A belated thank you to all of the parents that helped plan and participated in our Valentine's Day party. From the pet rocks to the picture frames, it was a fun time for all! If you have any pictures from the party (any of them!), please feel free to upload them on our Shutterfly account: https://mrsmillersfirstgradewizards.shutterfly.com/
Here is what our upcoming week looks like...
In reading, we are focused on fluency. Fluency is how we "read like we talk:"
- smoothly (not too fast or too slow)
- with expression (noticing punctuation)
- with accuracy (reading the exact words on the page)
This week, we are spending time recording our reading to iPads and then self-evaluating fluency with a personal checklist. I've created a folder for each child to keep these videos so they can check and see their growth over time. I look forward to sharing them with you at conferences in March!
New online resource! Thanks to the East Grand Rapids Schools Foundation, our district has received a grant to pay for the TumbleBook Library, an online book library of picture books, chapter books and more. We not only have access to this library at school on our computers and iPads, but families in our district also get to use this resource for free! Please see my email for username and password. Enjoy!In writing, we finished up our informational chapter books last week. Your child tidied up one piece by adding color and a cover, editing and adding a bit more information to their pages. This week we will be jumping into a new unit of study: Writing Reviews! We will be learning the difference between fact and opinion this week (1st graders have LOTS of opinions) and begin judging items in a collection to develop reasons why their top choices are the best. When you are using reviews to help you make a decision, point out what you are using and why (TripAdvisor, Amazon, Yelp, Rotten Tomatoes, etc). You can also include your 1st grader's ideas if you are writing a review :-). I'm sure they have opinions!
In math, we will be working with related facts in addition and subtraction. Last Wednesday, I sent home the beginning introduction to this unit which includes a few games and vocabulary cards to practice at home. These pages are for your information and for practice at home, they do not need to be sent back to school. Related facts are "fact families," knowing that numbers such as 3, 4 and 7 are related because they can make 4 different number sentences: 3+4=7, 4+3=7, 7-3=4, 7-4=3. This strengthens their math awareness of patterns and helps them solve math problems with ease. For more information about related facts, please read this informative explanation: http://eduplace.com/math/mathsteps/1/b/index.html
IXL...as we venture through our new math program this year, our IXL assignments are changing too. Instead of sending home a calendar each month as I have done in the past, I will continue to recommend levels to work on each month in this news blog. We receive a spreadsheet of each child's progress monthly, and so returning calendars is no longer needed (unless you would like one to keep track at home--please let me know!). We've been working with addition and subtraction these last few months, exhausting most of the levels applicable in IXL. For February and March, your child can finish any addition or subtraction levels below if they have not worked the skills. If they have finished these, they can take the challenge of moving up a grade level in these areas or dive into different websites on my webpage: http://teachersites.schoolworld.com/webpages/MMiller/links.cfm
IXL categories/levels for March:
- A.1-A.21 Counting and Number Patterns
- B..1-B.23 Addition
- C.1-C.10 Addition Skill-Builders
- D.1-D.17 Subtraction
- E.1-E.10 Subtraction Skill-Builders
- F.1-F.7 Addition and Subtraction
In science, we will experiment with buoyancy this week, sorting items by whether they sink or float. Looking forward to a fun week! Bundle those kiddos up!
