Weekly Update, August 22 - 26

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 first 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. Tomorrow we will read Boris Bear to learn about manners in school; on Wednesday we will read Sticks and Stones and write about what bugs us; on Thursday we will read Elmore Interrupts Us and write about what it feels like to be interrupted and on Friday we will read Responsibility and write about what it means to be responsible. At the end of the week, the kids will put all their work together and everyone will have a book about manners.

We began our Special Person today and we started with Sawyer (the Star of the Day is drawn randomly from my choosing cards). The kids had a great time interviewing Sawyer, listening to him share his poster and writing notes to him. Today we reviewed the five parts of a friendly letter (heading, greeting, body/message, closing, signature) and the kids wrote a friendly letter to Sawyer. The children will get practice writing a friendly letter each day that we have a special person.

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.

We will begin our Super Silent Reading (SSR) tomorrow.  The children will each have a book bag filled with books at their "just right level."  During reading time, the children will read quietly from their book bags and I will work with reading groups.

Today in math we made a t-shirt glyph. Be sure to talk with your child on and ask him/her what a glyph is and how it helps us! We will graph and discuss our glyphs on Tuesday and Wednesday. We will begin work in chapter 1 of our math book on Thursday.

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.

Our first library day was today!  The kids really enjoyed learning about the library and choosing two books.  We will have library every Monday.  Please help your child to remember to bring his/her books back to school on Monday.

Kids - please remember to bring your yellow or blue 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!

Reminders
* Please return the pink and blue forms that were given out on parent night by the end of the week.
* T-shirt order forms and money are due this Friday, August 26.  Please return the form with an envelope and $9 in cash.  Thank you!

Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston