31 January-6 February 2011
Hello to a new week. It's amazing that the year's half over and we've certainly learned a lot, but we've got a lot left to accomplish. I hope your Geometric SOLID SHAPES Castle Projects are coming along. We'd like to have them all finished and to school by Friday the 4th: that's this week! Thanks for helping your child accomplish this exciting effort. It will be amazing to get them all together and see our different creations.
I'll have a substitute on Monday morning until 11:15. I'll be off scoring our 2nd quarter Math Common Assessment with a few ladies from the District Superintendent's Office.
This week's reading story is Frog and Toad: In the Garden. Here's the skills covered:
Title: Frog and Toad Together: In the Garden
Author: Arnold Lobel
Genre: Animal Fantasy (one of our favorite genres!)
Comprehension Skill: Plot (TARGET SKILL)
Comprehension Strategy: Visualize (TARGET SKILL)
Study Skill: Diagram (Science-diagram of a plant)
Spelling/Phonics: Word endings: -ed, -ing /ar/ vowel-controlled 'r', as in car (Target SKILL)
Language/Vocabulary: Inflected endings: -s, -ed,-ing. (TARGET SKILL)
Grammar: Verbs for Now & the Past
Writing: Poem
Spelling Words:
1. ask
2. asked
3. plan
4. planned
5. help
6. helped
7. jog
8. jogged
9. call
10. called
11. again
12. soon
We'll be working hard on addition & subtraction strategies for mental computation, measurement (linear, liquid, time, etc.) in math. We've got the flash cards race going and we'll be having a lot of fun with counting up and on from the greater number in addition, and counting back from up to 18 in subtraction. Practice counting up and back from any number up to 20 and you'll be helping a lot!
As February begins, we'll be looking for more practice on the homework web-sites, watching student penmanship very closely, and increasing fluency and ability to write complete sentences in paragraph form for basically any subject or content.
Reader's Response Logs will come home on Thursday, and remember that 2 entries per week is the minimum. Some student results from the 1st semester were very disappointing, and others were fantastic!
Once again, have your child read every night! Bring those reading bags and reader's response journals should be in their bag, as well. Sign the reading log each night, and their reading will soar!
Let's watch for huge leaps of growth the last half of 1st grade!
Mrs. Petty
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
24-30 January 2011
NO SCHOOL FRIDAY: 28 January 2011 Teacher Work Day: Report CARDS
Welcome to the last week of the quarter and 1st semester. I always marvel at how much the students learn in the first half of the year. The second half, of course, is the one where they'll get closer to that transition to 2nd grade. We been involved with a lot of assessments and will complete them in time to include results in this grading period and suggest how your student's performance can increase over time until the end of the year.
Here are the Language Arts skills of the week. I am now including information about 'TARGET SKILLS' from the Reading Street program. These skills are essential to showing mastery over the comprehension skills necessary to read with skill and show their understanding for more difficult text. We'll begin using graphic organizers to assist with this in the future, so continue to have your student read their Fluency Folder. We will also begin taking measures of their fluency efforts. This consists of reading a NEW passage and scoring how many words were read a minute. The goal begins at 30 words per minute (wpm), and by the end of the year, the 'target' is 60-70 wpm. A few parents have practiced with their child and had great success at home. Way to go!!
Here are the skills for the week.
Story Title: Jan's New Home (our new student Jaylyn can relate to this!)
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Comprehension Skill: Theme (What lesson are we to learn from the story?) TARGET SKILL
Comprehension Strategy: Monitor & Fix-Up (is your child stopping when things don't sound right, look right, make sense, or doesn't match the print?)
Study Skill: Maps
Spelling/Phonics: Ending plural -es, /or/, spelled ore TARGET SKILL
TESTED SKILL
Language/Vocabulary: Adjectives
Grammar: Verbs That Do Not Add -s (ex: pack, fill, & load) TESTED SKILL
Writing: List
Please remember to use the homework links. Those students who participate consistently, are performing much better than those who do not use them often. These are there to support learning in the classroom, and give students' extra practice for mastery and fluency of math, writing, and reading skills. A report of participation on RAZ kids reading and IXL Math will be included in the 2nd quarter progress report.
Once again, thanks for a great 1st semester. We'll head into the last half and continue learning, changing, and growing!
NO SCHOOL FRIDAY: 28 January 2011 Teacher Work Day: Report CARDS
Welcome to the last week of the quarter and 1st semester. I always marvel at how much the students learn in the first half of the year. The second half, of course, is the one where they'll get closer to that transition to 2nd grade. We been involved with a lot of assessments and will complete them in time to include results in this grading period and suggest how your student's performance can increase over time until the end of the year.
Here are the Language Arts skills of the week. I am now including information about 'TARGET SKILLS' from the Reading Street program. These skills are essential to showing mastery over the comprehension skills necessary to read with skill and show their understanding for more difficult text. We'll begin using graphic organizers to assist with this in the future, so continue to have your student read their Fluency Folder. We will also begin taking measures of their fluency efforts. This consists of reading a NEW passage and scoring how many words were read a minute. The goal begins at 30 words per minute (wpm), and by the end of the year, the 'target' is 60-70 wpm. A few parents have practiced with their child and had great success at home. Way to go!!
Here are the skills for the week.
Story Title: Jan's New Home (our new student Jaylyn can relate to this!)
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Comprehension Skill: Theme (What lesson are we to learn from the story?) TARGET SKILL
Comprehension Strategy: Monitor & Fix-Up (is your child stopping when things don't sound right, look right, make sense, or doesn't match the print?)
Study Skill: Maps
Spelling/Phonics: Ending plural -es, /or/, spelled ore TARGET SKILL
TESTED SKILL
Language/Vocabulary: Adjectives
Grammar: Verbs That Do Not Add -s (ex: pack, fill, & load) TESTED SKILL
Writing: List
Please remember to use the homework links. Those students who participate consistently, are performing much better than those who do not use them often. These are there to support learning in the classroom, and give students' extra practice for mastery and fluency of math, writing, and reading skills. A report of participation on RAZ kids reading and IXL Math will be included in the 2nd quarter progress report.
Once again, thanks for a great 1st semester. We'll head into the last half and continue learning, changing, and growing!
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
17-23 January 2011
***SPECIAL BULLETIN***
We'll have our spelling test on Friday morning. Spelling Folders will be sent home today! You'll find the word lists inside, of course! Make sure you read the weekly post below.
Here are the words: Skills- -nk, -ng
1. bring
2. trunk
3. pink
4. bank
5. sang
6. wing
7. wink
8. blank
9. rang
10. sunk
HFW
11. every
12. sure
Another 'short' week with the commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life and plenty of fog in the a.m.! We hope we're able to continue in our learning ventures, even though our time has been limited. This week we're reading the selection "RUBY IN HER OWN TIME". It's a story about a little duck who's growing up and changing each day. The skills associated with this story are:
Genre: Animal Fantasy
Comprehension Skill: Plot
Comprehension Strategy: Summarize
Study Skill: Glossary
Spelling/Phonics: -ng, -nk, & compound words
Language/Vocabulary: Synonyms
Grammar: Verbs that end in 's'
Writing: Making a List
We are also taking our 40 question Unit 2 Benchmark, which covers all of the six stories and the skills from the Communities unit. I am encouraging students to take their time, and if needed, re-read the question before selecting answers. Test-taking strategies are important for 1st graders, also!
We are completing our Geometry Unit and our mid-year & interval assessments to measure growth and skill competencies in : Concepts for addition, subtraction, fact families, ordinal numbers, number order, and number sense, skip counting, place value (tens & ones), word problems and problem solving. These specific skills include many of our Math Comprehensive School Improvement goals in math reasoning, number relationships concerned with problem solving. Please have your child continue their work on IXL math, where these skills are specifically addressed by using the DODEA Standards. Many students are not using this easy accessible tool on-line for extra practice. It can make such a difference.
Continuing to use the homework web-sites is imperative as we move into the latter half of first grade. Homework completion does make a difference with classroom performance. I know that internet access can be a concern, but when you're on line and everything's working take advantage of the links on this site.
I have the Reader's Response journals at school and am reading their entries. The goal is to respond to books read at home or reflect and write about experiences they've had throughout the week. Your assistance is appreciated. I've opened many and enjoyed reading their writing entries. I've also opened a few with very little effort or entries. Please begin to use this as a tool to help your student further increase practice in writing and to prepare for 2nd grade.
Dont forget about the Samson's Classroom web-site, as well. Our spelling words of the week (which are very difficult for the students!) can be reviewed and practice using this site. Each list is available every week and extra practice always helps with these skills. The sight words are also available for reading and spelling practice on this sight.
I am testing the 100 sight words from the original list I sent home at the beginning of the year. Please review these at home.
Report Cards will be completed by Friday, 28th of January, on teacher workday. You will have a better picture of how your child is performing in school, once these are sent home the following week.
Stay warm, help your child get their homework completed daily and LISTEN to them read for accuracy in decoding words and making things sound right, look right and make sense.
Mrs. Petty
***SPECIAL BULLETIN***
We'll have our spelling test on Friday morning. Spelling Folders will be sent home today! You'll find the word lists inside, of course! Make sure you read the weekly post below.
Here are the words: Skills- -nk, -ng
1. bring
2. trunk
3. pink
4. bank
5. sang
6. wing
7. wink
8. blank
9. rang
10. sunk
HFW
11. every
12. sure
Another 'short' week with the commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life and plenty of fog in the a.m.! We hope we're able to continue in our learning ventures, even though our time has been limited. This week we're reading the selection "RUBY IN HER OWN TIME". It's a story about a little duck who's growing up and changing each day. The skills associated with this story are:
Genre: Animal Fantasy
Comprehension Skill: Plot
Comprehension Strategy: Summarize
Study Skill: Glossary
Spelling/Phonics: -ng, -nk, & compound words
Language/Vocabulary: Synonyms
Grammar: Verbs that end in 's'
Writing: Making a List
We are also taking our 40 question Unit 2 Benchmark, which covers all of the six stories and the skills from the Communities unit. I am encouraging students to take their time, and if needed, re-read the question before selecting answers. Test-taking strategies are important for 1st graders, also!
We are completing our Geometry Unit and our mid-year & interval assessments to measure growth and skill competencies in : Concepts for addition, subtraction, fact families, ordinal numbers, number order, and number sense, skip counting, place value (tens & ones), word problems and problem solving. These specific skills include many of our Math Comprehensive School Improvement goals in math reasoning, number relationships concerned with problem solving. Please have your child continue their work on IXL math, where these skills are specifically addressed by using the DODEA Standards. Many students are not using this easy accessible tool on-line for extra practice. It can make such a difference.
Continuing to use the homework web-sites is imperative as we move into the latter half of first grade. Homework completion does make a difference with classroom performance. I know that internet access can be a concern, but when you're on line and everything's working take advantage of the links on this site.
I have the Reader's Response journals at school and am reading their entries. The goal is to respond to books read at home or reflect and write about experiences they've had throughout the week. Your assistance is appreciated. I've opened many and enjoyed reading their writing entries. I've also opened a few with very little effort or entries. Please begin to use this as a tool to help your student further increase practice in writing and to prepare for 2nd grade.
Dont forget about the Samson's Classroom web-site, as well. Our spelling words of the week (which are very difficult for the students!) can be reviewed and practice using this site. Each list is available every week and extra practice always helps with these skills. The sight words are also available for reading and spelling practice on this sight.
I am testing the 100 sight words from the original list I sent home at the beginning of the year. Please review these at home.
Report Cards will be completed by Friday, 28th of January, on teacher workday. You will have a better picture of how your child is performing in school, once these are sent home the following week.
Stay warm, help your child get their homework completed daily and LISTEN to them read for accuracy in decoding words and making things sound right, look right and make sense.
Mrs. Petty
Monday, January 10, 2011
20 January 2010
We've got the first week "under our belt" and will begin the Unit 3 Theme: CHANGES with our Reading Streets program this week. It begins with the story: AN EGG IS AN EGG. The skills covered in this Selection are:
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Comprehension Skill: Compare/Contrast
Comprehension Strategy: Predict
Study Skill: Alphabetical Order
Spelling/Phonics: Sounds of Y (long e and long i), CV (consonant, vowel)
Language/Vocabulary: Synonyms
Grammar: Action Verbs
Writing: Steps and How to directions
We will also begin our Unit 2 Benchmark test that has 40 questions dealing with Comprehension, Phonics, Grammar and Usage and High Frequency Words/Vocabulary. Sometimes it takes 2-3 sessions on the computer to complete this assessment because of the length. Some will be given the test in a small group. All in all, we're moving through the curriculum, and having a lot of fun learning how to read. We'll step up the fluency work, and you'll see a lot of their Fluency Folder for homework, since the passages are lengthier and full of new adventures in word work using all past phonics and high frequency words throughout. Please listen and assist appropriately, where necessary.
In math we're exploring geometry and spatial sense in addition to number sense with place value, fact families and strategies for addition and subtraction.
In problem solving last week, we added another strategy to our 'bank' of reasoning steps. Now we have three we're working with :
1. draw a picture
2. find a pattern
3. choose an operation (new last week)
We've also been working on writing equations for word problems and using our strategies to think through solutions. This includes everyone 'listening' to the word problem and responding by writing on their white board. They are becoming quite the mathematicians!
I have begun to record/publish progress on IXL Math and Reading Counts on a special board in the classroom. They earn points/awards through both of these programs. You can help by:
1. IXL Math: allowing your student to access this web-site from home from the homework links where they earn awards, and.....
2. Let them read their take home books at home in order to take the quizzes during the next day at school. We've changed from Early Intervention Take-Home books, to Guided Reading Books, where each book has a 10 question quiz that can be taken at school on the computers. Please encourage home reading, so your child can earn and add to their 'bank' of points.
Other Homework Links: Sampson's Classroom (spelling and sight words)
Remember that next Monday: 17 January, is a federal holiday and there is no school for students.
Thank you for your support.
Mrs. Petty
We've got the first week "under our belt" and will begin the Unit 3 Theme: CHANGES with our Reading Streets program this week. It begins with the story: AN EGG IS AN EGG. The skills covered in this Selection are:
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Comprehension Skill: Compare/Contrast
Comprehension Strategy: Predict
Study Skill: Alphabetical Order
Spelling/Phonics: Sounds of Y (long e and long i), CV (consonant, vowel)
Language/Vocabulary: Synonyms
Grammar: Action Verbs
Writing: Steps and How to directions
We will also begin our Unit 2 Benchmark test that has 40 questions dealing with Comprehension, Phonics, Grammar and Usage and High Frequency Words/Vocabulary. Sometimes it takes 2-3 sessions on the computer to complete this assessment because of the length. Some will be given the test in a small group. All in all, we're moving through the curriculum, and having a lot of fun learning how to read. We'll step up the fluency work, and you'll see a lot of their Fluency Folder for homework, since the passages are lengthier and full of new adventures in word work using all past phonics and high frequency words throughout. Please listen and assist appropriately, where necessary.
In math we're exploring geometry and spatial sense in addition to number sense with place value, fact families and strategies for addition and subtraction.
In problem solving last week, we added another strategy to our 'bank' of reasoning steps. Now we have three we're working with :
1. draw a picture
2. find a pattern
3. choose an operation (new last week)
We've also been working on writing equations for word problems and using our strategies to think through solutions. This includes everyone 'listening' to the word problem and responding by writing on their white board. They are becoming quite the mathematicians!
I have begun to record/publish progress on IXL Math and Reading Counts on a special board in the classroom. They earn points/awards through both of these programs. You can help by:
1. IXL Math: allowing your student to access this web-site from home from the homework links where they earn awards, and.....
2. Let them read their take home books at home in order to take the quizzes during the next day at school. We've changed from Early Intervention Take-Home books, to Guided Reading Books, where each book has a 10 question quiz that can be taken at school on the computers. Please encourage home reading, so your child can earn and add to their 'bank' of points.
Other Homework Links: Sampson's Classroom (spelling and sight words)
Remember that next Monday: 17 January, is a federal holiday and there is no school for students.
Thank you for your support.
Mrs. Petty
Saturday, January 01, 2011
1 January 2011
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
In 2 short days, we'll all be back to school, ready to continue our First Grade work and progress towards end--of-year benchmarks. I hope you've taken the time to have fun, make memories with your family, renew and rejuvenate yourself, and help your child to remember to visit the homework links.
This week, we'll finish Unit 2 "COMMUNITIES", with a non-fiction story about Honey Bees! The skills covered in this Selection are:
Genre: Expository Non-fiction
Comprehension Skill: Compare/Contrast
Comprehension Strategy: Preview
Study Skill: Picture Dictionary
Spelling/Phonics: Long e-'ee', e, syllables
Language/Vocabulary: Antonyms (opposites)
Grammar: Nouns in Sentences
Writing: Facts
After this week's selection, we will prepare to take the 40 item Unit Benchmark Test that tells us how they're performing in comprehension, spelling & phonics, use of language, grammar and writing skills that include grammar, conventions, sequencing, and sentence/construction by responding to a "How to Make a Sandwich" prompt. This test is taken on-line and their 'test-reading' skills will obviously become a part of their skill-set, as well.
Take these dates down for January:
No School for Students:
10 January-Professional Development Day for Teachers
17 January-Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday
28 January-Teacher Work Day (Report Cards/End of Quarter)
You're also welcome to attend the SAC (School Advisory Committee) Meeting that will occur on Monday, 24 January in the Media Center Conference Room at 3 p.m.
You can expect your child's Report Card to come home on Wednesday, 2 February.
I'll be adding to the post throughout the following weeks' and months', of course. Remember that this needs to be checked weekly, as early as Sunday evening, or Monday evening. This helps to inform you of the class events and academic milestones and activities.
See you soon!
Mrs. Petty
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
In 2 short days, we'll all be back to school, ready to continue our First Grade work and progress towards end--of-year benchmarks. I hope you've taken the time to have fun, make memories with your family, renew and rejuvenate yourself, and help your child to remember to visit the homework links.
This week, we'll finish Unit 2 "COMMUNITIES", with a non-fiction story about Honey Bees! The skills covered in this Selection are:
Genre: Expository Non-fiction
Comprehension Skill: Compare/Contrast
Comprehension Strategy: Preview
Study Skill: Picture Dictionary
Spelling/Phonics: Long e-'ee', e, syllables
Language/Vocabulary: Antonyms (opposites)
Grammar: Nouns in Sentences
Writing: Facts
After this week's selection, we will prepare to take the 40 item Unit Benchmark Test that tells us how they're performing in comprehension, spelling & phonics, use of language, grammar and writing skills that include grammar, conventions, sequencing, and sentence/construction by responding to a "How to Make a Sandwich" prompt. This test is taken on-line and their 'test-reading' skills will obviously become a part of their skill-set, as well.
Take these dates down for January:
No School for Students:
10 January-Professional Development Day for Teachers
17 January-Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday
28 January-Teacher Work Day (Report Cards/End of Quarter)
You're also welcome to attend the SAC (School Advisory Committee) Meeting that will occur on Monday, 24 January in the Media Center Conference Room at 3 p.m.
You can expect your child's Report Card to come home on Wednesday, 2 February.
I'll be adding to the post throughout the following weeks' and months', of course. Remember that this needs to be checked weekly, as early as Sunday evening, or Monday evening. This helps to inform you of the class events and academic milestones and activities.
See you soon!
Mrs. Petty
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