First Grade News

Back to reality for me this week, and nothing better than being greeted by 24 huge smiles on Monday! Our family had an amazing get away - it was everything we hoped it would be. But, as always, it is good to get back into the routine of day to day life.
Here is a little of what we are up to:

Coming Up:

Friday, February 3: Early Release Day
Monday, February 6: Winter Break (No School)
Thursday, February 9: All valentines to school by this date
Tuesday, February 14: Valentine's Day Party at 9:00am
February 22-24: Jump Rope for Heart

Library Books:
We have an increasing number of students enjoying their library books so much at home that they are forgetting to return them the next week! ;) Please be sure to have your child bring back their book to school each Thursday, or as soon as they feel they are ready to return it. Thank you!

Xtra Math and Kids A-Z:
Please remember to take advantage of these two online resources at home if possible. I can tell a few students that are regularly on Xtra Math - they are flying through math facts, and have become more efficient problem solvers. Thank you for your extra time and effort with both of these!
xtramth.org ~ kidsa-z.com

Valentine's Day: 
I am including a class list of names for valentines in your child's take home folder today. If your child wishes to give valentines to the class, please include one for everyone. You may notice an unfamiliar name on the list. We are slated to have a new student start with us the week of January 30, and wanted to be sure to include him as well.
Please bring valentines to school by Thursday, February 9. If they are done earlier, send them in as soon as they are done.

Reading:
We have started a new reading unit exploring nonfiction text. This unit is always exciting for students. Be sure to point out any nonfiction reading you are doing at home to your child. We also started my favorite read aloud we will do this year - Meet Addy, from American Girl. I absolutely love these series' of books. Addy is a young girl, growing up in slavery during the Civil War. Some of the concepts are very deep, but they make for great conversation. It correlates well with our history unit that we have just begun. I encourage you to ask your child what is happening in the book regularly.

Writing:
Our writing unit correlates well with our reading unit. We are learning how to write how to stories. These are aways a lot of fun. While pointing out nonfiction texts at home, be sure to point out how to texts as well (recipes, directions for playing a game, putting a toy together, etc.).

Math:
We are exploring tens and ones as we move into numbers through 100. We have been learning how to represent tens and ones with tens sticks and circles.

Social Studies:
We have begun a history unit, starting with learning about time lines. We will be learning about some influential figures in american history in the coming weeks.

Vocabulary word of the week: 
Draw - to take or pull apart.

Whiteboard Tip:
Time to dust off those whiteboards and put them to use again!
We have been learning about the different letters that make the a sound, like in ape, and we have been learning about all of the different sounds a can make. There are nine different sounds a can make in a word! We have focused on 5 of them this week.
We also dove into three super tricky homophones: there, their and they're.
Have your child draw each of these out for you:
there (draw an arrow to point over "there")
their (draw a house with two people inside to show it is "their" house)
they're (draw 2 stick figures to show "they're" (they are) walking together)

Then read the following sentence and have your child write it while really thinking of which form of the word to write. Remember to correct an errors!
"Their dog ran over there and they're watching her run."

Have a wonderful weekend!