Time flies when you are having fun (and learning, learning, learning)! Believe it or not, we're almost halfway through this school year! The last few months have been absolutely wonderful. Your children have grown in so many ways. They are all so responsible and respectful; they are great friends to one another and have taken such ownership for their learning. I am always, always impressed by their efforts. Thank you so very much for all that you do every day to inspire and support them.
This Month We Will Be Learning...
Reading/Language Arts-We will continue to work on making inferences while we are reading. Inferencing is what all readers do to figure out what the author is saying. We use our schema (what we already know) and clues from the text to determine meanings of unknown words, make predictions, draw conclusions, and analyze characters. We will also focus on the relationship between cause and effect as well as comparing and contrasting texts. We have been reading a different gingerbread story every day to compare and contrast the characters, settings, problems and solutions.
Phonics-We started working on inflectional endings this week and will continue with inflectional endings next week as well. There are some tricky rules to remember! After we are confident with inflectional endings, we will be learn about consonant digraphs (sh, ch, wh, th).
Writing-The children have been working diligently on their narrative writings. We discuss important aspects of a narrative writing, starting with "good writers plan out their thoughts". Please encourage your first grader to really spend some time talking, sketching, and writing a rough draft so that when it's time to actually write a story, the ideas make sense on paper too! We will also talk about using commas in a series as well as using pronouns in our writing.
Math-We are going to revisit our addition and subtraction strategies and review word problems as well as graphing. I would really like the students to improve on their math fact FLUENCY. We will be trying out some "timed" tests to see which facts need more help. We will also review how to interpret graphs and utilize the information. Keep up the great work with IXL at home! In case you haven't had your child try IXL at home, the website is: www.ixl.com/signin/mountainview
Science-The students had a BLAST at the High Touch, High Tech in-house field trip!! We learned all about sound! Our next science unit will be about magnets. We will use the terms attract and repel and try to determine what objects in our lives attract and repel to magnets. Our next in house field trip is the week of December 12 and it will be about... magnets! Feel free to have your child do a little research about magnets at home for fun!
Social Studies-We just finished learning about Thomas Jefferson and it is now time to understand how Lewis and Clark fit into the same time period as Thomas Jefferson! We will discuss their important travels, as well as discuss the role Sacagawea played in their journey.
Important Dates To Remember:
Wednesday, December 21-Class holiday party! The party starts at 12:00 p.m. and ends promptly at 1:00 p.m. I hope to see you all there! All parents are welcome! We will be decorating gingerbread houses! Monday, you will find a paper in your child's folder about a SPECIFIC item(s) that we need for our party. Please send those in as soon as you can, so that we can make sure we have everything that we need by Tuesday the 20th. Thank you in advance for helping our party to run smoothly! Since we've been learning about gingerbread stories, this is going to be a fun treat for the children!
Thursday, December 22-Last day of school before the winter break.
December 23-January 9-NO SCHOOL-Winter Holidays
Tuesday, January 10-First day back for students!
Important Reminders…
Please make sure your child is bringing a healthy snack each day. We still have a few friends who are not bringing snacks and get upset when they do not like the snack provided. I have reminded them that it is their responsibility to make sure they grab a snack each day, but they may need a little help from you to remember!
Please send your child to school dressed appropriately for the weather. When it is cold outside, a winter coat needs to be worn to school every day. Thank you so much for your help with this :)
**Don't forget to label your child's jackets and coats. It is much easier to return a lost jacket or coat if there is a name in it! Also, please check the lost and found in the cafeteria for any missing items! There are LOTS of coats and jackets on the stage waiting to be claimed!
The December homework will come home with your child Monday. Here is an electronic copy if you need it.
Thank you for all your for being such great parents! I know that I have said this many times before, but again I am so proud of the progress each child has made so far this year. Please don't hesitate to contact me at any time if you ever have any questions, comments, or concerns.
:o) Mrs. Spooner
