Kinder News September 10-14 Faith Formation: This week we will begin our study of the Creation! The children will realize that all creation comes to them as a gift from God. We will talk about how God created the sky, and about his gifts to us of night and day, and sun, moon, and stars. We will begin work on a Creation Book. Language Arts/Reading: This week we will continue to talk about home and family. We will learn about all the different kinds of homes for people and animals. Our literature selections will include A House is a Home for Me and The Big Orange Splot! In Saxon phonics we will learn the VC rule. (When a vowel is followed by a consonant, it is short. Code it with a breve.) We are also learning about nouns! Science: Staying healthy will be our topic this week! Exercising, eating healthy foods, taking care of our teeth, and avoiding germs are ways to stay healthy. Getting enough rest is important too! Your children will be asking you their bedtimes as we are going to be graphing bedtimes! Math: We will continue our study of Geometry. This week we will be learning about solids. Cylinders, cones, spheres, and rectangular prisms will be discussed! Watch for our SOLIDS book which will be coming home! We continue to work on addresses, birthdays, and phone numbers with the children. We will be reviewing them all year long as many children learn them initially and then forget them as the year goes on. Reminders: Don t forget to send in a labeled water bottle with your child each day. Please label sweatshirts and sweaters. Don t forget to send in a snack with your child each day. Blessings in the week ahead, Mary Tanner, Patty Moothart, and Dawn Polce
Kinder News September 4-7 Theme: Health and Safety Faith Formation: This week we are talking about the fact that God gives us feelings. We will learn that the way we express our feelings can affect others. The children will learn to better identify and understand their feelings and realize that God loves them and knows and understands their feelings. Kinder has 2 nd graders for our chapel buddies and this week we will meet our 6 th grade prayer buddies. We will meet with them to exchange Christmas cards and Valentines and they will be our buddies at Art Fest! Language Arts/Reading We are doing a unit on Pets using our Houghton Reading/Language Series. We are working on phonemic awareness in Saxon. Science: We will be learning about the functions of the heart, lungs, stomach, intestines, liver, and kidneys. The body apron makes this a fun learning activity. We will be continuing to talk about good health habits and how to avoid those nasty germs! Math: We are finishing up sorting and classifying and starting on Geometry. We will be looking for shapes in our homes and class rooms! Technology- We are learning to log on to our computers with our very own password numbers. Reminders: Please keep working with your child on birthdays, addresses, phone numbers and on tying shoes. Thank you for helping us with this! Blessings in the week ahead, Mary Tanner, Patty Moothart, and Dawn Polce
Newsletter for First Grade Week of September 17 th, 2012 School News Progress Reports will be going out on Friday, Sept. 21st, 2012. Wednesday, Sept. 19 th is SPIRIT DAY!!! The students may wear their spirit shirts and jeans or uniform shorts/skorts. Classroom News Students will be able to take Accelerated Reader (AR) tests on books for which a test is available. Tests may be taken in the library either during library period, before school (7:35-7:50) or after school in the library(3:00-3:15) with a note from a parent. I will also try to provide time during the school day when possible. This is an optional activity which is offered all year. Both First Grade teachers are available for tutoring on Wednesday and Thursday mornings from 7:05-7:35. This tutoring is for students who are having difficulty with a particular skill learned in class. It is NOT intended for ongoing tutoring, but rather for something that a student might not need extra help with here and there. Parents MUST email the teacher the day before so that we know who is going to be here. REMINDER: Please turn in your permission slip WITH the $15.00 by next Friday. Please make the check out to ASCS.
We are continuing to focus on our classroom rules. We have very good hallway behavior! We are concentrating on transitioning between tasks in a quiet, focused manner. Our Curriculum: Reading/Language Arts Reading Groups will continue. We will be focusing on finding the Main Idea in a story this week. In Language we will begin focusing on different types of sentences and end marks. Spelling-There will be 10 words this week. These words are words that we have been working on in Phonics. Words can be found at the end of this newsletter and are sent home on Monday. Phonics- Introduce new sounds, and review previous sounds. Math-Continue with chapter 2- Addition concepts and sums through 12. Doubles and doubles plus one. We will use ten frames to represent addition facts. Practice timing yourself with addition facts. Religion- We will focus on our blessings this week. What do we have to be thankful for? What ways can we thank God for our blessings? Science- Continue our unit on Weather and the Four Seasons. Social Studies- Learning about the United States of Americamapping skills and symbols.
HOMEWORK: Spelling: Write ONE spelling sentence for each spelling word. Math: Complete pages 19-24 by THURSDAY, Sept. 20 th. Joke of the Week Write down your answer to this newsletter s joke and hand it in to me to earn a ticket. Every 10 tickets earn a pick from the treasure box! Answers are due by Friday. Last week s joke: Why is 6 afraid of 7? Because 7, 8 (ate) 9! This week s joke: Why did the king go to the dentist? 1. on 2. no 3. not 4. top 5. pop 6. I 7. in 8. it 9. pin 10. tip Spelling List
Dear 2 nd Grade Parents, If you are getting this letter your child is in my reading group. We will meet from 8:00-8:45 each day. Our goal is to build on their strengths and give them the tools they need to become successful readers. This first week we worked with the story My Family. You will see no grades for this week. That is because we were doing the work together to show the process readers use to set the purpose for their reading, thereby improving comprehension. We will also be doing the story test together. I find many children do not understand how to read directions, read the question, and read the answer choices to pick the best answer. They usually know the story but will do poorly on test because they didn t look for key words like before, after, next, or opposite. They also do not read all the choices and pick the first one that happened in the story instead of what was the best answer. Many parents want to know how they can help. Here is a list of basic steps you can do with your child to help improve their reading. 1. Make sure you can access Think Central. The web address is : https://www- k6.thinkcentral.com You will have to register first and make sure you click the box marked Remember my information. Your child s user name is the same as the computer lab and the password is their number xx (lower case xx)
2. Log on and read the main story every Monday and Thursday night. When you have them read the story, please pay close attention to the meet the author page. It always has an explanation of the target vocabulary, target skills and target strategy. We review these in class before we start reading. At home they should: Practice the strategy of re- reading the vocabulary words and ask do I know what all these words mean? Review the target skill and ask how does this set my purpose for reading? Review the target strategy and ask what do I need to be doing as I read to help me understand the story. Read the story with no sound first, then again with the sound. This will help them practice their reading while still having the opportunity to hear the story read. 3. Show your child reading is a tool used every day. We read road signs, newspapers, articles, recipes, instructions, magazines and books. The more they see the variety of reading available the more likely they are to develop a love of a type of reading. 4. We will start accelerated reading within two weeks. They will need to pick an accelerated reading book from my library, school library or home. The book must be approved by me. They should read the book once alone and once two you. It is important they read the book twice to insure full comprehension. The accelerated reading tests are not easy. Books need to come back and forth to school. If they finish work early they are expected to be reading in their accelerated reading book. 5. Have them read one story at a time, especially if it is in a series. It would be very hard for anyone to read two books at the same time and then take a test on one. 6. Stay positive and encouraging. Reading is developmental and sometimes the light bulb just clicks on. Other times we have to do a little adjusting but it will click on. I promise. Peace, Karen Beacham ONLINE RESOURCS Renaissance Learning (AR and Math Facts in a Flash) https://hosted27.renlearn.com/224479 Student login and password are the same as their technology ones. ACCESS ONLY AT SCHOOL to take an Accelerated Reading Test. Math Facts in a Flash can be done at home. This is not where you will find their reading text to read.
To see if a book is an ar book or check a reading level it is easier to go to the direct site http://www.arbookfind.com/ Type in the title of the book and you will see a review of the book like this: Miss Nelson Is Missing! Allard, Harry AR Quiz No. 5234 EN Fiction IL: LG - BL: 2.7 - AR Pts: 0.5- - - - The highlighted number is reading level. In this case second grade 7 th month. AR Quiz Types: RP, RV, VP I encourage children to read books that are between 1.5 and 2.5 for the first few accelerated reading quizzes. IXL (Math skills) http://www.ixl.com/signin/allsaints Student login and password are the same as their technology ones. ThinkCentral (K- 5 Reading and Science textbooks) https://www- k6.thinkcentral.com/epc/start.do Student login is same as in technology, password is the technology password followed by two lower case x s. (i.e., 1234xx) This is where you will find their reading story text and eventually the science text. They will need to read the reading story on Monday and Thursday. They will only need their science text to review for a test. I am sure it will be up and running by then. Discovery Education (For all subjects: videos, audios, articles, worksheets, games, lesson plans) http://discoveryeduation.com Both student login and password need to be preceded by ascs (i.e. ascscherbst, ascs####) WorldBook Online (the entire encyclopedia and more!) http://worldbookonline.com LogIn Id is ns018264 (that s a zero), and the password is password. BookFlix (K- 3 Fictional video storybooks and nonfiction ebooks) http://bkflix.grolier.com/ - No password needed on school computers. For home access, login for everyone is ID: allsaints8 PSW: bookflix