weekly Overview - Sept. 26-30

HERE'S WHAT'S HAPPENING IN ROOM 14...SEPTEMBER 26-30

Dear Parents:

We are back to our regular dismissal schedule. Please return the fund-raiser information/donation as soon as possible. Thank you for attending parent conferences-I hope that the time was worth your while and gave you some valuable information about strengths and goals for your child.

LANGUAGE ARTS:

Phonograms:  We will learn one phonogram this week, ou (says ow, long o,  dotted o, short u).  There will be a phonogram quiz on Thursday.

mouth   out   loud   sound   your   dough   you   soup   touch   rough

Writing: We will continue to work on writing clear introduction sentences.  The students will be focusing on how to add connecting words to the “when”, “who”, “where” and “what” parts so that they go together and make sense. Wednesday’s homework will once again require students to come up with introduction sentences that are true (they must be experiences that they have already had-things like vacations, birthday parties, family visits, holidays, and play dates work well). Please help them with this homework so that their sentences make sense- but let them come up with the ideas. Also, the idea must be one that a whole story can be written about, not just one single event. The students will be using one of the ideas to write a story in a few weeks, so it must be something that they have experienced and remember well. They may repeat an idea from last week since we are working on practicing the structure of the introduction sentence.

Reading:  This week’s story is about a pet contest. There will be new vocabulary cards and a new word list for homework on Monday.

Spelling: Please note that word number 7 will be pronounced "hour" not "are".  This helps the children to distinguish in both spelling and meaning the difference between our and are.

1.  three     2.  four     3.  five     4.  seven     5.  nine

6.  out     7.  our     8.  your     9.  you     10.  soup

MATH: We will begin a new topic, “Understanding Subtraction”. We will focus on the idea of subtraction as adding with missing parts. For example, if a student knows how to figure out the missing part for 6 + ? = 10, then that student can know that 10-6=4. We will work on parts of 6, 7, 8, and 9, and subtraction sentences.

SOCIAL STUDIES: We will continue to discuss the focus question “Where do you live?”. We will explore how weather, location and the physical environment affect a people’s food, clothing, shelter, job, transportation and recreation.

SCIENCE: We will continue to explore the characteristics of the different animal types (mammal, reptile, amphibian, bird, fish). We may add in insects as well. We will discuss how an animal’s teeth help it to process the food that it eats.

*********************** SPECIAL  NOTES*************************

There will be no progress report this week. Please use your child’s work packet as a guide to challenges and strengths from the week’s topics.

Thursday, Sept. 29- Come out and see how your family can get involved in a new Multicultural Night event! This evening will be a night to learn about the event, which will take place in November. In past Multicultural Night’s we have focused on a variety of cultures around the world. This year’s event will focus on the various cultures of different US regions. This ties in nicely with our 1^st grade social studies topic for the week! Any family that attends this information night will earn 1 hour toward the 10 required volunteer hours.

Looking ahead—Friday, Oct. 7 - Movie Night at Millikin! Make and bring a boxcar for the Boxcar contest or just come to enjoy an evening of fun watching “How to Train a Dragon”.

Looking way ahead: October 17 –In-service Day- no school…October 22 – Harvest Festival-noon-3:00 pm… October 31- Halloween Parade – 8:45 am

Sincerely,

Mrs. Pierce

Weekly Overview - Sept. 19-23

 HERE'S WHAT'S HAPPENING IN ROOM 14 – SEPTEMBER 19-23

Dear Parents:

Conferences continue through Wednesday of this week with 1:37 dismissal for each of those days. There is a lot to cover in a short amount of time, so please be prompt. There are still a few families who have not returned the emergency food packet- please do so this week and PLEASE stick to the items mentioned in the letter that went home. Please do not put perishables in the bag.

LANGUAGE ARTS:

Phonograms:  This week we will learn one new phonogram - oo.  It has three sounds - o,o,u.  We will review all of our phonograms (sh, th, ee, ow, and oo) and have our first quiz on Thursday.

door  floor  poor  soon  moon  broom  food  book  good  look  shook

Reading:  This week we will be beginning our Houghton Mifflin reading series. We are beginning in the middle of book 2 with Theme 4: Family and Friends.  This series has a weekly set of word cards and a list of challenging story words to be practiced. These words are part of the vocabulary assessment for each theme test. They will be sent home each Monday with spelling homework. Please make sure that you SAVE the cards and find some type of sturdy container for them - there will be a lot of them by the end of the reading series!

Writing:  We will be talking about how to make complete sentences.  We will also begin talking about a personal narrative and its structure.  Our focus this week will be how to write an introduction (topic) sentence. There will be homework for this on Wednesday- your child will need some help. Please make sure that the topic sentence is something that could lead to a whole story like “Last week my family went to the park.” and not just one simple idea like “Last week I played on the slide.” 

SPELLING:  Our spelling words are quite challenging this week.  They are utilizing many of the phonograms that we are learning, as well as focusing on high frequency words. Please make sure that your child reads and practices these words.

1.  now     2.  show     3.  need     4.  my     5.  can't

6.  look     7.  good    8.  room     9.  too     10.  sum

MATH: We will finish Topic 3 “Understanding Addition” and have our topic test on Friday. Our math concepts this week will focus on the following: finding a missing part to complete the whole (5+?=9); the = sign simply means “is the same as” so the whole can be on the right OR the left (6=4+2 means the same thing as 4+2=6); solving problems using pictures and number sentences; adding in any order. We like to call these “flip-flop facts”; however, the mathematical term is “related facts”. For example 6+3=9 and 3+6=9.

SCIENCE: We will learn a bit more about amphibians and then we will conclude our animal study with fish. There is a science lab this week that focuses on graphing, estimating, counting and sorting.

*************************SPECIAL NOTES*************************

Looking Ahead>>>Wednesday, Oct. 5 – our Fundraiser ends - please contribute, if you can. We cannot go on any field trips without this support. We have some great (but expensive!) trips planned for first grade.

Next progress report will be given on Oct. 5.

Have a great week!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Pierce

Weekly Overview - Sept. 12-16

HERE'S WHAT'S HAPPENING IN ROOM 14...SEPTEMBER 12-16

Dear Parents:

     Picture Day is tomorrow!! Your child MUST have his/her envelope in hand if you are planning to purchase pictures. PLEASE let your child know where the envelope is in his/her backpack if you are planning on sending one. I cannot search 30 backpacks! Thank you!

Please make sure that you read the "Here's What's Happening" note in its entirety each week.  I count on this parental support so that you know what is happening in class and can remind your child about activities. Don’t forget that in first grade there are MANY times when homework consists of something that a parent needs to sign. Please don’t let your child down by forgetting to check EACH NIGHT and sign as needed.

Also, if you have not joined the PTA, please remember that a portion of the small donation you make to join the PTA goes directly to your child in the form of classroom party funding, as well as funding many activities and resources. Please support your child and our amazing PTA. Joining the PTA does not mean that you are required to go to a lot of meetings.

    

LANGUAGE ARTS:

Printing/Phonograms:  We will learn two phonograms: ee (2-letter "e") and ow (says ow, o):

Examples:

bee   tree  three  see   seed   feed   geese   jeep   keep

cow   town   brown   clown   sow   blow   crow   grow   show   throw   mow

Reading: This week we continue to work on and assess the students’ abilities to recognize and produce the long and short vowel sounds, both in isolation and as an aid to reading words. We will be reading three Big Books together as a class.  Big Books are used in whole class instruction to model good reading strategies (using the picture clues, using initial sounds, phonograms, looking for words within words, using sentence context). I am continuing to assess students’ reading levels.

Spelling: Monday- words 1-5 four times each- Tuesday-words 6-10 four times each with correct letter formation 

1.  she     2.  fish     3.  the     4.  bath     5.  go

6.  no     7.  I     8.  can     9.  and     10.  a

MATH: We continue to work on number pairs to name the numbers 7,8,and 9. For example 8 can be broken up into the following parts: 5,3  4,4  6,2  7,1  8,0. We will work on this concept through games, whole class activities and our math pamphlets. We will also review addition notation: _ + _ = _

   

SOCIAL STUDIES:  Our study this week focuses on the function of a map.

SCIENCE: We will study two types of animals this week: reptiles and amphibians.

LIBRARY: If your child has brought home a library book, it needs to be brought back to school TOMORROW. Thank you for helping your child to learn this responsibility.

********************SPECIAL NOTES***************************

This Friday is the K-2 Family Picnic! Come enjoy lunch with your child on the Primary Playground lawn! Please let your child (and me) know if you will not be able to come so that I can arrange for your child to sit with a friend. Lunch will last from noon-1:00.

Please return the Emergency Food Pack as soon as possible.

Conferences begin this week on Wednesday and will continue through next Wednesday. Please remember that all of these days have a 1:37 dismissal.

Because of conferences there will not be a progress report until September 27.

Have a great week!!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Pierce

Weekly Overview - Sept. 6-9

HERE'S WHAT'S HAPPENING IN ROOM 14...SEPTEMBER 6-9

Dear Parents:

Please send the emergency food packet to school as soon as possible and limit the amount of food sent to that described in the letter. Please also sign and return the progress report that is attached to the work packet in the Wednesday envelope each week. Thank you! 

LANGUAGE ARTS:

Printing/Phonograms:  We have finished reviewing correct upper and lowercase letter formation.  When your child is doing homework please refer to the examples that I sent home at Back-to-School Night so that good printing habits can be reinforced at home. We will begin learning our phonograms (2-4 letters that come together in a word as only one sound).  You will not see these papers coming home, as they will be kept together in your child's desk as a word book.  This week we will begin with sh and th.

Word examples:

ship  shape  fish  dish  splash  shade  wish  wash  shine  shut  push

thin  math  path  thank  thirsty  the  this  that  there  breathe  those    

Reading: This week we are finishing up our study of the vowel sounds.  There will be quite a bit of testing in this area. On Friday there will be a quiz on all of the vowel sounds. I will begin testing book levels reached at the end of kindergarten (and beyond) so that I can begin to adjust the Take Home books. Please read the procedures letter that is inside the Take Home books plastic envelope very carefully.

Spelling: This week's list will be more challenging because it requires your child to know the difference between long and short vowel words.  Please drill your child DAILY on these words.  Because of the short week, the practice test is on Thurday (any missed words are written four times for homework), and the final test is on Friday. The correct spelling homework heading is as follows: red margin line on the left, name on the first line, “Spelling” centered on the second line, words four times each on the remaining lines. 

1. mad   2. made  3. met  4. meet  5. rip

6. ripe  7. not   8. note  9. cub  10. cube

MATH: We will finish up Topic 2 by exploring how to use the strategy of “act it out” to solve problems. Our topic test will be on Wednesday. We will begin Topic 3 that deals with understanding addition. We will begin working on the number pairs for 5, 6, 7, and 8. For example: 3,2 1,4 and 0,5 are all number pairs for 5.

SCIENCE: We are continuing our study of the main animal groups. Last week we had a brief discussion of mammals. This week we will work briefly with birds.

*************************SPECIAL NOTES******************************

PTA membership: Please remember that your membership helps to fund programs and activities for YOUR child. Please consider becoming a member to support Millikin and its activities.

Sept. 13- Picture Day J

Sept. 16- K-2 Family Picnic  Noon-1:00

Sept. 17 and 18- Santa Clara Art & Wine Festival- Consider helping out with the parking fund-raiser for Millikin and earn some volunteer hours!

Conferences- Sept.14-21 – 1:37 dismissal - Schedule letters will go home this week. Please return your confirmation as soon as possible. Remember that siblings are scheduled back-to-back as much as possible.

Millikin Fund-raiser begins this week! Please support our play, Hidden Villa and Zoo trips.

Have a great week!  Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Pierce