The books for next week are Pigeon Needs a Bath and Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay up Late, by Mo Willems.
Spelling/Word Work
We will be moving on to learning about blends again this week. This week it will be r blends. These include:
R blend words are: prop, grab, drip, crib, brim
Sight Words: was, ate, soon, our, three
Writing
We will be working more with informational writing as we approach the end of the 2nd trimester.
Math
Watch for the math facts folder coming home this week. We have had some classroom helpers working on timing our kids individually. Some kiddos still need to work on speed.
Science
We started our unit on sound and how objects make sound and how we use sound to communicate messages.
Mid-winter break is Monday, February 19th, and Tuesday, February 20th. Classes resume Wednesday.
Guiding Readers
The book for the week will be I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More by Karen Beaumont.
Spelling/Word Work
We will do some more work with blends.
Words include:
No sight words for this week. We will do some review work.
Writing
Everyone is working hard with informational writing. Many of us struggle to make sure our sentences begin with a capital letter, the sentence makes sense and remembering to use the correct punctuation mark.
Math
We will work some more with counting on and counting back to find a missing number. We are moving toward working with bar models.
Thank You
Thank you so much for the amazing moms and dad that came in to help out and to make pink pancakes and love potion for a fun and sweet Valentine’s Day!! The kids had a lot of fun!!
Don’t forget to send your child in with their cards to pass out to their classroom friends on Wednesday. Feel free to send in goodie bags or other treats to share as well. Everyone will decorate a bag so that all their treasures will get home safely. We have 25 kiddos in our classroom. Please do not write individual student names on the cards. This makes passing them out more difficult. Just have your child sign their name.
Thank You!!
A huge THANK YOU to Christine Sturgill (Matthew’s mom) for the box full of snacks for the class!! 🙂
The book for next week is Snow by Cynthia Rylant. This is a great book to help explain figurative language.
Spelling/Word Study
We will use this week to finish up with the Vce and Vge.
Vce and Vge–c and g make their soft sound when followed by e at the end of a word.
Some examples are: ice, face, dice, age, cage, page (check out the videos below)
Sight words: went, saw, eat, say, four
Writing
We continue to work hard on informational writing. This week we worked on a informational piece about MLK Jr.. Starting the paper with a topic sentence or a broad statement and then coming up with 3 facts about the topic. .
Math
We are mixing it up a little bit. The kiddos are working more with subtraction but we are mixing in learning about 10 more and 10 less. This did give some kids a little trouble. Even though they can say or write their numbers this is digging deeper learning about place value which is a very important concept in 2nd grade.
Testing
We did finish up our testing this week. I am proud of hard everyone worked and did their best. You will be getting the results along with their 2nd trimester progress report.
Reminders
No school for students Friday, February 9th due to AP staff professional development day.
Our book for the week is The Emperor’s Egg by Martin Jenkins.
Spelling/Word Study
Due to the last few crazy weeks we will continue with the Vce and Vge.
Vce and Vge–c and g make their soft sound when followed by e at the end of a word.
Some examples are: ice, face, dice, age, cage, page (check out the videos below)
Sight words: no, brown, ride, will, too
Writing
We will be working on an informational paper about MLK Jr. . Today we brainstormed several things that we learned about him and will begin writing on Monday.
Math
We will begin to learn about the doubles + 1 strategy in addition and some more review of addition/subtraction with zero.
NWEA testing
We will begin testing on Tuesday. Students are tested in small groups and are given as much time as they need. It is important for them to understand to take their time. Read all the questions and all the answers. Too many students rush through the test and that is when we see low scores. So it would be helpful to remind them to do their best and take their time. I know they have all grown a ton. This is their time to show their stuff. I know they can do it!!
We are hoping for a 5 day school week for next week. 😉
Our book for the week is Martin’s Big Words by Doreen Rappaport.
Spelling/Word Study
Our focus the next 2 weeks will be Vce and Vge–c and g make their soft sound when followed by e at the end of a word.
Some examples are: ice, face, dice, age, cage, page (check out the video below)
No sight words this week.
Math
We are working with fluency of addition and subtraction facts. Look for the folder coming home today for more practice.
Writing
We are moving along with more informational writing.
Guided Reading Groups
We are back in the groove with our guided reading groups. I am glad to see the reading logs getting signed and that your child is reading every day. Please remember to practice the monthly Nonsense Word Fluency cards each day if your child is struggling with these. This gives early readers practice with learning letter sounds and basically the sounding out practice they will need to make strong readers.
If your child is reading at a level C, D, E, or F it is good practice to read the book more than once. Reading a book several times gives them some more time with the book and this will hopefully improve their fluency. It will also help them see words over and over again which will help make them stronger.
After reading don’t forget to check for understanding by having your child retell the story. I have them close the book and ask them what happened in the beginning, middle and end of the book.
NWEA Testing-PLEASE READ
Our winter testing started this week. The reading support aides are checking students for various skills. I have assessed all the kiddos with their current reading level and all students will be taking the NWEA tests for math and reading . It is important for all students to show growth in all of these areas. The best way to help your child is giving them time to practice online through the Edmentum program on their computer. The boys and girls should know how to access it at home.
Edmentum provides great practice in math and reading because it is tailored to your child’s performance on the previous test from September. Please make time to have your child practice all 3 strands. This includes reading, language arts and math. The link below should get them to the Allen Park page. They can logon to Edmentum through their Google account or their badge. Let me know if you have any questions.
No Guiding Readers book this week. We will be reading and learning about other ways people celebrate during December.
Spelling/Word Work
The focus for this week will be long u with the help of magic e. The u_e has two sounds.
Long o words that sound like /oo/- tune, Luke, June, rude, rule
Long o words that sound like /u/-cube, mule, cute, mute, cure
Sight words: none this week
Math
We should finish the last unit in chapter 1. This unit’s focus is fact families.
Writing
This trimester’s focus is informational. We are all trying our best every day. This is a little more difficult writing for first graders than the narrative writing that we just finished.
Social Studies
We conclude our discussions about the holidays celebrated in December.
Science
The winter solstice happens on Thursday, December 21st. We will learn a little more about this and what happens during this time.
The book for this week is Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed by Emily Pearson.
Spelling/Word Work
I apologize that we did not get to long o. I was so busy assessing the students reading levels that time got away from us. We will use next week to learn about magic e and long o.
The focus for next week will be long 0 with the help of magic e.
Long 0 words are: cod/code, not/note, mop/mope, rob/robe, hop/hope
Sight words: who, that, must, ran, she
Writing
We are now working on informational writing.
Math
We are working with addition and subtraction. The majority of the class was able to complete 36 addition problems in 5 minutes or less. These were sums up to 10. Our goal by the end of the year is to add and subtract up to 20.
Science
We will investigate light and how shadows are made.
Social Studies
We are continuing to learn about the many holidays in December. Mrs. Saville shared a real menorah with us as we read a book and discussed Hanukkah.
Report Cards-Reading level/ AP Cut Scores
Report cards were released on Parent Connect today. Please take time to look at your child’s progress. Everyone is growing. If you need information on reading levels, it is the JR/BAS scores for first grade on the document link below. The NWEA scores are listed there as well. We are striving to keep or move your child into the green column. Each trimester cut off score is listed for each grade.
Today I collected the Bobcat Buck store sheets and kid’s Bobcat Bucks. Monday will be our Bobcat Buck day. If your child bought: bring a stuffed animal to school, show and tell, no morning work, lunch with me or anything else it will be Monday. If your child wants to buy pizza for Monday, they still can go to the cafeteria to pick up their lunch. Let me know if you have any questions.
The story for next week is The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett.
Spelling/Word Work
The focus for next week will be long 0 with the help of magic e.
Long 0 words are: cod/code, not/note, mop/mope, rob/robe, hop/hope
Sight words: have, he, came, be, with
Writing
We will start our informational writing unit. This is a good video explaining informational writing.
Math
We are working with addition and subtraction. The class did a timed math quiz that will be coming home today. The time on the worksheet is how long it took your child to complete the 36 problems. Everyone did a great job!!
Social Studies
December is full of various holidays for many people. Hanukkah begins on December 7th. We started a discussion about the menorah and the 8 nights of Hanukkah.
F.Y.I
Today was the end of the 1st trimester of first grade. Report cards will be available next Friday, December 8th after 4:00 on Parent Connect.
Don’t forget our PTA sponsored book fair this week at Bennie. Our preview day will be Tuesday at 9:30 with our buying day on Thursday at 9:30.
