Weekly Newsletter Volume 7

In math, we continued to work on understanding subtraction word problems and write a subtraction equation. We looked for key verbs like “ate, flew away, lost, and broke” to let us know we are taking away. We took an assessment last week and the students did a great job! 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 Letterland, we learned the letters “o and the digraph sh.” We worked with the word families –op, -ot, and -ock. Our tricky words for the week that have been added to our word wall are “they and went”. This week in Social Studies, we went to the computer lab and researched different community helpers using the website http://teacher.scholastic.com/commclub/index.htm. We learned more about the jobs that different community helpers do. Important information: Clothing drive- The clothing drive is going through this Friday, August 23rd. We are in need to underwear, flip flops, and boy’s clothing. Box tops- Start cutting out Box Tops and sending them in a baggie to school with Miss Bethel 1st grade, Track 1 written on the baggie. We are in a class vs. class competition until October. Let’s raise money for our school 10 cents at a time! Spirit Week-Mark your calendars! Spirit week is right around the corner. It will start on Friday, September 6th and go through the 13th, but we track out the 10th. Each class will be doing a coin drive, so start collecting your coins! 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 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! Spirit Day- Make sure to wear your Banks Road t-shirt or school colors (green and blue) every Friday! 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.