January 3: Happy New Year! Back to school!
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!
https://www.youtube.com/c/ReadingBuddiesTRL
Phonics Skills
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
Heart words: little, you,
Vocabulary and Sound Charts
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!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlHYphTqxGc&t=2s
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!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3M_rdef7sw&t=264s
Math
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!
Have a great week!