January 30th Newsletter

Important Dates
January
30 – Movie Night (at Prairieview)

February
10,11,12, & 13 – Iowa Test of Basic Skills
13 – Valentine's Day Party 2:00-3:00
16 – No School – President's Day
19 – Robert Crown Field Trip
20 – Paper making Assembly

Ronald McDonald Bookin' Assembly
Last Friday we had an assembly featuring Ronald McDonald. He read a story and stressed the importance of reading. His motto was “Readers are Leaders.” Each child received a yellow coupon which is good for either an ice cream cone or apple dippers. Thank you to the PTO for arranging this assembly.

Student of the Week
Raaja Vengatesan was our “student of the week” this week. He has done a nice job of taking care of the fish and frogs and also leading the calendar.

Math
This week we completed chapter 8 and began chapter 9. We will be working on data, graphs, & probability throughout this chapter.

Valentine's Day Party
Our Valentine's Day party will be on Friday, February 13th from 2:00-3:00. The children will pass out their valentines before the party. Do not address the valentines, just have your child sign his/her name, this makes passing them out much easier. Thanks.

Reading
The stories from our anthology for next week are: EEK! There’s a Mouse in the House and Animals Big and Small.

Comprehension Strategies
The children will work on noting details and asking questions while reading a selection.

Vocabulary Words
The vocabulary words for next week are: barn, dancing, elephant, laying, marched, mercy, mouse, tangled, and rhyming words.

Phonics Skills
The children will work on the following skills: blending long “e” (CV, CVCe), vowel pairs “ee", " ea”, long “o” (CV, CVCe), long “u” (CVCe) and final clusters “ft”, “lk”, and “nt”.

Grammar Skills
The children will learn about naming words for places and things.

Spelling Words
eat, feet, he, me, mean, see, maybe, sheep, these, and house

Have a great weekend!

January 23rd Newsletter

Important Dates

January
30 – Movie Night (at Prairieview)

February
10,11,12, & 13 – Iowa Test of Basic Skills
13 – Valentine's Day Party
19 – Robert Crown Field Trip
20 – Paper making Assembly

Our 44th President
On Tuesday, the entire first grade got to watch history being made. We saw Joe Biden and Barack Obama being sworn into office. As we were watching, the children were excited to see many of the monuments in the background that we have been studying during Exploration Stations. They were able to name most of them.

Valentine's Day Party

Our Valentine's Day party will be on Friday, February 13th from 2:00-3:00. The children will pass out their Valentines before the party. Do not address the valentines, just have your child sign his/her name, this makes passing out much easier. If you signed up to help or to bring food or paper products, someone will be contacting you soon. Thanks.

Math
This week we worked on sorting objects and making graphs. We will be completing this chapter on graphs next week.

Reading
We will be reading The Sleeping Pig and What Is a Desert?

Comprehension Strategies
The children will be learning about story structure and summarizing a story. We will also talk about how to read a social studies article.

Vocabulary Words
The vocabulary words will be words that name fruits and vegetables and the following words: began, celebrate, coyote, cricket, howl, rabbit, tail, and watermelon.

Phonics Skills
Segmenting phonemes, long o (CV-CVCe) and long u (CVCe), final clusters -ft, -lk, -nt, and review of long i (CVCe).

Grammar Skills
We will work on identifying naming words for people and animals.

Spelling Words
go, bone, so, nose, home, no, also, woke, telephone, and wrote

Have a great weekend!

January 16th Newsletter

Important Dates
January
19 - No School - Martin Luther King's Birthday
20 – Book Orders Are Due
23 – Ronald McDonald Assembly
30 – Movie Night (at Prairieview)



February
9,10,11,&12 – Iowa Test of Basic Skills
13 – Valentine's Day Party
19 – Robert Crown Field Trip
20 – Paper making Assembly




Iowa Test of Basic Skills
Our Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) was switched to the week of February 9-13. More information will be sent home as the date gets closer. Sorry about the confusion.








Exploration Station
This month's Exploration Station deals with the flag, monuments, and famous Americans, such as George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr., and Abraham Lincoln. It also discusses voting – how it works and why it's important to vote.

Student of the Week
Richard Youngfelt was our “student of the week” this week. He did a nice job of feeding the fish and taking the attendance to the office.

Computers
Last week and this week we explored Jan Brett's website during computer time. The children enjoyed working on the section entitled “On Screen Computer Games.” You may also access this website at home. Her website is:
www.janbrett.com

Reading
We will be reading The Kite and How to Make a Kite.

Comprehension Strategies
The children will be learning how to read directions, cause/effect, and monitoring/clarifying

Vocabulary Words
The vocabulary words will be weather words and:
anywhere, beautiful, convinced, easy, news, perfect, raining, & weather

Phonics Skills
Our phonics lessons will be centered around blending long i words. We will also review the soft sound of “g” /j/ and “c” /s/.

Grammar Skills
We will practice using I and me in sentences.

Spelling Words
Our spelling words for next week are:

five, nine, kite, ride, like, time, prize, smile, write, and light.

Enjoy the long weekend!

January 9th Newsletter

Important Dates
January
19 - No School - Martin Luther King's Birthday
23 – Ronald McDonald Assembly

Math

We are just finishing up Chapter 7 and will be starting Chapter 8 next week. We will be studying making and reading graphs in this chapter.

Spelling

On Monday, I gave the children the spelling test over the words that should have been tested on December 19th, our snow day. I did not enter these scores in my grade book, but I did give children a sticker and a punch on their punch card if they got all the words correct.

Author of the Month

Jan Brett is our author for the month of January. We read a couple of her books this week. She gives many picture clues in her books that help children to predict what might happen next.

We explored her website as a group in class and also individually during computer time. You may also access this website at home. It has many different activities for children to do. Her website is: www.janbrett.com

Reading
Our stories for next week are Me on the Map and Children of the World.

Comprehension Strategies
We will be working on summarizing, making generalizations and reading a map.

Vocabulary Words
Our vocabulary words are: ball, countries, country, earth, giant, special, street, and town.

Phonics Skills
We will be blending long “a” words with the CVCe pattern. We will also be working on the soft c and g sound and the final consonants nd, ng, and nk.

Grammar Lesson
We will be working on identifying telling and asking sentences and the correct punctuation for each.

Spelling Words
Our spelling words are: make, came, take, name, gave, game, place, skate, today, and are.