that we use in the classroom and you can play for great reinforcement!
We are working with numbers 1-20. We are practicing number formation, ways to make 20, number bonds to 10, and some place value. These topics are the basis for so many math skills and we will be spending the majority of the year on these concepts. We will begin to talk about adding, subtracting and fact families over the next two weeks.
Writing
We are working on writing strong sentences that include a character, setting and an action. They are doing a great job so far! As always, we are focusing on starting sentences with capital letters, putting spaces between our words, and ending with punctuation.
Science and Social Studies
We have a lot of budding scientists in first grade! We are starting our unit on the superpowers of plants and animals!
We will be using the program Sown to Grow in class. It is an online platform that allows students to check in with me online once a week and tell me how they are feeling. It is a great way to talk about emotions, goal setting and reflection. Right now we are just focusing on identifying how we are feeling and why. As the year progress and students use this platform more, they will work on using strategies to help those positive feelings stick around. If you would like to check out their reflections each week, they can log into the program using their Clever Badge at home and you can talk about it together!
A HUGE THANK YOU to our wonderful PTA for putting on such a great Book Fair! Check out the awesome books we now have for our classroom library!
Working at home
It was so wonderful to meet with all of you and celebrate your child’s accomplishments this year! I truly appreciate your support and your willingness to work at home with your child. Many of you asked about extra resources to use at home, or things to do. Here a few ideas that you can do to continue to support your child!
Phonemic Awareness
Each month your child has been brining home a monthly activity calendar. These are quick and simple activities that will strengthen basic reading skills in your child. It would be a great idea to put this on your fridge and just do one a day while you’re cooking dinner or hanging out at home. They take less than five minutes and make a huge difference with consistent practice. Check your child’s reading bag for the copies, and if you need more please just let me know.
Sounder and Friends
Sounder and Friends is a new app that will be available on December 7th, but I believe there is an early release version available now. It focuses on those phonemic awareness skills and would be a great addition if you’re looking for new apps for your child. It is also a TV show on PBS that is airing now.
Arm Spelling
I know we had many conversations about practicing Arm Spelling at home. This is a strategy that we use in the classroom to help with blending words and in writing. I know this is not the best picture, but the image below talks a little bit more about Arm Spelling and why it is beneficial. Your child will be able to do this at home.
Reading Bags
Reading at home is so very important for your child! Your child always has a reading bag that comes home each it. When you have time, please make sure to read the phonics poems in the bag. These are all decodable and we have covered all of the sounds this year in these poems. Reading these over and over will provide your child with more practice with the phonics skills that we are working on in school.
Reading Buddies
Here is a WONDERFUL YouTube channel that would another great resource to incorporate at home to practice basic skills. Here is the link!
We have been learning about open and closed syllables these last few weeks. An open syllable is a part of a work that ends with a long vowel sound, and a closed syllable is a part of a word that ends with a consonant letter and a short vowel. Learning about the different syllable types is so important for first grades, as it will help them decode longer words when reading. They have been doing a great job labeling letters in words and “scooping” syllable parts in words!
These next two weeks we will be learning about a new phonics rule, the ‘”floss rule.” The floss rule applies to words that have only one vowel and ends in the letter f, l or s. If this is the case, we double the last letter. This will be important for students to learn not only in their reading, but in their writing as well. Our words that we will be practicing these next few weeks are well, tell, jazz, mill, sell, pass
Each week we will be focusing on specific vocabulary words in our classroom. This week we will focus on the words “advertisement” and “index.” Ask your child what they mean and what they think of when they hear those words!
Starting this week, you will notice two sound charts in your child’s read at home bag. One chart will have the letters of the alphabet with pictures and the other will have the vowels with pictures. We are using these everyday to reinforce letter sounds. Research has shown that when this is done daily, the brain develops pathways that are foundations for reading. Here are two videos that show how you can do this with your child. It should only take 2-3 minutes after you establish a routine, and can be done easily before you read the phonics poems and readers that are in the bag. If you have any questions, please let me know!
Letter Sound Video
If you are looking for a quick way to reinforce the proper letter sounds, here is a great video that we use in the classroom and you can play for great reinforcement!
We are working with numbers 1-20. We are practicing number formation, ways to make 20, number bonds to 10, and some place value. These topics are the basis for so many math skills and we will be spending the majority of the year on these concepts. We will begin to talk about adding, subtracting and fact families over the next two weeks.
Writing
We are working on writing strong sentences that include a character, setting and an action. They are doing a great job so far! As always, we are focusing on starting sentences with capital letters, putting spaces between our words, and ending with punctuation.
Science and Social Studies
We have a lot of budding scientists in first grade! We are starting our unit on the superpowers of plants and animals!
We will be using the program Sown to Grow in class. It is an online platform that allows students to check in with me online once a week and tell me how they are feeling. It is a great way to talk about emotions, goal setting and reflection. Right now we are just focusing on identifying how we are feeling and why. As the year progress and students use this platform more, they will work on using strategies to help those positive feelings stick around. If you would like to check out their reflections each week, they can log into the program using their Clever Badge at home and you can talk about it together!
November 9th: Culver’s Restaurant Night! Come support Bennie and get some dinner at Culver’s from 5-8 pm!
November 18th: Building Up to Kindergarten Part 1, 4:30-5:30
November 24th-November 26th: No School, Thanksgiving Break
November 29th: Book Fair at Bennie all week! Details coming soon!
November 30th: Picture Retake Day
December 1st: Parent-Teacher Conferences, 5-7:30
December 2nd: Half Day for students. Conferences 12:45-3:15 and 5-7:30
December 3rd: Bennie Gives Back Event, 6:30
December 20th: Break begins
Progress reports will go home today with your child! There is a writing sample attached and the latest phonics word assessment and a number writing assessment. All are yours to keep at home. If you have any questions, please let me know!
Here are the updated class totals so far for the contest! Way to go families!
The PTA is having a membership contest that runs through November 19th. The class that has the most paid memberships will will $75 to use at Scholastic to purchase books for the classroom and a popcorn treat! I will also sweeten the pot and student’s who have families that joined will get 15 Bobcat Bucks:)
The PTA is an AMAZING group that does so many great things for our students. They sponsor activities, put on assemblies, and purchase lots of things for our building for students and teachers. They could not operate without our support!
The cost to join is only $7 per person, and goes a long way to help them! Each adult in a family can join, or just one person. I will be sending home a flyer tomorrow for you to fill out and return with the money if you choose to join, or you can register online using the link below.
We have been using the Chromebooks more and more as the weeks go on! It would be a HUGE help if you could help your child practice logging into the Chromebook with their Student ID and password. Clever Badges are now up and working and it has made the log in process so much smoother! We are still loving our Clevertouch! It’s a great way to have interactive lessons and hands on learning!
Reading
One of the books we will be reading this week is A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting. We will also be learning about turkeys using a lot of non-fiction books this month!
We have started all of our center rotations and small groups! Finger flashlights have been great fun to practice reading fluency and students are loving the syllable sorts and domino games to reinforce phonics skills!
Phonics Skills
We are going to be focusing on the short u sound and will be reviewing all of the short vowels.
Some words to work on at home will be: up, us, cut, run, but, jump, just, must, upon
Each week we will be focusing on specific vocabulary words in our classroom. This week we will focus on the words “advertisement” and “index.” Ask your child what they mean and what they think of when they hear those words!
Starting this week, you will notice two sound charts in your child’s read at home bag. One chart will have the letters of the alphabet with pictures and the other will have the vowels with pictures. We are using these everyday to reinforce letter sounds. Research has shown that when this is done daily, the brain develops pathways that are foundations for reading. Here are two videos that show how you can do this with your child. It should only take 2-3 minutes after you establish a routine, and can be done easily before you read the phonics poems and readers that are in the bag. If you have any questions, please let me know!
Letter Sound Video
If you are looking for a quick way to reinforce the proper letter sounds, here is a great video that we use in the classroom and you can play for great reinforcement!
We are working with numbers 1-20. We are practicing number formation, ways to make 20, number bonds to 10, and some place value. These topics are the basis for so many math skills and we will be spending the majority of the year on these concepts. We have already started exploring number bonds using some beans and plastic plates. They are catching on quickly!
Writing
We are continuing to work on matching our ideas to illustrations in our writing. We are also focusing on writing conventions, such as starting a sentence with capital letters, spaces between words, and punctuation at the end of a sentence. We used this book, The Best Story Ever, to talk about whey we should write about what is important to us and what we know a lot about.
Science and Social Studies
We have a lot of budding scientists in first grade! We are starting our unit on the superpowers of plants and animals!
We will be using the program Sown to Grow in class. It is an online platform that allows students to check in with me online once a week and tell me how they are feeling. It is a great way to talk about emotions, goal setting and reflection. Right now we are just focusing on identifying how we are feeling and why. As the year progress and students use this platform more, they will work on using strategies to help those positive feelings stick around. If you would like to check out their reflections each week, they can log into the program using their Clever Badge at home and you can talk about it together!
October 25th: Book Character Pumpkins due (see below!)
October 29th: Half Day of school, 11:30 dismissal
October 29th: Outdoor Halloween Parade, 10:45
The PTA is having a membership contest that runs through November 19th. The class that has the most paid memberships will will $75 to use at Scholastic to purchase books for the classroom and a popcorn treat! I will also sweeten the pot and student’s who have families that joined will get 15 Bobcat Bucks:)
The PTA is an AMAZING group that does so many great things for our students. They sponsor activities, put on assemblies, and purchase lots of things for our building for students and teachers. They could not operate without our support!
The cost to join is only $7 per person, and goes a long way to help them! Each adult in a family can join, or just one person. I will be sending home a flyer tomorrow for you to fill out and return with the money if you choose to join, or you can register online using the link below.
We will be participating in the Bennie Halloween Parade on Friday, October 29th at 10:45. Students may wear their costumes to school that day. The parade will be outside if the weather cooperates! If we are outside, please come and watch our parade!
We will be sharing our Book Character Pumpkins that morning and will be doing a few other activities. Please do not send in any candy or treats to pass out with your child that day. Thank you for your cooperation!
Pumpkins will also be sent home that afternoon. It is a half day that day with dismissal at 11:30.
Technology
We have been using the Chromebooks more and more as the weeks go on! It would be a HUGE help if you could help your child practice logging into the Chromebook with their Student ID and password. Clever Badges are now up and working and it has made the log in process so much smoother! We are still loving our Clevertouch! It’s a great way to have interactive lessons and hands on learning!
Book Character Pumpkins
Please check your child’s folder for a note coming home today about this! I hope to add to our Halloween celebration by having students work on this project at home. They can decorate and create a pumpkin based on a favorite character from a book! They can bring them into school on October 25th and will get sent home on the 29th so you can have them for trick-or-treating!
Reading
The next two weeks we will be reading the book Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems. We are going to be talking about characters, plot, and setting.
We have started all of our center rotations and small groups! Finger flashlights have been great fun to practice reading fluency and students are loving the syllable sorts and domino games to reinforce phonics skills!
Phonics Skills
This week we will be focusing on the short e sound. We are also reviewing our vowel sounds that we have learned, a, i, o and u.
Short e words: get, red, yes, ten, went, let, help, best
We will not be having spelling tests this year. Instead, we will frequently take a dictation test, which will look like the above image. Students will be asked to write the letters that spell the sounds we have been working on, new phonics skills, and some of our phonics words or heart words. We will be doing the first one together to get some practice taking tests and what it will look like, but as the weeks continue they will be working independently on them.
Letter Sound Video
If you are looking for a quick way to reinforce the proper letter sounds, here is a great video that we use in the classroom and you can play for great reinforcement!
We are working with numbers 1-20. We are practicing number formation, ways to make 20, number bonds to 10, and some place value. These topics are the basis for so many math skills and we will be spending the majority of the year on these concepts. We have already started exploring number bonds using some beans and plastic plates. They are catching on quickly!
Writing
We are continuing to work on matching our ideas to illustrations in our writing. We are also focusing on writing conventions, such as starting a sentence with capital letters, spaces between words, and punctuation at the end of a sentence. We used this book, The Best Story Ever, to talk about whey we should write about what is important to us and what we know a lot about.
Science and Social Studies
We have a lot of budding scientists in first grade! We had a lot of fun with some spooky science activities and will be learning about the superpowers of plants and animals with some mystery science activities.
Last week we started using the program Sown to Grow in class. It is an online platform that allows students to check in with me online once a week and tell me how they are feeling. It is a great way to talk about emotions, goal setting and reflection. Right now we are just focusing on identifying how we are feeling and why. As the year progress and students use this platform more, they will work on using strategies to help those positive feelings stick around. If you would like to check out their reflections each week, they can log into the program using their Clever Badge at home and you can talk about it together!
October 11th: Cultural Celebration at Bennie, 6:30. We can’t wait to see you at the first Bennie Family Cultural Celebration! Please RSVP using the link below if you are planning to come!
October 25th: Book Character Pumpkins due (see below!)
October 29th: Half Day of school, 11:30 dismissal
October 29th: Outdoor Halloween Parade, 10:45
Technology
We have been using the Chromebooks more and more as the weeks go on! It would be a HUGE help if you could help your child practice logging into the Chromebook with their Student ID and password. Right now the Cleverbadges aren’t working properly and they need to be able to do this to get into the computer. Hopefully the badges will be working soon! I have given each student their Student ID and password on a sticky note and had it on their Chromebook. Any practice that they can have with this would be amazing! Thank you!
Book Character Pumpkins
Please check your child’s folder for a note coming home today about this! I hope to add to our Halloween celebration by having students work on this project at home. They can decorate and create a pumpkin based on a favorite character from a book! They can bring them into school on October 25th and will get sent home on the 29th so you can have them for trick-or-treating!
Reading
The next two weeks we will be reading the book Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds. We are going to be talking about characters, plot, and setting.
This past week we did some book shopping in our classroom to get fun books and good fit books to read during free time!
We are going to be doing a lot of work this year with Phonological Awareness. This is being able to think about, hear and manipulate individual sounds, or phonemes, in words. Have a strong grasp on these skills is a huge building block to learning how to be a successful reader. Each day we will be doing some of the activities in whole groups and small groups listed in the graphic above to develop these skills.
The October Phonemic Awareness calendar came home last week. These daily activities should only take a few minutes each day and are extremely important in developing reading skills. Thank you for working with your child!
Phonics Skills
This week we will be focusing on the short o sound. We are also working with words that have the short i and short a sound in them.
We will not be having spelling tests this year. Instead, we will frequently take a dictation test, which will look like the above image. Students will be asked to write the letters that spell the sounds we have been working on, new phonics skills, and some of our phonics words or heart words. We will be doing the first one together to get some practice taking tests and what it will look like, but as the weeks continue they will be working independently on them.
Math
We wrapped up our geometry unit making shapes using toothpicks and playdough! I think we might have some future designers in this group! I saw lots of 3D shapes being made!
We are starting to discuss numbers to 10. We are practicing number formation, ways to make 10, and are using 10 frames and number bonds!
Writing
We are continuing to work on matching our ideas to illustrations in our writing. We are also focusing on writing conventions, such as starting a sentence with capital letters, spaces between words, and punctuation at the end of a sentence.
Science and Social Studies
We are using Mystery Science this month and will be doing some fun “spooky science” activities. We are still talking about taking brave breaths to calm our bodies down when we have big feelings and what some good strategies are to use when we are feeling those big feelings.
It’s been a wonderful few weeks in Room 206! These kids have done a wonderful job and I am proud of all of their hard work. Thank you for all of your support and kind words this month!
September 24th: Book Orders due (see link below to order!)
September 28th: Picture Day
October 7th: PTA Meeting, 6:30
October 11th: Cultural Celebration at Bennie, 6:30
October 29th: Half Day of school, 11:30 dismissal
Technology
We have been using the Chromebooks more and more as the weeks go on! It would be a HUGE help if you could help your child practice logging into the Chromebook with their Student ID and password. Right now the Cleverbadges aren’t working properly and they need to be able to do this to get into the computer. Hopefully the badges will be working soon! I have given each student their Student ID and password on a sticky note and had it on their Chromebook. Any practice that they can have with this would be amazing! Thank you!
Thank you for signing up for Class Dojo! I hope that you are finding it easy to navigate. Please remember that we are still working on normalization at this time and practicing procedures and learning expectations in our classroom. If you see negative point on your child’s account, at this time it is just for reminders and practice. It will always be followed up with positive reinforcement and points. I will always reach out to you privately if there is anything we need to discuss. As always, if you have a question or concern, please send me a message!
Thank you for supporting our class! You can check out the September catalogs below. All orders should be submitted by Friday, September 24th.
The next two weeks we will be reading the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. We are going to be talking about characters, plot, setting, and making some text to self connections about a time when we were mad.
This past week we did some book shopping in our classroom to get fun books and good fit books to read during free time!
We are going to be doing a lot of work this year with Phonological Awareness. This is being able to think about, hear and manipulate individual sounds, or phonemes, in words. Have a strong grasp on these skills is a huge building block to learning how to be a successful reader. Each day we will be doing some of the activities in whole groups and small groups listed in the graphic above to develop these skills.
The September Phonemic Awareness calendar came home last week. These daily activities should only take a few minutes each day and are extreamly important in developing reading skills. Thank you for working with your child!
Heart Words
This year we will be learning about Heart Words, which you may remember from previous as “sight words” or “high frequency words.” These are words that in the past we have told students to memorize and recognize by sight alone. The parts of the word that can’t be decoded have a “heart part”, which I tell students they just have to know that part in their heart. The image below is an example. I have attached the copy of the Heart Word letter that went home at Meet the Teacher for your reference again.
This year, we will be working with different groups of heart words each week that correspond to the phonics skill that we are working on. These next two weeks we will be working with words that have the short i sound. These short i words may not be sight words yet, but when students learn how to decode them and the phonics skills, they will turn into sight words. The words that we will be focusing on are:
We will not be having spelling tests this year. Instead, we will frequently take a dictation test, which will look like the above image. Students will be asked to write the letters that spell the sounds we have been working on, new phonics skills, and some of our phonics words or heart words. We will be doing the first one together to get some practice taking tests and what it will look like, but as the weeks continue they will be working independently on them.
Math
Our first unit in math will cover solid and flat shapes. We will be talking about sides, vertices and the different qualities of flat and 3D shapes. We have had fun working with some solid shapes this past week!
Writing
We will be kicking off our writing unit talking about the very important jobs that authors do, and talking about why we write. We are doing to be working on making sure our ideas and thoughts match the pictures that we are drawing and adding a lot of details to our writings and drawings. Some writing pieces will be kept at school in our writing folders, and others will be send home, so make sure you are on the lookout for them!
Science and Social Studies
We will be using Scholastic News and the Choose Love lessons for science and social studies this month. We are going to be focusing our lessons on character development, community building and emotional learning.
