Hello everyone!
The students continue to build stamina as they work and they are beginning to understand that producing work they are proud of takes time. We encourage the students not only to do their best, but to be proud of the their work. As the year progresses, we will discuss the importance of self reflection and improving their work.
You should have received a note last week regarding IXL and Raz Kids. If you have not yet logged on, please try this week so we can make sure all the usernames and passwords do indeed work. These two web resources will be the homework for grade one. Starting this week, I will be assigning weekly math practice that corresponds with our math program at school and daily reading. You can also practice snap words at home to help your child with his or her sight word recognition.
We continue to do our grade one program routine, such as our morning meeting, printing and poetry. Our daily morning meeting is where most of our learning occurs. This is where students are introduced to new strategies and concepts to apply to their reading, writing, and math skills. To give you an example, we graph the weather daily which helps students to create conclusions on the data that they read. We also compose and decompose numbers through a variety of smartboard slides. This week, we have been focusing on beginning each sentence with an uppercase letter. As the students continue to review their letter formation, this concept will also become clearer.
In math, the students have been looking at number words. We have used the vocabulary: digit, number word, and even and odd. Ask your child if she or he can explain these terms. We will continue to review these terms this week. The student have also been working on rules and responsibilities in social studies. They have been discussing the difference between rules and responsibilities found in the home, school and community and discussing how these may change over time.
We have also started asking I wonder questions. The notion behind an inquiry process is for students to ask questions and to have a voice in their learning. To begin, we have been reading a few books to pique an interest in the unknown and to ask questions that they may have already been reflecting on. This will help them get ready to use skills required for inquiry such as investigating, experimenting, and researching.
