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