Update

The kids had a great time on our field trip on Friday! We were able to see the African penguins being fed by a biologist, the white alligator in the swamp, the Philippine Coral Reef, the Northern California Coast, the awesome rainforest habitat, and so much more. The kids were great and we all had a lot of fun!

MAP Testing
 This week, the first graders will begin MAP testing for the second time this year. As a reminder, this is a computerized test that all kids in Novato are taking. The kids are able to wear headphones and listen to directions before choosing an answer. Since first graders don’t do STAR testing, this is our "standardized" test that we can look at to see growth over the school year (on that test). This is absolutely not the end-all as far as your child’s academic performance. The student’s daily performance in class is much more heavily weighted than in this one assessment. I will send home their progress on the MAP test in the next few weeks.

We do ask that you try to have your child get a good night’s sleep on Tuesday night and eat a good breakfast (and pack a snack). These are helpful things for everyday performance, not just on the MAP test.

Curriculum
 We have been working on all the spellings for long vowels. This is really where phonics gets tough! Before break, we will send home all of the sound cards/spellings that your child has learned and is expected to use correctly. This is where it is really beneficial to correct your child’s spelling, so be sure to look for those in the Friday Folder.

In writing, we are always practicing writing complete sentences while using correct conventions (capitalization, punctuation, finger spaces, etc.). We are working on writing with a prompt and completing a full paragraph. The kids know that a "green sentence" is their topic sentence and makes the reader want to keep going. The "yellow sentences" are the detail sentences that make the reader slow down and get a better understanding of the topic. The "red sentence" is the concluding sentence, or WOW! sentence that completes the paragraph.

In math, we have been working a lot on place value (tens and ones) as well as figuring out what ten more, ten less, one more, and one less. We are now taking timed tests too, which I have written about below.

In science, we are wrapping up our unit on animals in winter. We will soon begin investigations in weather.


Timed Tests
 Last week, we started taking real timed tests (we’ve had a lot of practice ones). Everybody starts with 30 addition problems. The kids have 2 minutes to do as many as they can. The goal is to complete it accurately, which means that they have to memorize facts. Once the kids have completed it 3 times, they move on to another test. You will see these tests coming home in the Friday Folder. We try to make it fun for the kids, not competitive. We tell them that as long as they do their best, it is fine. We want them to get further in a test than they did the previous week.

Polar Express Party (Shhhh! It's a secret!)

On Friday, we will also be having our annual first grade Polar Express Party. This is such a fun time for the kids! We bring all 80 first graders into one classroom together and watch The Polar Express. We give them bell necklaces, cookies, and hot chocolate. The kids LOVE it! It’s a surprise, so don’t tell! We’ll tell them on Thursday.

Field Trip

On January 24^th, we are going on our first Field Trip. We will send information home about the details of the fieldtrip (much like the details that we already sent home) closer to the fieldtrip date. Also, I appreciate all of the volunteers who stepped forward to help us out. Unfortunately, we can’t accommodate everybody on every field trip. There will be other volunteer opportunities this school year and I will keep you updated as we know more. Thanks!

Home Activity Chart/Break Work

At our parent-teacher conference, I explained how to use your child’s MAP score to access games and activities that target skills from Rancho’s website. A few kids have already filled out their December chart and returned it for an Eagle Card. If your child finishes theirs, please have them bring it by Friday.
We will be sending a packet of work home in the Friday Folder for Winter Break. This is OPTIONAL, but there is an opportunity for 2 Eagle Cards for the kids: one for the packet, and one for the Winter Break Home Activity Chart. It’s always a good idea to keep the skills learned in class strong so we can pick up and move on after break. The kids can return work completed after Winter Break J.

Behavioral Expectations

As we return from Thanksgiving break, it is a great time to REMIND our kids of the importance of good behavior. We are experiencing some disruptive behavior in class these first few days back. I know that there may be a lot of exciting things happening at home and school during the next few weeks but we have a lot to learn too. If your child has a bench slip in their backpack, please talk with them about why they received that consequence. The best way to encourage good behavior in school is having us on the same page with the same expectations. Thanks for your support!

Correcting spelling at home

One of the most frequently asked questions from conferences is always about correcting spelling. The short version of the answer is, no, you don’t have to correct spelling completelyJ. If there is a symbol for every sound, it’s ok for now. I do encourage you to make your child think about the correct way to spell things. If there is a letter that is completely off, have them sound it out to you and you can correct it together. At this point, a student should be able to spell words that they can read. When they become stronger readers, this gap gets bigger. So, phonetic spelling is ok but have them think about the sounds/spellings if it is way off.

We have finished our reading unit with the theme “Things that go”. We are now beginning our new unit with the theme “Our neighborhood at work”. We have learned digraphs such as th, sh, and ch. The kids should know how to use these spellings correctly. For the ch sound, they know that tch is only after a short vowel. We have been spending a lot of time working on comprehension.
This is the time of year when we are working a lot on writing applications as well as conventions. This is when we really solidify those two skills together. Of course, this is an ongoing skill to practice. We just practice as much as possible to meet those end of the year standards.

 In math, we have wrapped up a chapter on charts and graphing. We learned how to read and use a tally chart, bar graph, and picture graph. The kids are really good at counting tally marks. We say, “1, 2, 3, 4, tally up 5”.