Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a restful and fun weekend. This week we started the first unit in the reading program, so the first graders will be reading all about what students do at school. Today we read a story about what students hoped for the year. Many first graders agreed that our school needed a chocolate syrup fountain and a pet show-and-tell day. What a fun time we would have with either of those!
First graders have been assigned a week to celebrate their birthdays as close to their actual or half birthday as possible. Each child is listed at the beginning of the week. Please check the calendar and let me know if there is a conflict. I'm happy to switch dates around if that is the case. I would not want to celebrate a student the same week they are out of town, for example. More information about birthdays can be found on the "Star of the Week" tab.
Addition is keeping us busy this week. Today we used math mats to keep our thinking organized. These will help us when we add zero and when we explore adding in any order. I like to use the mats as tools so that when the problems get harder, the students have something to draw their thinking on. When I asked the first graders, however, the coolest part of using the math mats is writing with dry erase markers. I guess we'll keep working on that...
Planners are sent home every day. The first graders are getting used to writing just a word from the day to share at home. We are currently learning about what makes a sentence, so their writing will be expanded soon. I would greatly appreciate it if you could take a peek at the planner each night and add your initials or signature so that I know you have seen what your child wrote. There will be events or news coming up that will be written in the planner, so I would not want you to miss them. The first graders wrote their first entry in their home-school journals on Friday before taking them home. These journals will be our space for starting and continuing a conversation about your child. These and nightly reading are done in place of homework, so you are welcome to add anything in the journal that you think I may need to know. I'm always curious about the current events in your child's life- births, visitors, illness, trips, etc. I'm excited to learn about who your child is and how we can work together to support many successes this year. We will be writing in the journals again this Friday. All students need their journal back to school by Friday. If you have a chance to look at the journal before then, please send it to school. I'll take a peek at it and include a response before sending it home again. Thank you for taking part in this year long project.
Have a wonderful week!
First graders have been assigned a week to celebrate their birthdays as close to their actual or half birthday as possible. Each child is listed at the beginning of the week. Please check the calendar and let me know if there is a conflict. I'm happy to switch dates around if that is the case. I would not want to celebrate a student the same week they are out of town, for example. More information about birthdays can be found on the "Star of the Week" tab.
Addition is keeping us busy this week. Today we used math mats to keep our thinking organized. These will help us when we add zero and when we explore adding in any order. I like to use the mats as tools so that when the problems get harder, the students have something to draw their thinking on. When I asked the first graders, however, the coolest part of using the math mats is writing with dry erase markers. I guess we'll keep working on that...
Planners are sent home every day. The first graders are getting used to writing just a word from the day to share at home. We are currently learning about what makes a sentence, so their writing will be expanded soon. I would greatly appreciate it if you could take a peek at the planner each night and add your initials or signature so that I know you have seen what your child wrote. There will be events or news coming up that will be written in the planner, so I would not want you to miss them. The first graders wrote their first entry in their home-school journals on Friday before taking them home. These journals will be our space for starting and continuing a conversation about your child. These and nightly reading are done in place of homework, so you are welcome to add anything in the journal that you think I may need to know. I'm always curious about the current events in your child's life- births, visitors, illness, trips, etc. I'm excited to learn about who your child is and how we can work together to support many successes this year. We will be writing in the journals again this Friday. All students need their journal back to school by Friday. If you have a chance to look at the journal before then, please send it to school. I'll take a peek at it and include a response before sending it home again. Thank you for taking part in this year long project.
Have a wonderful week!