August 23 - 27 Weekly Update

Hello Fabulous First Graders and Fantastic First Grade Families!

We are off and running in our second full week of school! Today was a great day in 1st grade and we truly were busy, busy bees! The children worked so hard on the challenges of the day. In addition to curriculum, we learned a few new procedures, and the kids did a great job of successfully practicing the new procedures.

This week we begin our social studies unit on manners. We will learn about manners and how to use them through reading (stories, songs and poems) and writing. Today we kicked off our manners week with a very fun and very silly poem called "Never, ever pick your nose!" The room was full of laughter when we read that! We followed up our poem with a draw and write about good manners. Each day this week we will read about manners and then our writing will be connected to that day's reading.

We began our Special Person today and we started with Abby. The kids had a great time interviewing Abby, listening to her share her poster and writing notes to her. Today we learned the five parts of a friendly letter (heading, greeting, body/message, closing, signature) and the kids wrote a friendly letter to Abby. The children will get practice writing a friendly letter each day that we have a special person. Andrew will be our next special person on Thursday!

Today marks the first week of spelling words! We practiced our spelling words today and then we learned how to do a Rainbow Write. This is when you write the word in crayon and then go over it two more times in different color crayons. This is great for both spelling practice and fine motor skills. This week our making words lessons will focus on our spelling words and the "an" word family.

Today in math we played addition bingo. The children did a very impressive job demonstrating their math skills and they had a great time doing it! This week we will continue to work on number sense and practical math application. Tomorrow we will make a t-shirt glyph. Be sure to talk with your child on Tuesday and ask him/her what a glyph is and how it helps us!

Today your child brought home his/her first homework assignment. The assignment is to practice the new spelling words by doing a Rainbow Write. The homework is due tomorrow. The children also need to read for at least 10 minutes tonight. The spelling words for the week are: the, of, and, a, to. The "an" family words for the week are: can, fan, man, pan, banana. Please encourage your child to practice these throughout the week; our first test is Friday. These spelling words come from the 100 most commonly used sight words.

Kids - please remember to bring your yellow homework folder to school every single day! You can show your parents that you are following our rule of "We are responsible" by remembering to bring your folder in!

Have a wonderful week!
Mrs. Johnston