October 2023 News

Families,

Thank you for your continued support as we navigate the 2023-2024 school year. We have a lot of exciting things coming up as the holiday season approaches!

As the weather is changing, please monitor the temperature in advance before sending your child to school. We are approaching cooler weather, and we go outside for recess if the real feel is 30 degrees or higher.  It is also super important that your child be able to tie their shoes on their own if they have laces. This is a great skill that boosts fine motor development and independence.  Here are some videos that you could share with your kiddo if this is still something they need to master :

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c79wsBqDW1A  

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWM0XHhObLk

If you have not sent in a pair of headphones or earbuds for your child to use with their chrome books, please do that soon. If you are unable to do so, please let your child's teacher know.

Information on volunteering should have come home. At this time, we are not allowing parents to physically volunteer during school hours. If you would like more information on this please reach out to your child's teacher.

Reading

Phonics/Spelling: We will be working on short vowels (a, e, i , o, u) while reviewing consonants. Daily practice for letter identification (knowing the name of the letter) and letter-sound identification (knowing what sounds each letter can make) will be ongoing practice as we begin the school year.

Grammar: We will be working on parts of speech that include: nouns, verbs, and adjectives.  We will also be reviewing what makes a good sentence (having a naming part and a telling part). For example: "The cat."  could be improved by adding details. -->  "The gray cat ate food." It is good to practice this in daily conversation to have it transfer to your child's writing.

Please remember to read with your child, or have them read to you, each night for 15-20 minutes. Sight words can be practiced at home to support their learning as well.

Math

We will continue to work on counting in different ways up to 10 and 20, as well as identifying number partners up to 10. Fact Fluency (knowing the answer to a math problem as fast as a snap) with addition and subtraction of sums up to 10 will be the focus. Manipulatives including number lines, counters, ten-frames, counting cubes and various others will be used within the classroom. Examples of number partners for 6 would be knowing:

0+6=6    1+5=6   2+4=6  3+3=6   and then knowing that we can turn those facts around to also get 6+0=6   5+1=6 and so on.

We have also been working on identifying doubles plus one facts. Knowing that 3 + 3 = 6, and then knowing that if I add one more I could have the problem 3 + 3 + 1 = 7.

Websites like i-Ready and Reflex Math can be used to support your child's learning.

The goal is for your child to have completed at least 30 minutes of i-Ready math each week. Please remember that while your child is on i-Ready they should NOT be receiving any help on assignments. We will have time set aside during the school day to be on i-Ready.

Writing

We are beginning to introduce the writing process to our first-grade students. Please talk about the correct way to hold a pencil when writing. It is also super important that first-grade students know how to write and correctly spell their names. Handwriting is a skill that is better addressed early on in a child's education, so please monitor their handwriting and have them correct any mistakes (with gentle reminders).

Here is a cool video that you can share with your children --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RclxBdiuvOM

This website has some tips for helping with handwriting --> https://www.scholastic.com/parents/kids-activities-and-printables/activities-for-kids/reading-and-writing-ideas/5-ways-to-improve-your-childs-handwriting.html

We are working on narratives at this point in the year. Students are writing stories and practicing adding details to their writing to have a beginning, a middle, and an end to their story. Skills taught in grammar instruction are to be carried over to their writing (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and having a "good" sentence).

Science/Social Studies

We will be exploring U.S. symbols such as the American Flag, the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, and many more. This will tie in to our conversations of communities and the foundations for rules and laws, and who enforces those rules and laws. We will also be exploring maps and geography in the coming weeks.

In science, we will be focusing on birds and bats over the next couple of weeks in preparation for our field trip to the Aviary Conservation center in Cheat Lake. We will also be exploring pumpkins and looking at their life cycles.

Health

Please continue to have your children washing their hands and wearing masks. The Great Body Shop magazines will be coming home to review as a family.

We will be exploring a lot of mental health strategies during this school year. Our Second Step resources provide social-emotional learning and have focused on: identifying emotions and feelings, managing those feelings, finding ways to calm down, finding ways to problem-solve. We will continue to practice these methods throughout the end of the school year.

Thank you for all that you do,

-The First Grade Team