READ ALL ABOUT IT!
News from Mrs. Martin’s First Grade Class
August 31, 2009
IMPORTANT DATES:
· Sept. 3 @ 3:05~ PTO meeting. Please attend if you’re interested in helping with the Apple Festival or serving as a “Classroom Mother” for homerooms.
· Sept. 9~ Grits for Grands for Pre K – 2nd grade
· Sept. 9~ Scholastic Book Orders due if interested
· Sept. 10~ Grits for grades 3-5
· Sept. 11~ Early Release Day for students
· Sept. 18~ PTO Movie Night 6:00
REMINDERS:
Please help your child remember to wear sneakers on our PE days, Mondays & Wednesdays. Our library day will be Friday; due to pictures last week we didn’t go. Please also remember to send a small, healthy snack that can be quickly and independently eaten in the mornings. Sometimes we will continue to work through snack time, so it’s important that you send something that can be eaten neatly. Everything that has come in so far has been great! And finally, please remember to send all money to school in an envelope, clearly labeled with your child’s name, my name, and what the money is for. It helps tremendously with the management, especially with juice & extra milk money. Thanks!
WELCOME: You may have heard your child mention Mrs. Melissa Pressley. I’d like to introduce her as an integral part of our classroom this year. She will be teaching with me for 45 minutes each morning, as well as 30 minutes each afternoon. Up until this time, she has been getting to know the children and assisting with assessments. By next week, our schedule should be a bit more finalized, and she will begin small group instruction. Some of you have already met her as you’ve been in and out of school. She will hopefully attend some parent conferences and Open House with us. I’m so happy to have her on board!
Homework: At this point in the year, your child’s main homework will consist of working on reading (& spelling) high frequency words and reading daily at home. As the year progresses, I will add math homework. For this week, please look over the following “kindergarten” high frequency words. If your child can easily recognize them for reading, go ahead and begin practicing the spelling of these words. Our main goal now is for the children to be able to read them at first sight; spelling will come later.
a, and, away, big, blue, can, cat, come, dad, dog, down, find, for, funny, go, help, I, in, is, it, jump, little, look, make, me, mom, my, not, one, play, red, run, said, see, the, three, to, two, up, we, yellow, you
Also begin to set aside a solid 15 minute slot of time for you and your child to read together. Next week we will begin our Take Home Reader program, where the children will bring books home from the class to ready each day. Thanks in advance for your cooperation with homework! Together, we can work together to help your child reach his or her fullest potential!
Language Arts: We will continue to work on letter sounds, letter identification & formation. We are working on beginning and ending sounds of words, writing sentences with spacing between words, and including periods at the end of sentences. This week we are focusing on using our fingers to point to the words as we read, using the pictures for clues, and “getting our mouths ready” as we face unknown words. We are reading stories (fiction) and reading for information (non-fiction).
Math: We’re continuing to work on number recognition, formation, and identification. We’re comparing numbers using the terms “greater than & less than” using the number line and number chart. We’ll begin using “tools,” such as coins, pattern templates, and dice. We’re reviewing calendar skills and counting pennies and nickels.
Social Studies: We have been learning how routines & rules help us in our classroom community.
Science: We will be learning information about types of dogs and how to care for them, as part of our study of non-fiction.
Health: We are continuing to emphasize the importance of washing our hands, covering our sneezes and coughs, and using tissues properly to help keep down the spread of germs.
