Indian Creek First Grade News
October 21-October 25 2019
Important Events
Red Ribbon Dress Up for this week
(Our calendar in the blue folders does not reflect the accurate dress up days, so sorry, but everything else is accurate):
Monday-Mismatched Clothes
Tuesday-Neon Colors
Wednesday- Sweat Shirts and Pants
Thursday- Favorite Book Character
Friday- PJ Day (school appropriate)
Monday, October 21st Library Book Character Pumpkins- This is a special announcement from our Library. Ms. Thompson, our Librarian, will start accepting your child's favorite book character pumpkins on Monday, October 21st. Have your student get creative by turning a pumpkin into their favorite book character. These pumpkins will be displayed in the Library all week and then showcased at the Fall Festival on Friday, October 25th.
Tuesday, October 22nd-
- DEA Helicopter Visit for National Red Ribbon Week.
- Coffee Talks with Mrs. Sowers 9-10 AM in the Cafeteria
Friday October 25th- Fall Festival from 6-8 PM. This is a PTA event. Tickets are on sale right now at the PTA website. https://icepta.membershiptoolkit.com/
Parent Teacher Conferences/ Report Cards
PARENT/TEACHER CONFERENCES
It is that time of year for Parent/Teacher Conferences. We want you to talk to you about your child's progress. We want to celebrate the successes and discuss how we can encourage your child to be the best they can be. If you were unable to make the Fall conferences please contact your child's teacher to arrange a meeting. We will have another round of conferences in the Spring. We are here for you and your child. We are send home links to sign up or good old fashion paper. Please we want to make things work for you contact us by email if you want a conference.REPORT CARD
Requested paper copies were sent home October 18th in your child's daily folder. If you did not request a paper copy of your child's report card you can view it in the districts SKYWARD. You will need to go LISD.net then Resources then go to For Parent, click SKYWARD FAMILY access.
Once you are log into SKYWARD-click on the gradebook tab. You will see columns. Our current grading period is 19T. The print icon is on the left side of the page above the subjects.
If you don't have access to SKYWARD at this time you can request its. Here are the steps:
- Enter your email address in the "Forgot Login/ Password" link on the Skyward Login page.
- If your email is not in the records or you do not receive the information, contact your student's campus and provide identity and custodial status. They will then issue a username and password.
- Students and LISD staff should use their network username and password.
Guided Reading Books and Library Books
We want your children to read on a nightly basis. We want to encourage reading at home to an adult. You need to listen to your children read with expression, fluency and without errors. We also need your child to bring these materials on a daily basis to school. With our regular guided reading program, teachers only check out the books they need for each group. We also have to share these materials with other teachers in different grade levels, so we don't pull more than what we need for each group. When your child does not bring their books, it makes it very difficult to work on their reading skills with us. Please make sure guided reading material come to school every day in the envelope inside their blue folder.
Tribe Time- We will start a new program this next week called "Leveled Literacy Interventions." (LLI) . To keep this simple for our students we have named this block of time as Tribe Time. It takes a village sometimes to help our children. We have scheduled it from 8:30 to 9:00 AM. As the name suggests it is an intervention program for our struggling readers. Not every student is in the intervention group. We are 4 teachers working with groups of 6 students. We are working on getting a district tutor to help as well. Student that are on or above will stay with their teachers and work on Daily 5 skills- reading to self, poetry, word work, writing in journals, or technology.
Our students were identified by I-station scores and using the district wide reading assessment or DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment). What does this mean to parents? Your child will also bring home materials in a colored canvas bag with a snap closure. There will be a letter explaining what the lesson was and materials for you to practice with at home. It is very important that you practice these items as well as the regular guided reading. It is also important to send these items back on a daily basis.
Library Books
Please make sure your child's library books are in their backpack on assigned library day. If you child's book is lost or missing please contact Mrs. Thompson.
What are we learning?
Reading/ Language Arts- The Amazing Animals Unit
In Reading: We will continue to be working with informational texts and learning how to use reading skills to read more about amazing animals We are working to strengthen their reading skills by; generating questions, making predictions, creating mental images and monitoring their own comprehension of what they are reading. We want them to get the most out of the books their are reading. We want our students to understand the features of an informational text (headings, table of contents, photos as compared to drawing, labels on pictures, captions under pictures, glossaries, index) and how to use these features to locate relevant information when they are reading. .
Writing/Language Arts- Writing Informational Texts
We will continue to be writing informational texts. This is integrated with our reading unit, and the goal is for our kids to see how reading and writing are connected, and how they can use what they are learning about in the mentor texts we are reading to make them better writers. During this unit students will be asked to use the writing process to compose their own informational texts. It will have an organizational pattern- introduction, supporting facts, and closing. We will create these writings in small steps explaining why and how we do this type of writing in steps.
Spelling- We will have a new list of sight words went home on Friday. List 10 words are : have, how, if, into, its.
We will resume WORDS THEIR WAY this week. We will teach each group their sort pattern on Monday, which they will have a packet to work with at school and one they will bring home for homework. Get those elbows moving and mouths saying words or blending words, the more practice the better. Throughout the week have them practice reading, sorting, and writing (if they have words). You can glue them down on Thursday evening and turn them in on Friday. They will be tested in class on Friday, if the sort has words they will be expected to write the words.
Social Studies- We have an integrated unit with reading and writing. We will be working on Celebrating Our Country. We are going to take a look at customs, holidays and celebrations of the community, state and nation. We will compare the observance of holidays and celebrations in the past and present. We will review some of the themes from the last 9 weeks, such as the United States and Texas mottos and anthems and how patriotic customs and celebration reflect American individualism and freedom.
Math- We are going to continue our unit in developing an understanding the Base 10 number system and building a strong number sense and developing fluency with counting, as well as working to compose and decompose numbers up to 100 understanding the Base 10. This week we will continue to focus on counting patterns, specifically skip counting by 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s. You can help by encouraging your child to practice counting at home. Make it fun with real items- count shoes, have your child match and fold socks, count pieces of silverware, find coins and count coins. Learning about time and money is easier when your child can master these concepts.
Science - We are continuing to learn about material can be changed. This is an awesome unit. We have some exciting investigations where we will explore what happens when heat is added or removed from materials. We will predict and identify the changes in materials caused by heating and cooling. For examples: what happens when you put microwavable popcorn in the microwave oven for too long? What happens when we apply heat to a crayon? Why do we get frost on the window? These are some of the question types of question we will investigate.
Teacher Contact Information
Mrs. Freedenberg
Office 469-713-5180
E-mail: Freedenbergr@LISD.net
Team Lead
Mrs. Bermudez
Office 469-713-5180
E-mail: BermudezC@LISD.net
Mrs. Cambere
Office 469-713-5180
Email: CambereK@LISD.net
Office 469-713-5180
E-mail: Freedenbergr@LISD.net
Mrs. McDuffie
Office 469-713-5180
E-mail: McDuffieT@LISD.net