Week of 9/16

Literacy
We spent a lot of time reviewing our letter sounds and playing with sounds in words. We practiced "tapping" the sounds in consonant-vowel-consonant words (such as cat or mop).  Tapping  sounds helps students isolate beginning, middle and ending sounds. We also practiced blending the sounds together to say the whole word. Students used two variations of Elkonin boxes to practice segmenting and blending sounds. This photo shows one example we used.

Our writing focused on stories about helping. I read Farmer Duck and The Little Red Hen. Both stories were about an animal who worked too hard on a farm with little help. Students brainstormed, wrote and illustrated their own "I help" stories. Our writing goals were to put a period at the end of each sentence and draw a detailed picture to show the meaning of our sentences.

Habits of Work
I introduced Habits of Work this week. Each week, students will be scored on these important work habits. They are Be Prepared for Learning, Engagement with Learning and Interactions with Peers and Adults. Students are scored on a 1-3 scale. 3 means the student consistently demonstrates the habit over the course of the week, 2 means that habit is demonstrated some of the time and a 1 means the habit is rarely demonstrated over the week. These scores will be included in each trimester progress report, and will be discussed during parent teacher conferences.

Math
We continued to practice strategies to solve addition story problems. Our story problem routine is to listen to the problem with our eyes closed and attempt to visualize the action. Then, students figure out if there will be more or less at the end of the story. After, students use a strategy to solve the problem and write an equation to match. Our focus strategies were drawing pictures and counting on to find the total.
Students also played addition games including Roll & Record and Five in a Row. Ask your child to demonstrate how they can add two numbers together by counting on. Dice or playing cards work well for practicing this skill!

Guidance
We enjoyed our first guidance lesson with Mrs. Holt this week. Students will visit Mrs. Holt every three weeks for lessons in social-emotional learning through the Second Step program. This week, they talked about feelings. You can learn more about this wonderful program here.

Upcoming Dates

• There is an early release on Wednesday, September 25th. Students will be dismissed at 12:35pm. Please let me know if your child's dismissal plan will be different on this day.
• Skillin's Open House is Thursday, September 26th. Please stop by the classroom between 5:00-6:00 to look learn more about first grade learning goals and activities. There will be an ice cream social in the cafeteria afterward. (Thank you, PTA!)
• Picture Day is Tuesday, October 1st. Forms were sent home in red totes this week.

Thank you,

Mrs. Bradstreet