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First Grade - Week of September 25

Spirit Week


IMPORTANT NOTES

Hearts of Gold: Hearts of Gold is a community fundraiser to generate awareness for a local nonprofit organization. The 2023 Hearts of Gold partner organization is i understand. i understand is a nonprofit organization what offers compassionate comfort for those affected by suicide or mental/brain health illness and pain and believes in a future where the stigma associated suicide and mental/brain illness is erased. 

Money should be returned to the main office by October 4. T-shirt sales will take place after school on M/Tu/Th the week of October 2. 


Field Trips: The school pay link for first grade field trips is ready! Please click here to provide payment of $32 for your child’s field trips this school year. If you are unable to pay this school year please email me.


Math Home Connection: You will find a packet of math pages in your student’s home folder tonight. These pages go over what we learned in our first unit. This is not homework and is completely optional, but a great way for your student to practice math at home! 


Learning Commons: Thursday we were able to explore the library and check out two books. Library books should be returned before or on Thursdays throughout the school year. If your child is done reading their book and would like to return it before Thursday, they can bring it in and place it on the black library cart outside our classroom.


MARK YOUR CALENDAR:

October 2: Bumblebee Ice Cream Truck

October 19: Parent Teacher Conferences

October 24: Parent Teacher Conferences  

October 27: No School

October 31: Halloween

WEEK AT A GLANCE:

Reading: We added the following strategies to our tool bank for solving hard words:

  • Look at ALL the parts of the word – make sure to look through the whole word so that we can see ALL the letters and sounds. This will help us to know the word is “beetle” not “bug”
  • Check It! Do a Double Check!--this strategy is so important because it makes us check our reading. A word that might make sense MOST IMPORTANTLY needs to look right (meaning all the sounds need to match with the word). First graders often want to just go with their gut and say a word that will “make sense”. Help to remind your child to actually look at the WORD and understand how the letters and sounds work together to make that word.
  • Crash word parts together--find parts you know and crash them together (example /sh/ /out/ /ed/ ----> shouted
  • Try it Two Ways--Vowels make two sounds, their name and their sound. Try both ways until the word sounds right.
    **an anchor chart of these strategies was sent home with your child in their Homework Book Bag already. If you need another copy you can find one here!

Writing: Now that we’re writing up a storm, we've been focusing our time learning how to bring our stories to life!  Our classroom Read Alouds are some of the best writing teachers. We’ve noticed that these great authors:

  • Unfreeze Characters: writers make the people in their stories move and talk

  • Tell Stories in Itsy Bitsy Steps: writers include LOTS of detail by dragging one small moment into lots of itsy bitsy steps.\

  • Bring the Inside Out: writers show how a character is feeling instead of telling them (example: “she jumped for joy” instead of “she was happy”)


We are working on adding these craft moves into our writing while still focusing on one small moment across many pages.

Math: We finished our first unit of Bridges! We took some time to do our unit assessment this week which was done in small groups of 3-4. We will start our second unit next week! 


Social Emotional Learning: Everyone Gets Distracted
In this week’s lesson, your child will learn that a distraction is something that takes their attention away from something else. They’ll learn different ways to manage distractions, such as reminding themselves to focus, turning away from the distraction, changing places, or politely asking someone to stop a distracting behavior.
Try This at Home: When you need to pay attention or focus on a task at home, ask your child to suggest some ways you can manage distractions.
















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