Weekly Update

Hello Families,

Welcome to November! The year is going quickly. We’ll be reaching our 100^th day before we know it! Thank you for attending your child’s conference. If you need to make up your child’s conference please contact me as soon as possible. Also, please remember that if your child was on target at conference times, it doesn’t necessarily mean they will be at the end of the trimester. We were using beginning of the year data, and expectations jump quickly in first grade. Please contact me if you ever have any questions.

Math

Our focus is ADDING. We are learning different strategies for learning our facts to sums of 12. If your child doesn’t understand one of the strategies, it is okay as long as they have a different way to find the sum accurately. Some strategies work great for some, and not so well for others.

Reading Workshop

We are becoming retelling experts. Your child should now be able to retell any story using a 5-finger retell (characters, setting, beginning, middle, and end), and do a SWBS summary (someone, wanted, but, so). A SWBS summary helps children identify the problem and solution in a story. For example in the story Cinderella, Cinderella wanted to go to the ball to meet the prince, but the evil step mother and step sisters stopped her. So, her fairy Godmother came and turned her into a princess. The but is the problem and the so is the solution. A good retell will include the problem in the beginning or middle, and the solution in the end. Next week we will learn about sequencing events and retelling non-fiction.

Good Fit Books

Most children at this age have trouble identifying good fit books independently. Please be sure your child is reading good fit books at home. If they are hard to find the little books that come home every few days are perfect! J

***Look for the following characteristics when helping your child find a "just right" book: It is read not too fast, but not too slow. He/she knows all or most of the words. The topic is age appropriate.***

Writer’s Workshop

We are making progress on taking risks with our spelling. Now we’re getting stuck thinking of ideas to write about. One strategy we used was to list important people in our lives and think of times we have spent with them. We are working towards telling stories instead of writing one sentence about something we like to do. Just like reading, we’re all in different places with our writing. Each child is being pushed and instructed at his/her own level during their group time once per week.

Word Workshop

This week we worked with words with r blends. These words are referred to as CVCC words. This means the vowel (V) says the short sound. The first CV blend together. Each individual sound is heard, but the words should be decoded saying the blend together. For example, frog should be segmented: fr og, because they know the fr blend and they know the og wrods family. Children should be spelling these words the same way.

This Week I Really Learned!

This week we brainstormed what we learned in a T.W.I.R.L. web. Each student was required to write at least one sentence on his/her own. We also are following the friendly letter format. Each week your child’s letter should have the date, a greeting, a sentence or 2, a closing, and a signature. We’ll work on placement later. For now we just want all of the part of the friendly letter in the letter. J From now on the line leader of the week will be taking our class T.W.I.R.L. chart home. J Thank you for taking time to write to your child. Please try to write back to your child whenever possible. They love hearing your letters during snack time.

Practice Packets

Grammar and word work is now being included each week. These pages are practice from the skills taught that week in school. The math is a spiral review which covers material from kindergarten up through our current skills. Because we skipped a topic occasionally there is a subtraction problem. Students should try is, but not worry about it if it’s too difficult right now.

Enjoy your weekend!