Three-Day School Week

We will have only three days of school together this week.  Please have your child practice reading his/her take home book every night and reture it on Thursday for a book for the weekend.  Another option is to do the raz-kids.com reading on the computer.  Take a peek and have fun! 

EXCITING NEW WEBSITE

I have purchased a wonderful subscription to a website that helps your child with reading.  It is called
RAZ-KIDS.COM and it reaches all of the kids at ALL reading levels.  The kids are able to listen to a story, then read the story and lastly, take a quiz.  He/She will obtain points every time they accomplish each task.  They will be able to decorate a space ship with the points earned and gain reading comprehension and fluency along the way.  It's a win, win situation for all of us!
To LOGIN, type in the username:  careyj.  
THE KIDS LOVE THIS SITE!  Have fun!

Math Focus

This week we will counting within 20 by making 10 first. 


In our Singapore math curriculum, we spend a lot of time thinking in ways that will make math easier as the kids grow.  One of these methods we are working on is grouping things together in groups of 10 in order to add and subtract numerals.  The language we are using is, "The numeral 13 is one ten and three".  As we add numerals together to make 20 and more, we will group the numbers into groups of 10 and then add together the ones.  This is fabulous mental math exercises and will help them so much in later grades if they learn this thinking strategy as second nature. You may help your child by doing simple addition and subtraction exercises using this technique.


We will continue our reinforcement of position and direction as we have done before. 

Spelling January 9 - 12

Reminders:  Go to spellingcity.com for games and reinforcement of our spelling words.
Username:  scarey1  Password:  mollyd

have, having, come, coming, make, making, like, liking, from, friend, were, was  BONUS:  January

Topic: Language, January 9-12

This week we will be studying three concepts at a deeper level:


1.  Some words are spelled the way they sound and some are not. Have and from are not spelled the way they sound.

2.We have a lot of expressions in our language;  have a ball, have a chip on your shoulder, have the blues, have a close call, have a green thumb, have cold feet, have a sweet tooth, etc.  We will be discussing these and making lists of things in our language that funny expressions we use.

3.  When adding -ing to words that end in e, we drop the e before adding -ing.

READING FLUENCY

Our goal in first grade is to guide and teach your child to read fluently, with expression and to comprehend what is read.  By doing so, your child is more likely to have a successful school experience.  It is vital during this first grade year that your child spends a great deal of time reading not only at school but at home as well.  I will be sending books home with your child on a daily basis as long as they are brought back the following day.  Please send the word cards and take home books in the plastic bags to and from school everyday.  We are on a quest for fluency!!  Just watch your child fly when his/her confidence blossoms through reading!  I'm ready to launch each one of them!!  Happy Reading!


For those of you who already are very dedicated to bringing your book bags back,  thank you, thank you, thank you!!  You're on your way to helping your child achieve great success!


By the way, have I mentioned this year being now 2012 how much I love my job!!

Magazines Anyone???

We are in need of magazines for cutting out words and pictures.  If anyone has any old ones you are willing to part with, we would appreciate them very much.

I am also needing medium sized plastic bottles for some word work activities.  The ideal size is not a litre pop bottle but the larger water bottle size.  I think it is 20-24 oz.  Thank YOU!