Miss Foster's Fabulous First Grade
October 2019 Newsletter
What's going on in 1st grade?
READING
Each week your child is introduced to new power words. Each child's words are individualized based on their needs. We keep power word sticker books at school and practice daily, but you can find these words in your child's red folder on Mondays. The students also write their words in their journal each Monday so we can practice writing them correctly and use them during writing time as well. It is important to practice these words at home also. While we don't asses the students' ability to spell the words, it is a good way to practice them. The students are expected to be able to read each word in 3 seconds or less by Friday, and words that are missed will appear on your child's list the following week. We also have two new phonics skills each week. Words that follow our phonics patterns for the week are always listed on my classroom website on the calendar. A practice paper with words that follow the phonics patterns comes home on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on the week. The specific words on the test are not always listed on the paper because it is our goal in first grade to have your child be able to decode any word that follows the pattern to become more fluent when reading. We practice decoding a variety of words that follow the pattern throughout the week at school. However, feel free to find the skills on my classroom website and practice throughout the week at home as well. It is not a spelling test and the words simply have to be read aloud by your child, not memorized or written. Your child is assessed on power word recognition and ability to decode words that follow our phonics skills on Fridays. You can find the results of your child's assessments in the Test Folder that is sent home weekly on Tuesdays.
During Reading Workshop, we have been busy building our stamina working in different Reading Workshop centers. Reading Workshop centers include read to self, word work, work on writing, listen to reading and a variety of technology options. I like to use a lot of choice during this time so the students self-select the centers they want to work on through a menu that has "must-do" items like read to self and "can-do" items like technology. This is a time where I meet with your child's reading strategy group to give him/her explicit, direct, small-group reading instruction based on your child's needs or I meet one-on-one with your child for a reading conference where we practice your child's individual power goal that is circled on the colored skills card inside your child's Read Every Day Folder.
Also, during reading workshop we have been working on several comprehension strategies such as predicting (including using evidence from from the text to verify, negate or change our predictions), questioning, using prior knowledge to help us understand stories, and monitoring and clarifying when we read to help us better understand stories. These strategies can always be supported at home with any books you are reading aloud to your child or with the books your child reads to you!
Additionally, your child brings home his/her Read Every Day Folder each day. Your child has the opportunity to select 3 books at their independent reading level daily. In the folder there is also a colored card listing skills your child should be working on while reading these books. The power goal your child and I are working on will be circled or written on the card. I will change the goal circled as your child masters the previous goal, so please make sure to keep the skills card in the folder. These books are at your child’s independent reading level, so it should be an easy read, but as always please support your child’s comprehension by asking him/her about the book. There are sample comprehension questions on the folder as well.
MATH
We are using math workshop model during our math time. This allows me to meet with small groups of students to teach the skills we are working on. It also allows each child to be instructed at his/her own pace and level.
We have been working on counting, addition, solving story problems, finding missing addends, determining if a given number sentence is true or false and how we know, learning our doubles facts (1+1=2, 5+5=10, etc.) and composing numbers. We are working on finding different 2-addend combinations that have the same sum and writing a number sentence in a variety of ways such as starting with the whole or starting with a part. We are also learning how to solve story problems with a picture, a number sentence, and a number bond. Soon we will learn how to make a statement about our answer.
WRITING
Writing has been very exciting in our classroom! During writing workshop we are practicing thinking of our own ideas for writing and are working on several personal narratives. We have learned to persevere when we have hard-to-write words and hard-to-draw pictures. We have also learned about adding more to our writing to make it more interesting to the reader. I am very impressed so far with everyone's progress, as writing is often one of the most challenging subject for youngsters!
SCIENCE and SOCIAL STUDIES
We just finished up learning about the world around us for social studies and will start learning about Canada in the near future.This week we will also began our first science unit! In science during the 1st trimester, we are going to be learning a lot about the weather. As we work through our weather unit, we will learn how to use a thermometer, about the differences between high and low temperatures, about how wind and precipitation change the weather, and we will be learning about storms, measuring rainfall, and different types of clouds. We will continue learn how to observe using our senses, describe, and discuss the weather as well as organize different types of information about the weather using a variety of graphs.
Parent Volunteers
Please remember, if you are signed up to volunteer in our classroom you ARE NOT permitted to stop by the classroom of another child you have in the building. Your other child is busy learning, as are his/her classmates, and we try to disrupt learning as little as possible. Thank you for your understanding!
Scholastic Reading Clubs
Parent Teacher Conferences
Tech Time
Sight Word Ninja
This app tells the students what sight words they are looking for and the student must "slash" the correct word. The quicker your child gets, the quicker the words fly across the screen along with more words to try to trick them. It's a great interactive way to help your child practice his/her sight words! There is also a letter ninja and phonics ninja version of this app that we love too!
Geoboards
Epic!
Important Upcoming Dates
October 28th - Red Ribbon Spirit Week: Wear Red
October 29th - Red Ribbon Spirit Week: Wear Boots
October 30th - Red Ribbon Spirit Week: Wear your shirt backwards
October 31st - Red Ribbon Spirit Week: Wear Sweats - NO COSTUMES ARE PERMITTED AT SCHOOL
November 1st - Red Ribbon Spirit Week: Wear Your Spirit Day Shirt
November 1st - Race into Hibernation - please make sure your child is dressed to be outside for most of the morning and in comfortable footwear for walking.
November 4th - Picture Retakes - if your child is getting their picture retaken please let me know and send the photo package you received back to school.
November 5th - Early Dismissal
November 15th - End of the 1st Trimester
Video of the Month
Contact Miss Foster
Email: hfoster@boyertownasd.org
Website: https://www.boyertownasd.org/Domain/658
Location: 2547 Big Road, Frederick, PA, USA
Phone: 610-473-1726