February 28, 2010

Spelling Words: me, see, feet, seat, mean, team, slow, road, our, over

Challenge Words: easel, thirteen, creature, league, underneath

Sight Words: dear, door, hurry, mother, sky, told, should

Reading: Long /e/ Sound

We are working on all the different ways that spell long /e/. The five ways we are working with are: ea, ee, e, _ie_, and _y

Math: Solid Figures

We are learning all about solid figures. We look at what capabilities each figure has and it's make-up. The solid figures we are working with are: cube, pyramid, rectangular prism, cone, cylinder and sphere.

Doctor Seuss is celebrating his birthday on Wednesday. We will be celebrating on Tuesday with a very special guest. Mrs. Skoro's mom will be sharing a few wonderful Dr. Seuss books with us! We can't wait!

Conferences are Tuesday 4-8, Thursday 4-8 and Friday 8-4. See you all there!

Wednesday, February 23rd

** There is no spelling this week. We will be reviewing and testing sight words from the past book. The sight words that will be tested are as follows:

about, again, air, always, books, buy, by, carry, Cow's, family, feel, fly, friends, grew, house, join, know, loud, money, mouse, Mrs., name, need, nice, other, our, over, paint, paper, people, play, please, pretty, put, rain, read, room, say, surprise, three, watch, work, would, writing

To get ready for testing, we will be playing "Around The World", Sight Word Bingo and "I've Got, Who Has?". These are all wonderful games that fully immerse the children in the sight words.

We will also be testing fluency. Students will read three different passages to me. Each passage is one that they have never seen before. We call this a "cold read." I will stop each student after one minute. I tally their mistakes and figure out how many correct words per minute they are reading. Your child will have a grade on the report card reflecting their fluency. The fluency rates for first grade are:

February - Winter: May - Spring:

47+ Words = P 75+ Words = P

23 - 46 Words = D 53 - 74 Words = D

22 Words or Less = B 52 Words or Less = B

Remember that conferences are on March 1st, 3rd and 4th. I look forward to seeing you at your scheduled time. If for some reason, you are unable to make your 20 minute conferences, please let me know. We will work together to find a better time to meet. See you soon!

We are back to cross country skiing in gym. Please send all appropriate clothing with your child.

Monday, February 14th

Spelling Words: low, slow, grow, road, soap, boat, little, handle, carry, would

Challenge Words: swallow, scarecrow, stagecoach, oatmeal, approach

Sight Words: our, pretty, surprise, over, three, mouse

Reading: This week we are working on the long /o/ sound. We are learning all of the different ways that long /o/ can show up in words that we read and write. The four ways we recognize long /o/ are:

o _ e (o with a magic e) -- words like bone, nose, chose...

ow -- words like snow, shadow, know...

oa -- words like boat, goat, road...

o (standing alone) -- words like go, no, so...

Math: This week we are working again on counting back using a number line and related facts. We call our related facts, "fact families." Help your child relate addition and subtraction facts using fact families. If we look at 3 numbers, we know that we can make 2 addition and 2 subtraction facts using only the numbers in the fact family.

4, 8, 12

4 + 8 = 12 8 + 4 = 12

12 - 4 = 8 12 - 8 = 4

Thank you to all the volunteers for a wonderful Valentine Party! We made some fantastic candy necklaces, played bingo, decorated yummy cookies and made fabulous bookmarks. Congratulations to Gabrielle for having the closest estimate of candy kisses in the jar. Gabrielle guessed there were 113 kisses and actually there were 112. Wow! Way to go! That is GREAT estimating!

The 100th day of school is on Thursday. Please send in your 100 pieces of food for our classroom snack. We realized today that if everyone brings in 100 pieces, we will have 2400 goodies in our trail mix. Pretty impressive! We will also be writing about being 100 years old and what we would do if someone gave us a $100 bill. I can't wait to see the ideas we have. There are some pretty creative first graders in 1-4.

Please check your email for conference times and dates. I look forward to meeting with everyone to share the wonderful progress we have made this year. If your time or date does not work, please let me know as soon as possible. We will work together to find a time that works best for everyone. Thanks!

Gym: We will be skating again in gym. Please send in helmets and skates on Thursday (as long as the ice is still there)!

January 31, 2011

Spelling Words: her, fur, turn, bird, girl, first, quit, when, name, work

Challenge Words: circus, surprise, squirrel, thirsty, disturb

Sight Words: always, by, Cow's, join, nice, please, room

READING:

In reading this week we are working on er, ir, ur. Since they all have the same sound, it is very difficult for first graders to decipher between them. It takes memory and practice to recall which one we use for certain words.

Math:

We will be testing chapter 12 on Tuesday. Please help your child complete the math homework on Monday night.

This week in math we will be practicing the skill of counting on. This skill is important for us as first graders. It is time to leave "finger counting" behind.

Field Trip

On Thursday, February 10th, we will be going on a field trip. The first graders are going to Stages Theater in Hopkins. We will be watching If You Give A Moose A Muffin. I will be contacting parents that are needed for chaperoning. Due to limited number of tickets, I will only be able to have 3 parents join us. Thank you for understanding.

Thank you for giving like a RoCk StAr!

Our school pulled together and raised a lot of money for a wonderful cause. Below you can see

Morgan, Drew, Haakon, and Gabrielle's rocking outfits!

Please send empty shoeboxes to school for Valentine Boxes. We can use as many as you have to spare. Thanks!

Monday, January 24, 2011

Spelling Words: quit, quick, quiz, whiz, which, when, arm, part, house, put
Challenge Words: quarterback, question, quotation, quiet, earthquake

Sight Words: about, books, family, name, people, read, work, writing

READING:

In reading this week, we are working on "qu" and "wh". Please help your child with these very difficult sounds.

MATH:

In math we are working on skip counting. It is important for your child to be able to count by 2's, 5's and 10's. A great way to do this is to have them sort cereal pieces or coins in groups of 2's, 5's and 10's. Then have your child count them aloud!

Supplies Needed:
Now that we are half way through the year, we are getting extremely low on our supplies. The children are having a hard time finding scissors, glue sticks, pencils and crayons. If you would be willing to send in supplies for your child, it would be greatly appreciated!

On Wednesday, January 26th, we will be skiing in gym. Please make sure your child has all warm weather clothes needed to have a good time!

Wednesday night is Culvers Night! Please help support Shirley Hills by having dinner out!

Welcome Back!

Spelling Words: far, farm, arm, art, part, park, chin, such, fly, watch

Challenge Words: jaguar, pardon, garden, cartoon, guitar

Sight Words: feel, put, house, Mrs., say, loud, again, know

Reading

This week we are focusing on the "ar" sound. We like to say:

Bossy "R" Drives The CAR!

The "bossy r" takes over and you don't even hear the poor little "a"!

Math

Keep working on Greater Than and Less Than. In class we use an alligator to eat the larger number. The kids also like to turn our greater than and less than symbols into Pacman characters. Have them show you how!

"Alligator, Alligator, which one will you eat?

The biggest one, the greatest one, it will be so sweet!"

We will be skating for gym on Tuesday and Friday. Please dress warmly!

I am looking forward to another great week! We have been working so hard in first grade. Students were tested last week on their sight words from book 2. Students did a fantastic job. Keep practicing them each night!

Marvelous Monday 12-06-10

Spelling Words: chip, chin, inch, such, catch, match, wish, shop, saw, were

Challenge Words: chance, ostrich, chipmunk, orchard, sketch

Sight Words: air, fly, friends, grew, need, play, rain, watch

Math Homework: Tonight, there is a blue sheet of math homework. Please help your child complete this sheet and return it tomorrow. This is to help prepare them for tomorrow's math test on place value.

We will be starting to compare and order numbers. Please work with your child on understanding the "greater than" and "less than" symbols. In school we use an alligator to help us. He always eats the bigger number!

Pastries With Parents: Thursday, Januaray 13th @7:45 - 8:45a.m.

Reminder: NO SCHOOL - MONDAY

Our next skating day is on Wednesday, January 12th. Please remember to dress warmly and bring a helmet.

Reading: This week we are working on the "ch" and "tch" sounds. It is often difficult for children to recognize the difference between these two.