Parent/teacher conferences are next week. I look forward to meeting with you to discuss your child's progress. The main office sent out an email last week about how to sign up for conferences. Please let me know if you haven't received this email.
Last week, we had our first visit from Officer Diamond, 1-Bu's Adopt-a-Cop. Adopt-a-Cop is a special program for first graders in River Edge. Each first grade classroom 'adopts' a River Edge police officer. That police officer visits the classroom periodically to teach the students safety tips and to help foster a positive relationship with a police officer. Officer Diamond came on Friday and talked to the students about different signs they may see in the community. He also showed them his handcuffs and key, which all of the students were excited to see up close.
Here's what else we've been working on in the classroom:
Reading : Last week we spent some time in between reading units doing a few organizational tasks. Most of the students got new reading partners and reading partner spots. The students are looking forward to launching our nonfiction reading unit this week.
Writing : We're deep in the middle of our opinion unit now. The students have been using graphic organizers to organize their thinking and reasoning. Then, they've been using their graphic organizers to write organized, complete paragraphs. They've come such a long way as writers since the beginning of the year.
Math : We started a new math unit last week. The main focus of Unit 6 will be addition fact strategies. We've been practicing math facts all year, but this unit will focus on teaching the students strategies they can use when they come across 'harder' facts that they may not necessarily have memorized yet. Please have your child practice his/her math facts (up to ten) at home. When students have their math facts memorized, they are able to use more of their working memory to problem solve their way through math problems rather than using some of their working memory to solve and remember simple math facts.
Computers : Last week in the computer lab, the students started writing opinion pieces in Google Docs about which online math games they felt would help them learn their facts the best. Have your child log in to his/her google account to show you what he/she has done so far. Also, as a reminder, links for the math fact games that we've been using in class can be found under the resources page on this website.
Here are a couple photos of the visit from our Adopt-a-Cop: