Sept. 16, 2011 Update...

Hi Parents,

Thank you for visiting this week!  We want to welcome Colin Moore and his family to our class!  Colin joined us on Monday and we are all enjoying getting to know him. Before reading about our academic week, I wanted to ask a favor...can you please make sure that your child can tie his/her shoes?  This is a skill that should be mastered by the end of kindergarten.   We've got LOTS of shoelaces flippin around in our room!
Here's what we've learned this week...

Phonics/Grammar:  We learned all about the th/wh digraphs.  We learned what these digraphs sound like and what common words we will see them in.  We also reviewed our long and short vowel rules, focusing on when to use that "bossy e" at the end of words.  We also reviewed what is needed to make a sentence (capitalization, punctuation, correct spacing, and a complete thought).

Writing: We began discussing how good writers edit their work to make it "look" good.  We learned the editing marks for capitalization, spelling errors, and missing punctuation.  We worked on editing a paragraph and rewriting it correctly. This will continue to be our emphasis during writer's workshop next week as well.

Reading: We began our new chapter book by Barbara Park, The Kid in the Red Jacket. It is about a boy who moves to a new town and experiences some challenges with being the new kid.  It's a very funny story and the students are really enjoying it. It is providing great inferencing discussions!  We also worked in small groups on our oral reading fluency. We listened to several different stories this week and used props to help us retell the important events in the stories. We completed several graphic organizers to retell as well. Your children should be experts at identifying the characters, setting, and four events at this point in the year! We also worked in partner groups to practice our site word books.

Math: We are working on learning subtraction strategies this week. We learned how to count back to solve, how to use a number line, and how to draw a picture and cross out or compare to subtract.  Please pay special attention to any math papers coming home this week. This will help you identify if your child is mastering the subtraction standards for first grade.  We also reviewed writing the given set of addition problems for a specific number and what patterns we recognize when writing these sets.

Social Studies: We are learning all about Benjamin Franklin this week.  We've discovered that he was an inventor, a writer, and an important historical figure who was one of our founding fathers.

Class News and Events:
Congratulations to Addison Newberry for being chosen as this week's Teacher's Helper!  She exhibited all the important character traits and is an excellent example to her peers!

Thank you for all the positive comments this week!  I've enjoyed speaking to all of you and if I have missed you, I'll try calling again this weekend. 

The book fair is going on all next week.  You can send money in with your child or come to the book fair yourself! There are some wonderful selections to choose from at great prices.