Newsletter volume 8

In math, we concentrated on “Math Mountains” where we work on plugging numbers in to help us figure out story problems and make an equation.  At the top of the mountain is the total amount.  We know this is the biggest number. The two numbers at the bottom of the mountain are the “partners” when added together give us the total.  For example if I have the problem, “I had 9 marbles.  Five were green and the rest were orange.  How many are orange?” I would use the math mountain to put 9, the total, at the top and 5 at the bottom of the mountain, since I know that is already one of the partners.  I would put a box for the other partner since it is the “unknown partner.”  Then I would count on from 5 and say 6, 7, 8, and 9 and hold a finger up for every number.  Since I said 4 numbers, (6, 7, 8, and 9) my answer would be 4.  So I could make an equation of 5+4=9.

In Wilson’s Fundations, we finished up Unit 2 where we were tapping out the beginning, middle, and ending sound of a word so we can spell and read the word correctly.  We started a new unit this week. See the yellow sheets coming home on Tuesday for more information about the digraphs we will be learning.

In Daily 5, we continued working on our 5 components during our rotations. We continued meeting for reading groups and this week was the first week we had differentiated word study groups. Ask your child what their sorts were for the group and which Daily 5 component is their favorite.

In writing, we continued working on “Small Moment” stories.  We read the story “A Chair for my Mother” by Vera B. Williams and discussed how she took the small moment of coming home from shopping with her mother to find their apartment on fire.  Vera B. Williams made sure to focus in one moment and included lots of specific details like what type of shoes they just bought and the color of flowers they each liked.

Important information:

- Spirit Day- Make sure to wear your Banks Road t-shirt or school colors (green and blue) every Friday!

-     Family History Project- The sheet I passed out was just a few suggestions.  My goal is for your child to learn something about your family they never knew and for it to be fun.  If you would like to help your child share their information, just write a note in the Home-School Connection.  Projects are due by Friday, September 7^th.

Homework for the week of August 27th

Math	Complete attached Math Expressions pages: 3-1 (Homework- front and Targeted Practice - back) 3-2 (Homework- front and Remembering - back)
Spelling	Sight Words this Week:                                                                           to     a     was     then     this 1.     Practice writing each word 5 times in your best handwriting. (Use the blue handwriting sheet in the back of the homework folder to make sure lines are being used correctly.) 2.      Write each word in a sentence.  Remember to start your sentence with a capital letter, put spaces between your words, and end your sentence with a period (telling sentence) or question mark (asking sentence). Please underline the word you are using in a sentence . *An example of a good first grade sentence using the word “go”: is: I go to the store with my family.
Reading	Read your “Book in a Bag” to Mom or Dad and parents complete the Parent Participation Sheet.  Take time to really work through the questions with your child.  Eventually they will be able to answer most of the questions without much prompting.  Your child should continue to read their “Book in a Bag” several times throughout the week. Please make sure the “Parent Participation sheet” is filled out and returned on Friday, with the book.
Social Studies	See the sheet explaining the Family History Project.  This is meant to be a fun project for you and your child to do together, so they can discover information about their family. This will be due by next Friday, September 7th!

Homework for the week of August 20th

Math	Complete attached Math Expressions pages: 2-12 (Homework- front and Remembering - back) 2-15 (Homework- front and Targeted Practice - back)
Spelling	Sight Words this Week:                                                                                              go     like     no     not    that 1.     Practice writing each word 5 times in your best handwriting. (Use the blue handwriting sheet in the back of the homework folder to make sure lines are being used correctly.) 2.      Write each word in a sentence.  Remember to start your sentence with a capital letter, put spaces between your words, and end your sentence with a period (telling sentence) or question mark (asking sentence). Please underline the word you are using in a sentence . 3.     An example of a good first grade sentence using the word “go”: is: I go to the store with my family.
Reading	Read your “Book in a Bag” to Mom or Dad and parents complete the Parent Participation Sheet.  Take time to really work through the questions with your child.  Eventually they will be able to answer most of the questions without much prompting.  Your child should continue to read their “Book in a Bag” several times throughout the week. Please make sure the “Parent Participation sheet” is filled out and returned on Friday, with the book.
Wilson’s Fundations	Complete the Wilson’s Fundations sheet.  Have your child show you how we do “Elbows up, Let’s Tap” every single time they make a word.  It’s good practice for what we will be doing the rest of the year.  You will be using the letters throughout the year, so it might be a good idea to save them in a safe place at home.

Newsletter Volume 7

In math, we started working on subtraction word problems.  We know we have to start off with the bigger number and listen for key words like “rolled away”, “flew away”, “were eaten”, “gave away” and have to take that many away. So if we have the problem, “there were 6 birds and 2 flew away.  How many birds are left?”  They would start off with 6 circles, and we use circles since they are quick to draw, and cross off 2 and that would leave us with 4 circles.  So we would write the equation 6-2=4.  Then to show understanding we would need to write, “There are 4 birds left.”

In Wilson’s Fundations, we have continued to work on tapping out the beginning, middle, and ending sounds to a word. We have also learned the trick word: and. We cannot tap out this word, so it has been added to the word wall for us to use. We have also continued to work on sentence dictation, where we count out the number of words in a sentence and tap out the sounds for each of the words, unless it is a trick word.

In Daily 5, we started our rotations like it will be for the remainder of the school year. Reading groups have been established and all of the groups meet with me last week. Our class has 5 different reading groups, so I can differentiate for each group’s strengths and focus on areas of improvement. Ask your child which color of reading group they are in and who is in their group with them.

In writing, we started working on “Small Moment” stories.  These are stories that have actually happened to us.  To help us understand what a “Small Moment” story is, we read the book “A Chair for my Mother” by Vera B. Williams and “The Kissing Hand” by Audrey Penn. We then brainstormed ideas to write about.  The writing collage you did for homework a few weeks ago will help the students when they are writing their “Small Moment” stories.

This week in Social Studies, we had our Mini-Me’s share information about ourselves.  We learned that we have lots of things in common, but we are all special and different in our own way.

Important information:

- Spirit Day- Make sure to wear your Banks Road t-shirt or school colors (green and blue) every Friday!

- Scholastic Book Orders- Our first order forms went home last week.  This is a great way to purchase books for your child at a discounted price.  I have now set it up so you can order everything on line if you would prefer.  You go to scholastic.com/bookclubs and our class activation code is G229M. Please let me know if you need help with any of this!

-  Open House- Thank you to everyone who came out last week to our Open House. I know that was a lot of information to take in at once, so I have posted the PowerPoint presentation to my Blackboard site. You can access it from our school website, then click on staff and find my name and then to the right you will be see a chalkboard with “Bb”.  Click on that and look for Ms. Bethel. I have also posted the link to access BlackBoard on the classroom blog.

Newsletter volume 6

In math, we worked on the counting on strategy.  This is where we get the bigger number in our head and count on the lower number.  For example if we have the problem 6+2, we could get 6 in our head and add two more to it, giving us 6: 7 and 8. This is a much easier and quicker strategy than using the counting all strategy where we count every number, like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and then adding two more 7 and 8.

In Wilson’s Fundations, we have continued to work on tapping out the beginning, middle, and ending sounds to a word. We have also learned two trick words: the and of.  These words we cannot tap out, so they are on the word wall for us to use. We have also worked on sentence dictation, where I say a sentence and they repeat it.  Then we work on tapping out each word and make sure to include a capital at the beginning of the sentence and put a period at the end.

In Daily 5, we learned our last two components in the Daily 5 literacy block. This week we learned and practiced daily “Read to Someone” and “Listen to Reading”. We made an “I chart” for each of these so the students know what is expected of them at each of these components. This week we also began practicing doing rotations where students were in three different groups and each group was doing a different component of the Daily 5.

In writing, we worked on revising, editing and publishing our first stories for very first writing celebration.  All of the students have worked so hard to become better writers our first 25 days of school. We worked on adding more details to our story and checked it over to make sure we used correct spacing, capitals at beginning of sentences, “I” by itself, and for proper nouns, and had periods at the end of complete thoughts. I will have your child’s first published story to share with you at Open House this Thursday at 5:00.

This week in Social Studies, we made and colored our “Mini-Me’s” which will help the students learn about themselves, their families, our school, and our community throughout the school year.

Important information:

- Spirit Day- Make sure to wear your Banks Road t-shirt or school colors (green and blue) every Friday!

- Scholastic Book Orders- Our first Scholastic book order forms are coming home this Thursday.  Scholastic provides a great way for you to build a great library at home at a very affordable price. If you are interested in buy any books, the order form and check (made out to Scholastic book club) will be due on Wednesday, August 29^th.

Homework for the week of August 13th

Math	Complete attached Math Expressions pages: 2-9 (Homework- front and Targeted Practice - back) 2-10 (Homework- front and Remembering - back)
Spelling	Sight Words this Week:                                                                                              and      up      with     big     get 1.     Practice writing each word 5 times in your best handwriting. (Use the blue handwriting sheet in the back of the homework folder to make sure lines are being used correctly.) 2.      Write each word in a sentence.  Remember to start your sentence with a capital letter, put spaces between your words, and end your sentence with a period (telling sentence) or question mark (asking sentence). Please underline the word you are using in a sentence . 3.     An example of a good first grade sentence using the word “go”: is: I go to the store with my family.
Reading	Read your “Book in a Bag” to Mom or Dad and parents complete the Parent Participation Sheet.  Take time to really work through the questions with your child.  Eventually they will be able to answer most of the questions without much prompting.  Your child should continue to read their “Book in a Bag” several times throughout the week. Please make sure the “Parent Participation sheet” is filled out and returned on Friday, with the book.
Social Studies	See the green sheet that is with the homework.  Please return the Mini-Me after you have completed it.  We will go over these in the class this week! Earlier in the year we made a collage to use for writing time and this week the Mini-Me’s are coming home to find out “All About Me!” We will make our very first class book with these “All About Me” pages! *These may be turned in before Friday.*

Newsletter for the week of August 6th

In math, we began a new unit. We have been working on finding the partners and the total, by counting up all of our circles from our circle drawing and then writing an additional equation.  We talked about how the equal sign goes in the equation to show that the addition number sentence is true. So for example 7+2=9, would be a true addition sentence, since 7 plus 2, does equal 9. 8+1=10, would be not equal, since 8 plus 1 equals 9. 

In Wilson’s Fundations, we learned how to tap out the sounds in a word to read and also how to tap out the sounds to spell.  For example, if we have the word mat, we tap out the beginning sound /m/, then the middle sound /a/, and finally the ending sound /t/ and then blend it all together.  Have your child show you how we use our fingers to tap out the sounds.

In Daily 5, we learned another component. This week we learned Word Work by working on our Word Study words. This week we all did the same words, to get used to the routine. Starting next week there will be groups differentiated for each student’s need. Monday we cut our words out and sorted them into their respective groups.  Tuesday, we sorted the words and spelled them with Wikki Sticks. Wednesday we sorted the words and made them with magnetic letters. Thursday we sort the words and Rainbow Write them and on Friday we glue the words into our notebook in the correct sorts.  We also focused on the words all, at, but, can, and in. Once we have gone over the words, they are expected to spell these words correctly in their writing and be able to read them.

In writing, we discussed how we hold writing conferences each day.  As students are writing, I will come around and conference with one student at a time.  I will tell them something they are doing great with and something they need to continue to work on. We also practiced putting periods at the end of complete thoughts.  Remember- “Think a thought.  Write a thought. Put a period.”

This week in Social Studies, we learned that Social Studies is the study of “me”, being the individual, and “we”, being other people; like what they look like, what they do, and where they live.  We read lots of books this week focusing on “All About Me.” We have found that we are all special in very different ways and no two people are just alike.

Important information:

- Picture Day- Remember this Tuesday is picture day.  If you want to purchase pictures, please make sure you have the money in your child’s folder Tuesday morning!

- Spirit Day- Every Friday is Spirit day! So make sure to wear your Banks Road t-shirts. If you don’t have one, you can wear our school colors- green or blue! The class that has the most students showing their school pride will get a special popsicle party with Mrs. Graf and Mrs. Goodson.

Homework for the week of August 6th

Math	Complete attached Math Expressions pages: 2-5 (Homework- front and Targeted Practice - back) 2-6 (Homework- front and Remembering - back)
Spelling	Sight Words this Week: the     of     it     me     on                                                       1.      Practice writing each word 5 times in your best handwriting. (Use the blue handwriting sheet in the back of the homework folder to make sure lines are being used correctly.) 2.      Write each word in a sentence.  Remember to start your sentence with a capital letter, put spaces between your words, and end your sentence with a period (telling sentence) or question mark (asking sentence). Please underline the word you are using in a sentence . An example of a good first grade sentence using the word “go”: is: I go to the store with my family.
Reading	Read your “Book in a Bag” to Mom or Dad and parents complete the Parent Participation Sheet.  Take time to really work through the questions with your child.  Eventually they will be able to answer most of the questions without much prompting.  Your child should continue to read their “Book in a Bag” several times throughout the week. Please make sure the “Parent Participation sheet” is filled out and returned on Friday, with the book.
Wilson’s Fundations	Complete the Wilson’s Fundations sheet.  Have your child show you how we do “Elbows up, Let’s Tap” every single time they make a word.  It’s good practice for what we will be doing the rest of the year.  You will be using the letters throughout the year, so it might be a good idea to save them in a safe place at home.