Parent/teacher conferences are upon us! You will receive your child's report card on Monday. Please look over the report card carefully, sign the envelope, and return the empty envelope to school with your child on Tuesday. We'll discuss your child's report card in detail at your conference. First grade report card are developmental report cards. This means that they list skills that we hope first graders are secure with (meaning that they've mastered) by the END of first grade. At this point in the year, your child should be working towards these skills, but certainly wouldn't be expected to have mastered any of them yet.
Reading : We've started, and will continue, to work on retelling. At this point in first grade, most children can decode (or read the words in a text) at a much higher level than they can comprehend the meaning of a text. The crux of this current reading unit is to begin to make children aware of their own understanding of texts they read. It is much more important, at this point, that your child spend time reading books that he/she can comprehend than books that will challenge his/her word decoding skills.
We've already talked about identifying the characters in a story. This week, we'll discuss a story's setting, events, the main problem and solution.
Phonics/Word Study : Word study homework is back on this week. Don't forget, if you ever lose the small slip of words that go home on Tuesday night, they are located on this website. (Click on the 'Word Wall Words' link on the left.)
We're going over our last short vowel sound this week, the short o. At some point this week, a sheet explaining the hand motions for each short vowel sound will be put in the reading section of your child's binder.
Writing : The students' writing has really progressed from the beginning of the year. You'll get an opportunity to see the growth at your child's conference. This week, we're going to start wrapping up our Small Moments writing unit. We'll talk about writing good story endings and we'll work with writing partners to make our pieces even better.
Math : The pace in math has really begun to pick up. Please do not be concerned if your child has not mastered frames and arrows yet. Last week was just an introduction, and we'll be spending a lot more time going over these kinds of problems throughout the rest of the year.
This week, we'll be discussing the dime and we'll do a lot of practice counting combinations of pennies, nickels, and dimes. You can support this at home by giving your child loose change to count. (Keep in mind that we haven't gone over quarters in school yet!)
Science : After learning a little about the history behind Thanksgiving, we're back to a science unit. This unit will be all about space. We'll start by discussing some of the planets this week.
Odds and Ends : Tuesday and Thursday are 12:45 dismissal days this week. Please make sure to pack a snunch (something between the size of a snack and a lunch) for your child to eat. Also, please make sure that you inform me of any changes to your child's dismissal routine.
I look forward to meeting with many of you this week!