August newsletter

School Day 12:      Tuesday,  August 31, 2016

Routines:
We have had a terrific beginning of the year. We have been spending time establishing our norms and first grade routines. The children are learning how important it is to transition quietly and  to speak in a low tone of voice to help create a calm learning environment with our open classrooms. We are trying to fill each others buckets with kindness. All of the children are doing a great job.
Literacy:
We are starting to practice our routines for Reading Workshop in the
morning. Our morning consists of:
A. Opening:  Attendance, lunch count, kids "shopping" for new books to read
B. Morning Meeting/Calendar
C. Reading Workshop
1. Reading mini-lesson
2. *Independent reading-  teacher is conferring with students or pulling a reading group
3. Partner reading- teacher is conferring
4. Share out our good work and story
5. Handwriting
6. Work-work (spelling patterns)

*We have been building our stamina for independent reading.  Just like running a marathon, the children have been practicing so they can build up their stamina. Our goal for the Fall is to read for 20 minutes quietly each day in first grade while the teacher confers with students. By spring the goal is 45 minutes of independent reading.*

Word Work/Spelling- Children learn the spelling patterns in first grade to better help them understand how words work and apply this knowledge to their writing. We are beginning our work with short vowels. This week we learning about short A in the pattern -at. Next week we will learn about short A in the pattern  -an and -ad.  The following  week we will learn about short a in the pattern  -ag and -ap.
Please have your child practice reading and spelling correctly sight words:
the, was, went, with, when

Handwriting- Legible handwriting is our goal in first grade. We will practice handwriting everyday the first quarter. Please, encourage your child to use correct letter formations and good handwriting on homework, too!

Math: Math in Focus is the curriculum in all elementary schools in Clayton.
We started Chapter 2: Number Bonds up to 10  this week.  Number bonds is a way for students to visualize numbers and decompose (break apart) and compose (make) numbers.

Being able to visualize numbers is the key, and giving the students a graphic like the number bound is one way to help them do this.









Another way for students to think about numbers is to play “Bears in a Cave” If I have 5 bears (cubes or beans) and 2 are outside the cup (cave) how many went in to the cup/cave? (3)

Did you know that all children have access to Think Central the Math in Focus website?
https://www-k6.thinkcentral.com/ePC/start.do
This website has lots of resources for you or your child to help with math.
 Just login using your child’s name:
firstnamelastname and the password: cgmcgm11.



Social Studies: We finished our first unit “How Do We Get Along.” We learned how important it is to follow rules, be a bucket filler (kind) and solve problems peacefully.

We talk about "filling some one's bucket" which means being kind to someone. If we forget, then we talk about how the other person feels- usually bad or sad. Plus, we talk about how we feel when we are not nice- usually bad or sad. Developing empathy in our students allows them to understand how the other person is feeling.

Books about Bucket Filling

Look for Scholastic Book Orders to come home.  
Scholastic Book orders are DUE:  next Friday, Sept. 9th.

If you order, there are 2 ways to pay:
A) Return order sheet and a check made out to Scholastic.
B) Online order with your credit card.
1. go to www.scholastic.com/bookclubs
2. use my class activation code: fmr3g
3. shop and pay.