Hi Families!
Welcome back to school and welcome to the third quarter! I am very excited to be entering into the third quarter with your children. We are re-testing the students' reading levels, reading fluency, math skills, and they are also taking the MAP tests again. It is great to see how much progress your child has been making throughout the past two quarters. I am very proud of them.
Please remember that it is very important for the next two weeks to talk to your child about taking their time and trying their best on these assessments they will be taking as well as making sure they get enough sleep and eat a good breakfast before they come to school.
Thank you for the support you have been showing at home. Please continue to support your child in completing their homework and trying their best in school.
I have seen a lot of positive changes in your children this year. These next two quarters will prove to amaze you with the progress your child will have made by the end of the year. We are beginning to write paragraphs in class. At the end of the year your child will be expected to write a paragraph with a topic sentence, three detail sentences, and a closing sentence. It is amazing when they become closer to this goal.
Coming up, we will begin math centers and small guided math groups for the math lessons. If you want to volunteer to help during center time, please return the volunteer form by the end of the week at the latest.
Also, due tomorrow is the January book order. I will be sending home a letter with your child's new reading level after all students are done being tested.
Report cards will go home on Friday, please make sure you return the report card envelope signed by the end of next week.
I think that is it for now, please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Thanks!
Monday, January 21, 2013
Sunday, December 16, 2012
In the Home Stretch
Hello families!
Welcome to the last week of school before we enter into 2013!!! It has been such a fun couple of weeks and your child has been completing some fun writing projects in school. You should congratulate your child on their hard work when they bring them home on Friday after school. We have been working on writing with more details and to a prompt. They wrote a story using clues. They turned out great!
Here is a look at what is coming up this week.
Tomorrow we will get to watch the second graders rehearse for their gingerbread play! The kids are really excited.
Wednesday the kids will get to have their winter party. We are very grateful for the generosity of the parents that signed up to help with this party. We will have pizza and do a craft and play games as well! :)
Thursday we will be switching our art time from 9:10-10:10 to 1:25-2:25. We will also be taking our spelling test on Thursday because of the activities planned for Friday.
Friday the children will be watching a movie in the gym, doing a reindeer craft, and cleaning their desks. Lunch is from 11:00-11:30 on Friday as well so please make sure you send your child to school with money to buy hot lunch or with a lunch from home.
Remember that Friday is a half day. Dismissal is at 12:30. If your child is going home a different way than usual, please make sure you call the office, or send your child with a note. They will not be able to go home a different way unless we have a phone call, email, or note from you.
We will be taking a break from our math series this week because we do not want to start a new chapter when they will be gone for two weeks from school. We will begin chapter 6 when we return from break.
I hope you and your child enjoy their time off and I will be looking forward to seeing their smiling faces back at school on January 7, ready to learn and for a great second half to the year!
Happy holidays and have a great break with your kids!!
Welcome to the last week of school before we enter into 2013!!! It has been such a fun couple of weeks and your child has been completing some fun writing projects in school. You should congratulate your child on their hard work when they bring them home on Friday after school. We have been working on writing with more details and to a prompt. They wrote a story using clues. They turned out great!
Here is a look at what is coming up this week.
Tomorrow we will get to watch the second graders rehearse for their gingerbread play! The kids are really excited.
Wednesday the kids will get to have their winter party. We are very grateful for the generosity of the parents that signed up to help with this party. We will have pizza and do a craft and play games as well! :)
Thursday we will be switching our art time from 9:10-10:10 to 1:25-2:25. We will also be taking our spelling test on Thursday because of the activities planned for Friday.
Friday the children will be watching a movie in the gym, doing a reindeer craft, and cleaning their desks. Lunch is from 11:00-11:30 on Friday as well so please make sure you send your child to school with money to buy hot lunch or with a lunch from home.
Remember that Friday is a half day. Dismissal is at 12:30. If your child is going home a different way than usual, please make sure you call the office, or send your child with a note. They will not be able to go home a different way unless we have a phone call, email, or note from you.
We will be taking a break from our math series this week because we do not want to start a new chapter when they will be gone for two weeks from school. We will begin chapter 6 when we return from break.
I hope you and your child enjoy their time off and I will be looking forward to seeing their smiling faces back at school on January 7, ready to learn and for a great second half to the year!
Happy holidays and have a great break with your kids!!
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Welcome back!
Welcome back to the last four weeks of school before the end of 2012! I can't believe that it's almost 2013.
It was great getting a chance to see a lot of you again and also to meet a lot of the parents I hadn't had the pleasure of meeting yet. I hope you and your child enjoyed their time together this holiday.
Just a reminder that your child will be tested on the Unit 2 High Frequency Words this week. The words are in the post before.
We are also starting a new chapter in math. The new chapter is Addition Facts to 20. We will be learning to use many different addition strategies to help us add higher numbers. Some of the lessons involve using doubles, doubles plus 1, and doubles plus 2 as well as making ten to add 8 and 9, and adding 3 numbers at a time. Please use the website games, practice sheets, and learning videos to help your child if they seem to be having trouble with the lessons. I hope you find the math website to be very helpful.
I look forward to the next four weeks and let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
It was great getting a chance to see a lot of you again and also to meet a lot of the parents I hadn't had the pleasure of meeting yet. I hope you and your child enjoyed their time together this holiday.
Just a reminder that your child will be tested on the Unit 2 High Frequency Words this week. The words are in the post before.
We are also starting a new chapter in math. The new chapter is Addition Facts to 20. We will be learning to use many different addition strategies to help us add higher numbers. Some of the lessons involve using doubles, doubles plus 1, and doubles plus 2 as well as making ten to add 8 and 9, and adding 3 numbers at a time. Please use the website games, practice sheets, and learning videos to help your child if they seem to be having trouble with the lessons. I hope you find the math website to be very helpful.
I look forward to the next four weeks and let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Friday, November 16, 2012
High Frequency Word Test
When your child returns to school in two weeks, we will begin our last story in Unit 2 so your child will be tested on the following words that week. Please practice these words with your child during their week off and over the weekend. Thanks!
one
two
they
her
does
who
some
of
no
eat
live
into
out
many
make
want
under
put
show
three
today
way
school
late
away
why
one
two
they
her
does
who
some
of
no
eat
live
into
out
many
make
want
under
put
show
three
today
way
school
late
away
why
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
11/14/12
Here is a look at the rest of this week!
Tomorrow your child will bring home their hard cover reading book, reading slip, and comprehension journal.
We just finished up Topic 4 in math and will be beginning Topic 5 when we return from Thanksgiving break. The students will be tested on their spelling words on Friday and will also be taking their Topics 1-4 benchmark tests. This will allow me to see how much of the previous four chapters your child remembers and allow me to adjust my instruction to fit the needs of the students.
Next week your children are off of school. Conferences are on Monday, November 19 from 1:00-9:00pm and on Tuesday, November 20 from 10:00am-5:00pm. If you are unsure of when your conference time is, please check the bottom of your child's first quarter report card or call Marianne in the office. She has a copy of my schedule for both of those days. Also, if you need to reschedule, Marianne can take care of that as well. I look forward to meeting/or seeing you at conferences and look forward to having great conversations about your child and working together to make their experience in first grade the best that it can be.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns and I will see you next week!
Tomorrow your child will bring home their hard cover reading book, reading slip, and comprehension journal.
We just finished up Topic 4 in math and will be beginning Topic 5 when we return from Thanksgiving break. The students will be tested on their spelling words on Friday and will also be taking their Topics 1-4 benchmark tests. This will allow me to see how much of the previous four chapters your child remembers and allow me to adjust my instruction to fit the needs of the students.
Next week your children are off of school. Conferences are on Monday, November 19 from 1:00-9:00pm and on Tuesday, November 20 from 10:00am-5:00pm. If you are unsure of when your conference time is, please check the bottom of your child's first quarter report card or call Marianne in the office. She has a copy of my schedule for both of those days. Also, if you need to reschedule, Marianne can take care of that as well. I look forward to meeting/or seeing you at conferences and look forward to having great conversations about your child and working together to make their experience in first grade the best that it can be.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns and I will see you next week!
Thursday, November 1, 2012
11/1/12
Another week is almost gone and in the past...where has the time gone?! Welcome to November. From now until the end of the year, it always seems like things move in fast forward. We have a lot going on in the next couple of weeks.
Chapter 4 in math, as you may have noticed, is a bit harder than most of the lessons we've had in our math series so far. We are taking it slow and going through a couple of lessons together to make sure the skills are becoming more automatic and that the students have a better chance at mastering them as we move on. We have 5 more lessons left in this chapter, the chapter test, and then we will be giving the students a benchmark assessment that will review all of the skills learned in the past 4 chapters. With the new Common Core State Standards, the students, teachers, and principals are being held to higher standards to ensure our children are able to be successful throughout their lives. The standards are less but more complex, causing the students to really dig deep into the basics in first grade and are being provided with many different strategies as all learners are not the same when it comes to learning, especially in math. Please, if you need anything as we dig into these standards and our new math series, do not hesitate to contact me. I will help in any way that I can. Your child will be assessed on the Common Core State Standards 4 times a year in the coming years as the assessments are created which is why we are assessing the students after every 4 chapters in math. After this chapter we will be skipping to geometry and measurement to ensure that your child understands these concepts for the MAP Assessments in the Spring.
We are studying the election and the candidates in class and the children will get a chance to fill out voter registration cards and vote for the president. We will be calculating a winner of our own class as well as talking about the winner of the actual election and filling in our voting map. Here is a picture of our election board.
Chapter 4 in math, as you may have noticed, is a bit harder than most of the lessons we've had in our math series so far. We are taking it slow and going through a couple of lessons together to make sure the skills are becoming more automatic and that the students have a better chance at mastering them as we move on. We have 5 more lessons left in this chapter, the chapter test, and then we will be giving the students a benchmark assessment that will review all of the skills learned in the past 4 chapters. With the new Common Core State Standards, the students, teachers, and principals are being held to higher standards to ensure our children are able to be successful throughout their lives. The standards are less but more complex, causing the students to really dig deep into the basics in first grade and are being provided with many different strategies as all learners are not the same when it comes to learning, especially in math. Please, if you need anything as we dig into these standards and our new math series, do not hesitate to contact me. I will help in any way that I can. Your child will be assessed on the Common Core State Standards 4 times a year in the coming years as the assessments are created which is why we are assessing the students after every 4 chapters in math. After this chapter we will be skipping to geometry and measurement to ensure that your child understands these concepts for the MAP Assessments in the Spring.
We are studying the election and the candidates in class and the children will get a chance to fill out voter registration cards and vote for the president. We will be calculating a winner of our own class as well as talking about the winner of the actual election and filling in our voting map. Here is a picture of our election board.
In order to help the children understand the election process, two of our teachers, Mrs. Kester (1st grade) and Mrs. Gallimore (2nd grade), have created a Pigeon election to get the whole school involved in the election. Each classroom has read the book "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus". This Pigeon is a hilarious character that the children love!
Mrs. Kester's class wrote persuasive papers in favor of or against letting the Pigeon drive the bus and some of the students went to each class to try to prove why the Pigeon should or should not be allowed to drive the bus. They also created campaign posters that are displayed in the hallways. On Monday, November 5 the whole school will be voting in favor of or against letting the Pigeon drive the bus. Ask your child what the outcome was on Monday when they get home from school!
In computers, the students are really doing well with typing and have been creating some really fun projects including writing a spooky story, inserting borders into documents, inserting pictures they've drawn into their own documents, as well as typing up the clues you helped them write for their classmates to guess what they were going to be for Halloween. I hope you are as proud of them as I am!
We will continue to really focus on writing complete sentences and using capital letters and end marks wherever needed. We are struggling with this skill but practice makes perfect. Please practice writing with your child at home. I am going to begin sending home weekly writing homework to reinforce these skills so please continue practicing at home.
Report cards come home tomorrow. Please remember to sign the 1st quarter line and return it to school on Monday.
On Tuesday, November 6 we do not have school because of election day.
On Tuesday, November 13 from 10:20-11:10am you are invited into the classroom to complete an activity with your child for American Education Week. I look forward to seeing you there!
Your conference reminder date and time will be in the comments of the report card. If you need to make any changes, please contact Marianne in the office and she will assist you in rescheduling your appointment.
Your child has the week of Thanksgiving off. This is from November 19-November 23. They will return to school on Monday, November 26.
Parent Teacher Conferences are Monday, November 19 from 1-9pm and Tuesday, November 20 from 10-5pm. I look forward to seeing or meeting you at your scheduled conference time!
Thank you so much for all you do to make your child's time at school a successful and enjoyable one! :)
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Week of 10/15/12
Hi there!
October is such a fun and busy month! The kids are really starting to become good readers and falling into the routine of the classroom and school day very nicely.
This week the Orland Park Public Library had their librarians come in to talk to the kids about some of the new and exciting books they have at the library. If you get a chance to check it out, the library has a lot of exciting activities and events coming up.
We are continuing to work on writing complete sentences with capital letters and the correct end mark. Please practice this at home as well since the students are reminded multiple times daily to write with capital letters and end marks. It needs to become an automatic skill for the students in order to become better writers. As soon as we get the hang of writing a good simple sentence, we will begin adding descriptive words to make our sentences more meaningful.
The moment you and your child have been waiting for is finally here! We got our SMART board on Wednesday and the kids are really loving it! Thank you to all of you who donated to the fundraisers and PFE last year for our children to get the amazing opportunity of having a SMART board in their classroom. We are working together to figure the SMART board out and how to best use it in our classroom. I am hoping that for American Education Week we will have something fun and exciting to show you and that you can do with your child when you come into the classroom. Our time for American Education Week is November 13 from 10:20-11:10 so put that on your calendar and keep it open! :)
Your child will be tested on all of the High Frequency Word Flashcards that have been sent home each week because they are finishing up Unit 1 in reading. The words they are being tested on are:
down
jump
not
up
it
over
too
yes
be
ride
run
come
good
on
that
very
help
use
now
They are finishing another Topic (chapter) in math and will be taking their test on Monday.
Please let me know if your child does not celebrate Halloween and/or will not have a costume for Halloween and would like to wear one. We can figure something out.
Also, we will be learning about the election process, the candidates, and even placing our own votes as well in the classroom.
Also with the election coming up, our classes will be reading the book, "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" by Mo Willems. The students will hear reasons why the Pigeon should or why the Pigeon should not drive the bus from Mrs. Kester's first grade class and then on November 5th, they will get to cast their vote in favor of, or against, the Pigeon. It will be a lot of fun!
That is all I have for now! Let me know if you have any questions! :)
October is such a fun and busy month! The kids are really starting to become good readers and falling into the routine of the classroom and school day very nicely.
This week the Orland Park Public Library had their librarians come in to talk to the kids about some of the new and exciting books they have at the library. If you get a chance to check it out, the library has a lot of exciting activities and events coming up.
We are continuing to work on writing complete sentences with capital letters and the correct end mark. Please practice this at home as well since the students are reminded multiple times daily to write with capital letters and end marks. It needs to become an automatic skill for the students in order to become better writers. As soon as we get the hang of writing a good simple sentence, we will begin adding descriptive words to make our sentences more meaningful.
The moment you and your child have been waiting for is finally here! We got our SMART board on Wednesday and the kids are really loving it! Thank you to all of you who donated to the fundraisers and PFE last year for our children to get the amazing opportunity of having a SMART board in their classroom. We are working together to figure the SMART board out and how to best use it in our classroom. I am hoping that for American Education Week we will have something fun and exciting to show you and that you can do with your child when you come into the classroom. Our time for American Education Week is November 13 from 10:20-11:10 so put that on your calendar and keep it open! :)
Your child will be tested on all of the High Frequency Word Flashcards that have been sent home each week because they are finishing up Unit 1 in reading. The words they are being tested on are:
down
jump
not
up
it
over
too
yes
be
ride
run
come
good
on
that
very
help
use
now
They are finishing another Topic (chapter) in math and will be taking their test on Monday.
Please let me know if your child does not celebrate Halloween and/or will not have a costume for Halloween and would like to wear one. We can figure something out.
Also, we will be learning about the election process, the candidates, and even placing our own votes as well in the classroom.
Also with the election coming up, our classes will be reading the book, "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" by Mo Willems. The students will hear reasons why the Pigeon should or why the Pigeon should not drive the bus from Mrs. Kester's first grade class and then on November 5th, they will get to cast their vote in favor of, or against, the Pigeon. It will be a lot of fun!
That is all I have for now! Let me know if you have any questions! :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)