Field Day

Field Day is scheduled for this Friday! The weather forecast is calling for some very hot weather.

• Please dress your child accordingly. 
• Send in a refillable water bottle to keep them hydrated. 
• They may also want a hat. 
• Apply any sunscreen/ bug spray before sending them to school. I cannot apply it here. 
• Also, the lunch will be provided and is a hot dog, watermelon, chips, and a drink. If your child does not like this food... please pack them a bagged lunch!

Writing Assessments

We will be having a writing prompt on Tuesday about the long weekend. Please talk to your child about the things you are doing over the weekend to help them gather "story ideas". The more they are aware of what they do... the better the details!

Library Visit

Reminder- We will be going on a "field trip" to the Somers Public Library next Tuesday to learn about the summer reading program and all that the library has to offer to keep your child at their best over the break!

Math Chapter 11

 

We are now moving on to Chapter 11- Addition and Subtraction

This chapter is in many ways a culmination of all that the children have learned about numbers in 1st grade. Over the next few days we will focus intensely on reviewing related facts, ex:

5+3=8

3+5=8

and fact families (which is the complete set including the subtraction), ex:

5+3=8

3+5=8

8-5=3

8-3=5

We will review:

doubles

doubles plus/ minus 1

adding 10

making 10 to add

addition strategies

adding three numbers

related facts

fact families

using addition to subtract

using 10 to subtract

applying subtraction fact strategies

solving multi-step word problems

problem solving applications (word problems)

We will also continue to use IXL and xtramath daily. The children have made so much progress with these programs this year! I hope to see most students approach completion (100) on addition using xtramath before the end of 1st grade. Many are already half way there or beyond. I am currently working on sharing the xtramath program with parents and hope to be able to do that soon so that you may get a better idea of your child's progress and needs.

Readers Workshop

We are beginning to shift from Unit 7: Fluency to Unit 8: Deeper Comprehension. As we move away from the focus on fluency, please keep working with your child to make their reading smooth (not too fast, not too slow), accurate, and expressive.

Unit 8 will cover a range of reading skills and strategies that they will need for the rest of their life as a reader. These will be taught more in depth in 2nd grade and beyond. Here is our scope and sequence- some lessons may be taught over a continuum of days.

Good Readers:
    •    retell using story elements
    •    retell and have a partner check
    •    retell (summarize)
    •    relate (connect)
    •    predict
    •    ask questions
    •    answer questions (w's)
    •    support answers with evidence from the text
    •    think about what the character does AND says to learn more about them
    •    think about character traits
    •    think about characters to predict and understand beyond the text (infer)
    •    picture the story (visualize)
    •    make deeper connections (T to T, T to S, T to W)
    •    use background knowledge (schema)

Blogging at Home

 

http://kidblog.org/StephanieToneysClass/wp-login.php?loggedout=true

Please keep blogging from home (sign in as a parent guest, password room222- don't forget to leave a signature so we know who you are). The kids love to see parents' comments (thanks Mrs. T.) when we get on there at school! The most recent posts are all about the kids favorite animals. Some children had time to post images from google images. But if you want to add a picture of your own pet to go along with their post just put it in the comment. You can do that by right clicking on a picture (it must be saved somewhere online like snapfish) and selecting "copy image location". Then when you are on the blog you can select "img" and paste the code in the first box. It will ask you to title your picture but the title doesn't appear. I have commented myself on a few to give examples of how pictures can appear in comments.

Also, I LOVE that so many kids are posting from home. It gives them a great opportunity to extend their learning and to share a personal side of them (check out the trains and trips that have been blogged about). It also gives them time to read through other students' blogs and comment. We always seem to run out of time to do EVERYTHING so thank you for giving them the opportunity at home!

Reading Reward for April

Friday 5/3 is bring a stuffed animal to school day for 1st graders who have completed their at home reading logs!!!

 

* On a side (yet related) note. This past month I have had to send home multiple copies of the log for students who misplace them. I completely don't mind doing so, but it seems that more and more the logs are being lost or forgotten. Please work with your child to be responsible for the log as it should be an accurate collection of days they read. Also, this should be an ongoing nightly assignment so if the log is misplaced, please email me early so that the student is seeing their own progress as they work to earn the reward. I worry with so many logs being signed all at once, that the children are no longer equating their own work with the reward.
* If you have not seen/ signed a complete log for your child, this is a good time to discuss with them their responsibility to read nightly and to keep the log in their folder. Please also discuss with them that they may not bring a stuffed animal and help them to see the connection between the work/ reward. This is the part of the incentive that breaks my heart, but I'm sure you'd agree that it is not fair to the kids who are working so hard to see their classmates get the reward without doing the work.

Mine Craft

FYI- Due to some of the behaviors while I had a substitute yesterday and some materials that were used inappropriately and therefore broken... our class lost this privilege until further notice (in case your child comes home and mentions it).

Trash Treasure Project

Due April 12th

We are learning how important it is to take care of our earth. We need to reduce, reuse, and recycle our "trash".

Your project is to make a sculpture, invention, or create something useful out of trash. It should be something you would proudly display or use in your home.

Let your imagination soar!

IXL Homework

Please have your child log in to IXL EVERY Wednesday night (or more!) to complete a minimum of 15 minutes math practice.
The following is a list of important skills to practice AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE. Please have your child choose one (or more) of them.
Current skills we are working to master: 

• A.3 Counting tens and ones - up to 20
• A.7 Counting tens and ones - up to 99
• A.8 Skip-counting - with pictures
• A.9 Counting by twos, fives, and tens - up to 100
• A.10 Counting forward and backward
• A.12 Hundred chart  
• A.15 Skip-counting patterns - with tables 
• A.16 Sequences - count up and down by 1, 2, 3, 5, and 10 
• A.17 Ordinal numbers  
• A.18 Writing numbers in words

*Next year, the children will be expected to complete homework nightly and while I understand that weeknights can be hectic... it is an important habit and attitude to develop in your child now.

New Readers Workshop Unit

Unit 7: Fluency Fluency by stephtoney on GoAnimate

Animated Presentations - Powered by GoAnimate.

Book Fair

We will be visiting the book fair on Thursday, March 21st.

2013- 2014 Calendar

Next Year's Calendar

Conferences and Half Days

Report cards will come home on Tuesday. The comments section will look a little differently this term. I have tried to focus on identifying accomplishments/ strengths and goals for the remainder of the year. I found that by altering the format I was able to fit more specific information in that small space!

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are conferences. Please return confirmation slips ASAP!

Conference days are half days. There will be no lunch served so please plan accordingly. Children may bring in a larger snack than usual, especially if they will not reach their destination and have lunch until later.

Conference Schedule (by student number for confidentiality)

Homework for the REMAINDER OF THE YEAR

To simplify the process and to make the homework more routine, please be aware that as long as there is school the homework will be:

Daily- 
1) read 15 minutes and log on monthly chart
2) practice word wall words (aka sight words) for weekly spelling and overall recognition by sight... if they can spell them, they can read them!
3) practice math facts, even for just a minute or two

Monday- 15-20 minutes reading (not listening) on RAZkids (counts towards daily reading assignment), minimum of 2 comprehension quizzes

Wednesday- 15 minutes on IXL- specific assignment details will continue to be emailed

ALSO, CHILDREN AND PARENTS ARE HIGHLY ENCOURAGED TO HONE THEIR DIGITAL LITERACY SKILLS FROM HOME BY ADDING POSTS AND/ OR COMMENTS (APPROPRIATE AND SCHOOL OR ACADEMIA RELATED) TO THE KIDBLOG FROM HOME.

Words for March 11-15

end, other, father, brother, friend

Practice

Helping Your Child Be A Reader

from: http://www.scholastic.com/parents/resources/article/reading-comprehension-and-decoding-strategies

Instead of simply telling him to “sound it out,” try these tricks:

• Say nothing. Give him a chance to figure it out.
• Say, “Look at the picture.”
• Say, “Let’s get the first sound.” 
• Say, “What would make sense?” Even if he gets the wrong word, you can say “Yes, it’s a kind of house, but the author chose a different word. Look at the first letter and see if you can get it now.” 
• Say, “Chunk it.” Are there smaller words in the bigger ones (e.g., ‘going’ has the word ‘go’ in it)?
• Say, “Let’s reread.” Before you tell your child the word, see if he can re-read the sentence and get it with a “running start.”
• Say, “Close your eyes. Now look again.” Have him close his eyes, open them, and see if his brain can just “get” the word as a sight word, without trying to sound it out.
• Say, “Say it like a word.” Decoding will only take you so far. If you know how to make the sounds come together like a word you know, it makes reading so much easier. It’s not about saying the sounds faster; it’s about saying them like a word. Country can be sounded out as “cow-n-try” or “count” “try.” But if they “say it like a word,” they are more likely to get to country. You can use a slinky to help them literally “see” what it looks like when they say stretched out sounds. Have them collapse the slinky as they “say it like a word.”
• Skip the word and come back when they have the context of the sentence (be sure they do). 
• Look at word families. If your child knows ‘at’, they will more easily be able to identify ‘hat.’ 
• Get the main word first, then add on prefixes or suffixes. You can use your finger to cover up parts of the word while your child gets the main word. 
• Tell them the word. You do not want to hinder the comprehension of a story by belaboring a single word. Instead, give your child the word and have her re-read the sentence so that the word sticks in her mind for the next time she encounters it!

To facilitate comprehension/thinking strategies, have your child:

• Ask a question about what he has already read (to themselves, or to you).
• Infer what is going on or might happen, based on what they already know and what they have read. 
• Make a connection:
  • Make a text-to-text connection where he relates this book to another he has read.
  • Make a text-to-world connection where he relates the book to an experience going on in our world (e.g., truffula trees being chopped down and our own struggles with deforestation).
  • Make a text-to-self connection where he relates the book to himseld or an experience he has had (e.g., remembering a time he was not listened to, even when he knew better than the other person).
• Visualize: Encourage your child to create a mental image or play the scene like a movie in her head
• Evaluate: Determine the importance of characters, events, or details. 
• Synthesize information means taking information you learn along the way and combining it with the information you know. 
• Other tips:
  • Make a prediction.
  • Take the character’s perspective or relate to the character’s feeling.
  • Read it like a sentence. If your child reads haltingly, have them re-read the same sentence to get the fluency (and confidence!) aspect of reading. It’s hard to comprehend disjointed sentences.