January

We have had an incredible start to the new year in our classroom!  Here is another peak into what our class has been learning:

*Morning Meeting: We continue to work on new ways to greet someone and do fun activities that promote class unity.  One skill we have been focusing on, is making a comment when someone shares a story with you.  You can work on sharing with your child and encourage them to ask appropriate questions and to say appropriate comments (congratulations, good luck, I hope ___, I wish ____, I remember ____) rather than jumping right into their own story (we call that a connection and it can be shared at another time). 

*Handwriting: We have now covered all lowercase letters!  You should encourage your student to use lowercase letters when appropriate and you can have them correct any uppercase or lowercase letters that are formed incorrectly.  In class we continue to reinforce the formation of uppercase and lowercase letters and the students are working on generalizing this learning to all writing.

*Science: The students have been investigating things that roll.  They made wheel and axle systems and their goal was to find a way to improve their system to make it roll further.  They also rolled cups down a ramp and some students accomplished challenges of either finding a way to make a cup system that rolls straight, getting their cup to roll around the ramp and "park in the garage", or getting their cup to "fall on it's face" off the edge of the ramp.  It has been incredibly exciting and the scientists in our classroom are learning how to write and draw in a way that someone can learn from their hard work.

*Reading: We have been working on learning about and discussing the main characters in books.  You can learn a lot about a character by the things they say and do in a book, therefore, the students have been thinking about the way a character behaves in the words and the illustrations and we have been discussing and writing about the character.  While reading to/with your student, you may want to encourage similar book talk by asking, "What kind of character is ____?" and they can respond by saying, "_____ is ______ (funny, mean, bossy, annoying, creative, smart, etc.) because _____" (using evidence in the book to support their response).

*Spelling: We have thoroughly covered all short vowel sounds, therefore, all students should be spelling short vowel words correctly.  We have also been working on consonant clusters, synonyms, initials, to vs. two, the 2 sounds of s (s and z), a vs. an, antonyms, -ck ending, and the no excuse words you, of, and, the, in.

*Writing: Our writers continue to impress me!  We did an assessment in all first grade classrooms in which the students were shown the picture above and they were told to write a fictional story based on the illustration.  In these stories (as well as in the personal narrative stories they have been writing in the classroom), the authors are beginning to use hooks, endings, pizzazz words, dialogue, thoughts, feelings, etc.  They were so creative and I am thrilled to share your student's story with you at our conference!

*Math:  One of the most important skills we have been focusing on this unit, is the development of fact power.  I strongly encourage families to practice number facts 0+0 all the way up to 10+10 with your student at home - knowing these facts automatically will benefit them tremendously in the classroom!

I cannot wait to share how much progress your student has made at conferences over the next three weeks!