Great Start!

We had a great start to the school year!  Boy, have we been busy!  We have been making class books, reviewing our kindergarten words from last year as well as our letter sounds, and we also got to make a few fun crafts!

This week we are beginning our core subjects and we will be sticking more closely to our schedule.  Please remind your child how important it is to listen, focus, and complete our work.

We began the math series on Thursday last week.  Please expect your child to have a sheet of math homework every night.  I do need all homework to come in completed the next day.  If it becomes a problem, your child will be asked to stay in during their second recess to complete it.  Homework is an essential part of learning and review.  We need to ensure that our children are remembering what they are learning in school.

Our math program is very rigorous and scheduled.  We begin each day by completing a Daily Common Core Review.  We do this page together and each one of these pages reviews skills that your child has learned previously and may not always go with what we are learning in that particular lesson.  These pages are important to refresh their memory of skills they have already learned.  After the Daily Common Core Review, we watch an introduction video for the lesson.  In this video, they will walk through a typical problem that they will be seeing throughout the lesson.  After this video, we complete the lesson pages.  We do the front page together (this is the teaching part) and then we typically will move straight to the back which is the problem solving part.  Problem solving is a BIG part of the common core.  This page is read to them by myself and I also talk them through the problems as well.  We like to talk through these together.  I sometimes will have the children work them out on their own as this is a skill that they will need when they begin taking more assessments that are aligned to the common core.  Inquiry and problem solving skills are a big push.  After the problem solving page, we move to the inside.  Depending on the lesson, we will do the guided practice together and they will complete the independent practice on their own, or they will be able to do both pages on their own.  Some lessons do however, require us to work through all of the problems together.  After the lesson we will complete the quick check.  The Quick Check is important and it shows me what skills each child is doing well with as well as what skills that child still needs to work on.  The Quick Check is read to them but they are required to choose the correct answers on their own.

We also began our reading series today.  Every Monday we will go through the oral vocabulary, high-frequency words, and the spelling words and patterns for the week.  Then we read our weekly story, retell the story, and complete a vocabulary Fill-In the blank activity and a spelling sentence activity.  For now, we will be completing the Fill-In and the spelling sentences together.  However, the fourth week of the series they will be using their books and completing these on their own.  It is important for them to not only become familiar enough with the vocabulary to be able to fill in the blanks but they are also taught the skills to use their books to find familiar phrases, sentences, and words to help them figure it out.  Writing sentences with words are also important.  They will be expected to use all 10 words (they may use more than one spelling word in each sentence) and the sentences need to be 5 words or longer.  They will also be graded on their ability to use and frequency of punctuation and capitalization.

Your child will receive a list of words to study over the five weeks at the beginning of each reading unit.

On Mondays, your child will bring home the weekly spelling list and have to write their spelling words three times each for homework and return it to school the next day.

On Thursdays, your child will bring home their reading book and their comprehension journal.  They will need to read the weekly story to you, have you sign the reading slip, and fill out a page in the comprehension journal to go along with the story.  Please return all three (comprehension journal, reading slip, and reading book) to school on Friday.

On Wednesdays, your child will bring home a story to read and answer questions about.  Please return these to school on Thursday.

Spelling tests are on Friday mornings, first thing.

Lastly, we will be beginning The Daily 5 in the classroom tomorrow.  For those families that have been a part of District 135 for kindergarten will be familiar with it.  This program will allow each students' needs to be met in different ways.  They will be Working on Writing, Reading to Someone, Reading to Self, Working on Words, and Listening to Reading.  These stations will allow me to individualize your child's learning and to focus on the skills they need most.  This also teaches them independence and responsibility.

I know that this is a lot of information so if you have ANY questions, please do not hesitate to ask!