Weekly Overview - Oct. 3-7

HERE'S WHAT'S HAPPENING IN ROOM 14...OCTOBER 3-7

Dear Parents:

Our fund-raiser ends this Wednesday. Thank you so much to all families who have turned in support money, or who have committed to supporting our activities sometime within the year. Our library checkout day is Wednesday, but I ask that the books be returned on Tuesday! Please help your child to develop the habit of “book in the backpack” on Tuesday.

LANGUAGE ARTS:

Phonograms:  This week we will learn two phonograms: ay (long a at the end of the word), and ch.  We will review sh, th, ee, ow, oo, and ou.  There will not be a quiz on Thursday. 

Examples:

pay  stay  gray  play  tray  chin  chip  lunch  match  peach  cheek

Reading:  We will be reading the last story for Theme 4 called “Bud’s Day Out”.  High frequency word cards and story vocab. will go home for homework on Monday as usual.  Please continue to review these cards with your child as directed. As our collection of cards get bigger, please feel free to “weed out” those word cards that your child knows instantly. I can't stress enough the importance of your child reading daily at home for 10-15 minutes to increase his/her reading proficiency.  It is important, however, that the reading material not be too difficult, or your time will only result in frustration for your child and you.  Part of this reading time can be with you reading aloud as your child reads along with you. I hope that the bedtime story ritual is part of your child’s evening routine- it is SOOO important!!

Phonics:  We continue to practice our reading and comprehension of short and long vowel a, i, and u words.

Spelling:

1.  day     2.  play     3.  stay     4.  is     5.  had

6.  chip     7.  lunch     8.  touch     9.  don't     10.  of

Writing: We will start to incorporate what we have learned about writing an introduction sentence into actual story writing. We will work together in class on two complete story structures. We will be using transition words to move the story along through three important sequential events related to the introduction sentence topic. We will then learn about detail/feeling sentences (red) and add these to our class stories. We will end each story with a closing (green) sentences related to the introduction sentence.

MATH: This week’s math focuses on problem solving using a picture. We will talk about a specialized type of problem - one that requires the students to compare two quantities. The students will use a special chart called a t-chart. A detailed note about this will go home with Tuesday night’s homework. We will also explore how addition and subtraction facts are related and how we can write a “fact family” for a number and any of its number pairs. For example, the number 9 has 5 and 4 as one of its pairs. We can write 5+4=9, 4+5=9, 9-5=4, 9-4=5. We will talk about how there are “NO STRANGERS” in the family- there are no numbers that don’t belong.

SOCIAL STUDIES: We will talk about the 4 different land areas in California (coast, mountain, desert and valley).

SCIENCE: We will continue to put together all that we have learned about the different animal types and their characteristics.

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

THIS FRIDAY EVENING!! – BOXCAR MOVIE NIGHT! Come out and enjoy a fun family film under the stars! Join the Boxcar contest for even more fun and challenge!

Saturday, Oct. 22 -Harvest Festival (noon-3:00pm)- 1^st grade is hoping to collect $5 per family to help purchase items for our 1^st grade Arts and Crafts Basket for the Silent Auction. We hope that everyone can contribute. We also need many helpers to run our Room 14 game!

Looking ahead: Oct. 31 – Halloween Parade – 8:45 am - Please note that this activity is very low-key and it is optional. We will be having a regular academic day most of the day- please do not take your child out of school that day, just let me know if you do not want him/her participating in the parade and other arrangements will be made for that short time period.

Progress reports will go home this week.

Have a good week!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Pierce