First Grade Happenings

Thank you to all of the parents that were able to come to our 1st Grade Literacy Night. The feedback we received indicated it was a helpful evening of learning. I have loved hearing students coming in each morning sharing ways they have used their whiteboards at home. Thank you for encouraging this. It is obvious that we have a class full of families dedicated to their child's success!

For those of you that were unable to attend, I would be happy to set up a time to meet with you to go over the information and give you a whiteboard bundle for your child. 

Your child is bringing home their Data Notebook for the first time today. This is where assessments are housed for the year. It will coming home about every two-three weeks, as long as their are new documents inside. Please note the writing assessment is a pre-assessment. This is to have a before and after comparison. Be sure to place the notebook right back in your child's backpack, and return it to school on Monday. 

Also, there is a Christmas coloring picture in your child's folder. This is a coloring contest to advertise for the parade. If your child would like to participate in the contest, please have him/her return the picture by next week Friday. The city will collect these from us. 

Coming Up: 

• Star Student: Myles Beach
• Friday, October 7: Maize and Blue Day and Popcorn Day
• Friday, October 14: District Early Release Day
• Monday, October 31: Halloween Party, 9-9:45am

Halloween Party: Please note that our party will take place October 31st, 9-9:45am. Bauer is dividing up grade levels to morning and afternoon parties to help with parking lot crowding. By having our party first thing, your child will be able to put their costume on over their clothes before school and wear their costume to school (costumes will come off at the end of the party). This should help make it easier here at school for students to be ready (and I know many parents will love taking pictures of their children in costumes before school!). Katie Terpstra is asking for each family to donate $3 to cover party expenses for the year - that is only $1 per party! Please send your money to school this next week if possible. Many thanks to Katie for her help in planning, and to all of you that have already volunteered to help! 

Reading: We finished up reading The Chocolate Touch this week, and began a new book: James and the Giant Peach. I chose this book because Jenison High School will be performing this play, and I thought that would be a great connection for families that choose to attend the show. 

In reading workshop this week we talked about thinking of what words might be in the book before we begin reading, as well as making a movie in our mind while we read. We also looked for words with /ch/ and /tch/ in our books and recorded them in our reader's notebooks. 

Writing: We started a whole class story about the walk-a-thon. We thought of a plan for our story using 5-fingers (first, next, then, after that, finally), then we drew our pictures across our 5 pages, and now we have started writing our story. We will continue writing it next week. 

Vocabulary: Our word this week is describe. Ask your child what this word means. They can even sing the song for you! It is also on the Bauer Elementary blog. We learned about this word this week by describing a lemon. We also drew a lemon and wrote words to describe it. We also played a guessing game where someone describes something, and the others have to guess what the item is (for example: "I am thinking of an animal. It has 4 legs. It lives on a farm. It likes mud. What animal did I describe?" This is a game you could play at home too. 

Math: We wrapped up Unit 1 and spent the week getting ready to begin Math Workshop with Unit 2 - addition and subtraction strategies. We will have 3 groups that rotate during math time - one group meets with me, one group works in their math journal, one group plays math games. It is a nice way to move students at their pace in math, and it allows me to work more closely with students. This week we learned and practiced the routines for workshop. We also learned how to play the games that will be played during Unit 2. Today was our first lesson in our new unit. 

Whiteboard Practice Idea:

I have heard a lot of excitement from students who have been using their whiteboards for writing at home. Thank you for encouraging this! 

Here are two things you can have your child try at home using their whiteboard. 

1. Have them first tell you how many sounds (not letters) are in his/her name. They can use their fingers as they stretch it out. Then have them write their name. Have them place a dot under one letter spellings for sounds, and a dash under 2-4 letter spellings. Ask them if their prediction matched the actual number after it was written. Repeat for other family member's names. See photo for how this would look. 

2. This week we have done two different sorts on our white boards. These both make the same sound, but they have a different spelling: /w/ and /wh/ was the first, and /ch/ and /tch/ was the second. Pick one of these pairs of sounds. Have your child write them on top of their board. Then while they are reading a book, they can record any works they come across with those spelling patterns in their story. Don't forget to remind your child to "say as you write"!

Have a wonderful weekend!