Thank you to those that have returned the volunteer forms and field trip money already. Please return the field trip form by next Friday, September 27th. The first grade teachers are asking our 1st grade families to provide a one time payment of $15.00 for all field trip expenses and National Geographic Young Explorers subscriptions. You can make your check payable to Wealthy Elementary or let us know if we can provide this service for you with our scholarship fund. Please just let me or Mr. Morey know. Thank you!
Calling all volunteers! I will be in contact with those who would like to volunteer by the end of next week. Please return the volunteer sheet by Monday if you are interested in getting on the October calendar :). Thank you in advance!
Looking forward...
Today, your child is bringing home their SMALL MOMENTS NOTEBOOK for the weekend. Please return this small notebook on Monday with 2-4 small moments that you and your 1st grader brainstorm together.
- "Sketch" a quick drawing, ONE per page **OR** "jot" down 1-2 words on a page in order to remember the moment
- PLEASE DO NOT HAVE THEM WRITE A FULL STORY
- Return on Monday morning for Writing Workshop to develop a full story--so please keep them in a safe place at home this weekend!
Watermelon story: artprize
----> a small seed moment: one piece of art that really impressed your 1st grader (Bring the notebook with you if you go exploring downtown GR this weekend. Take the bus! There are so many great things to see!)
Watermelon story: soccer game
----> a small seed moment: making that pass to a friend so they could score that goal
Watermelon story: visiting Grandma's house
----> a small seed moment: making cookies together or reading a special story
Watermelon story: playing at Wealthy's playground
---->a small seed moment: going on the monkey bars, the slide, the swings
Watermelon story: watching the squirrel in the backyard
----> a small seed moment: how the squirrel picked up the acorn and started nibbling small bites with his teeny tiny hands
What we learned about this week...
In writing, we've been generating strategies to come up with small moment ideas to write about (thinking of people we know, places we know, feelings we have and things we can do really well). We've been "touching and telling" our story across the pages first, then "sketching" and finally writing! Ask your child to sing our song to remember this (to the tune of If Your Happy and You Know it...First you touch and tell, sketch, then write...). Many of our 1st graders are taking off and are writing for 30 minutes non-stop already!
In math, we have worked on addition stories and concepts and will continue on next week.
Our TEAM talks focusing being nice continued this week. Mrs. VanderZyden came in this week to role play situations with our 1st graders on how to solve problems with friends. We've also been discussing all the different kinds of feelings we have, how we are alike and how we are different, special and unique.
Our word work for reading & writing has been focused on our names and color words. We are writing and reading our *SNAP* words: a, I, not, had, one, is, it, on, the, be, at, you. If your child still does not recognize these words immediately, you can write them down on index cards, tape them up around your house and have your 1st grader read and give them a high five slap every time it's read. We've been practicing our fine motor skills by using play doh (rolling it out to spell words), tweezers to pick up small objects, tracing and cutting on lines, mazes, and stamping words with ink. You will begin to see many of these items come home on Fridays. These are great activities to do at home to develop those strong finger muscles. Strong finger muscles will prevent our young writers from getting too tired as well as helping them form their letters correctly.
Have a fabulous fall weekend and please take time to snuggle up with your favorite 1st grader and a good book!
