Hello. I am writing this from Boston, where I am visiting my child and husband (who’s down here at a medical conference)—any excuse to see my kid. I would like to thank those of you who spoke with your child ahead of time about what our lockdown drill would be about, and what it would be like. The children did a fabulous job of calmly going to our “safe” area and waiting quietly until the drill was over (about 20 minutes later). There were no tears, and no one asking to go home because they were afraid. We will do other UNANNOUNCED “Lockdown” and “Evacuation” drills throughout the school year, so be prepared. The more practice we have, the better we know what to do without fear or hassle. Thanks again for helping to make this a nonthreatening activity.
Your child will be doing his or her NWEA baseline tests for first grade this week (T, W, Th, and F, if memory serves.) I could use your help getting your child ready for this, as well. Being well-rested and well-fed will go a long way toward helping your child do his or her best on these tests. Also, it helps your child take them more seriously if they understand that the tests have value—we are looking to discover what your child already knows, and what he or she will need help learning. I have “grouped” students for Math in the past based on the results of these tests. On the morning we are scheduled for 8:00 am, it is important that your child arrives at school by 7:35, especially if he or she is going to eat breakfast at school. I have copied our testing schedule on colored paper, and have attached it to this newsletter for your information. Sickness has been traveling around our room. If your child is out due to illness, he or she can take a make-up exam, but would have to so do with other classes. Typically, a child tests best when taking the exam with his or her class.
I finished my DRA reading tests last Thursday, and have placed your child in a Reading Group which bests matches his or her reading level. Each week, he or she will receive “homework” to be completed by Friday. We will start the first homework today—sight word packets. Your child will be receiving a new set of word cards on the first day of each school week (except weeks when I am retesting sight words/ reading levels). I start here because reading is quite difficult to learn as there are many different letter combinations in the English language that “don’t play fair” —letters make different sounds, depending on where they occur in words and whether there are letters nearby influencing the sounds they make. Anyone who has to “sound out” EVERY SINGLE WORD he or she has to read is UNLIKELY to enjoy reading. To that end, I have found that if we can encourage the children to memorize the words with which they have contact the most often, then reading becomes much easier, and therefore more fun. Please study these words with your kid for just five minutes a day, and you will be helping your child become a better reader! (I have put ideas for games to practice these sight words on my blog under “Parent Information” tab, so check it out! I have also written a paragraph at the end of this blog that talks about websites/apps that busy parents may find helpful.) At the end of the week, KEEP the word packet at home to use later on when your child needs to learn to spell these same sight words. (A shoebox in their “work” place is handy for this purpose.) I will reassess your child’s knowledge of the studied sight words each Friday morning. At the end of each trimester, your child will again be assessed on his knowledge of all of the first grade sight words (and beyond, where applicable), to determine which words need to be retaught.
The second prong in my reading program is regular reading practice! You have already started that piece when you began reading those little fairy tale/ folktale books that I have been sending home with/ to your child during the last two weeks. This is the LAST week I will be sending those books home, though I hope it is NOT the last time you read aloud to your child. Studies have shown that one of the greatest influences that parents can have in helping their child learn to read is to read aloud to him or her on a regular basis from material that he or she loves but is currently unable to read to himself or herself because of word difficulty. The coziness, individual attention and cuddliness of reading with a parent help a child come to love being read to, and that often later translates to a general love of reading! I read aloud to your child every day, though I am unable to "cozy" with them on a comfortable sofa or bed—I started during the first two weeks reading picture books. I discovered that this group of children LOVES to be read to, so last week I started a chapter book called The Boxcar Children written by Gertrude Chandler Warner. Though it was written MANY years ago (five years before I was born!), the strength, independence, and love that the four main characters (2 brothers and 2 sisters) have for each other rings out loud and clear. I have started each year with this same book for all 28 years I have been teaching (even when I taught Junior High), and have found that my students LOVE this book! It is also the first chapter book I ever read to my own child when she was four! One of the nicest things about The Boxcar Children is that it is really a series of 72 books, so if your child likes one, he or she tends to be drawn to read the others. They are all pretty good, though I have to say that I really like the first one best. If you are unsure of what types of books would be appropriate to read to your child, get your hands on a copy of Jim Trelease’s Read Aloud Handbook. It's a great, easy read, and its appendix is full of read-aloud treasures! Yes, kids this age can sit still long enough to listen to a chapter from a book each day, if you have picked the right book. Don’t be afraid to change voices for different characters and “act out” the parts. Kids LOVE that! Sometimes they need to LEARN to sit still long enough, so start with picture books until you find that you are reading several picture books at one sitting. Choosing the right books, at the right time of day, can make reading aloud to your child an activity to which you both look forward. (If you can’t get a copy of the Jim Trelease's book, get in touch with me, and I will photocopy the read-aloud picks for you!)
However, beginning next week, it will become your child’s job to read TO YOU (with varying amount of help FROM you). He or she will bring a “little reader” home each night (Monday through Thursday) to read TO YOU which is at his or her reading level. The book will come home in a book bag clearly marked, with either a “UNFAMILIAR—Please read with me” or a “FAMILIAR—I can read this on my own” tag on the bag. This tag will let you know how much help you should provide your child as he or she attempts to read the book to you. If the bag is marked UNFAMILIAR, your child may need A LITTLE help reading the book, like an occasional word here or there. Please keep in mind, though, that it is really YOUR CHILD’S job to do the reading, especially since the book will still be at his or her reading level. If the bag is marked FAMILIAR, the book has been previously read at least once by your child, and should not require support from you. Your job is really to provide an audience while your child practices reading something which is more comfortable for him or her to read, since it is already known. Once the book has been read, close the book and have your child tell you 8 things that happened inside the book (there are usually 8 pages and 8 pictures). I teach the children to take “snapshots” with their mind camera, and look at these pictures in their mind while they retell what is happening on each page. Wording does not have to match the book, but content should. Keep track of how well he or she does this skill, and try to bring that pages retold closer to 8 each time you do a new book. Avoid using the pictures as clues unless your child cannot remember, since he or she will have to be able to retell stories to me on DRA tests without the benefit of using pictures. Most kids struggle with this skill at first, but get better and better at it the more they practice. If you find that your child retells the sequence out of order, open up the book and check out the sequence together. The ultimate goal is to, on a regular basis, retell all 8 events in a story in their proper sequence. Finally, when your reading time together is all done for the day, have your child work on building skills of independence by being responsible for packing the book back into its bag, put the bag into his or her Daily Folder, and put the folder back into his or her backpack. Our book supplies are somewhat limited, so it really helps for books that go home one night to be returned the next morning. I would appreciate your help with this book circulation.
The third prong of my reading program is PHONICs. I do NOT mean to suggest by what I said about sight words that your child does not HAVE to learn to “sound out” words—he or she does, even if he or she is already a good reader. A “good reader”, AT this stage of learning often already has a LARGE sight word vocabulary, and therefore can read a lot of Beginner Reader material. However, I find that often these “good” readers don’t know how to “attack” words they don’t know by sight because they have not learned the necessary phonics—they don’t know HOW they know a word, they just know it. In this classroom, EVERYONE will work on the sounds letters make, together, twice a week, as a whole class. We have already started this process by reviewing letter names and consonant sounds. Now we are ready to begin learning vowel sounds, and will start with the short vowel a sound and its “families”— ab, —ad, -ag, -am, -an, -ap, -at . EVERYONE goes through the process together so that everyone can use the acquired skills to decode unfamiliar words. (In the case of “good readers”, the primary difference is that they use these skills on multi-syllabic words rather than on CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words.)
We continue to work on strengthening our "number sense" in Math, as well as our understanding of patterns. The children have been using materials in the classroom to build various patterns, and we are learning to "name" them: AB , ABC, ABB, and AAB are all patterns we will know how to recognize and how to "build" during the month of September. We are creating Math Journals which will contain samples of work we do in Math throughout the school year. (We will also begin a Language and Phonics Journal in a few weeks.) Right now, these journals take a bit of time to do as we learn HOW to do them. The way we complete them stays the same, though, so once we know what we’re doing, the journals become kinda fun. They will be documentation of how we do our first grade work, and will be shared with you at both our Fall and our Spring Parent-Teacher conferences, and will be turned over to your safe keeping at the end of the year. (It’s great for review during the summer months and/or during the fall of Second Grade.) Our Math Journal currently contains an AB pattern and an ABC pattern of our own creation. We will work on the other patterns, and on "repeating units" this week. Patterning is skill AC.1 on the first grade report card. Ask your child to tell you what he or she knows about patterns as pattern worksheets come home. We are also beginning to learn about coins—right now, we have been introduced to “penny” (1c), “nickel” (5c or 5 pennies), and “dime” (10c, 10 pennies, one nickel and five pennies, or two nickels). Practice these coins, their values, and their combination at home whenever you have a few minutes. This is the basis for learning to add money, so it is a major skill for kids to acquire. It is AC.7 on the first grade report card.
We are looking for a monarch caterpillar to observe in our classroom over the next few weeks, as they get ready to go through their metamorphosis. Monarch caterpillars live exclusively on milkweed plants. Should any of you "outdoor-type" people come across monarch eggs or caterpillars, please put them into a covered container (with breathing holes) and send it into school with your child. Together, we will watch the stages this creature goes through in the process of becoming a butterfly. If you do send in a monarch caterpillar, please also send in a supply of leaves from the milkweed plant. I will refrigerate them so we have a supply of food for our visitor. Thank you for helping with this project. We have begun our animal unit of study with lessons on “living” versus “nonliving” things—by the end of this week, your child should be able to orally list for you the six key features of all living things: 1) They breathe, 2) They grow and die, 3) They eat and drink, 4) They excrete, 5) They move on their own, 6) They reproduce. Next week, we will learn that living things fall into two groups: plants and animals. We will talk about the needs of each group, and how they are the same, and how they are different.
Technology in Our Classroom:
There is an iPad app your child is using right now called “Teach Me” which will help him or her with basic sight words, letter formation, and addition and subtraction. Most of the children are using “TeachingMeKindergarten” right now to review and/or learn the first 50 sight words, though others are ready for “TeachMeFirstGrade”. We are still using "Memory4You" (to improve memory skills), and will be introduced this week to “Number Natives” (which strengthens kids knowledge of numbers, and why they work the way they do), and 10 Frames (to really develop the understanding of what the numbers 0 - 10 really mean). Some computer games that will help us practice skills are:
-We Do Listen www.wedolisten.org (a program of books your child can read or listen to)
-We Do Listen www.wedolisten.org (a program of books your child can read or listen to)
-Mr. Nussbaum’s “School Fish” www.mrnussbaum.com/school-fish-2/ (recognizing patterns)
-“PoopDeck” at http://www.ictgames.com/poopDeckPirates/index.html Phase 3—practicing CVC words.
The following YouTube videos will help your child “practice” general sight words (not those specifically assigned to your child) this week.) Please don’t let your child go onto YouTube unsupervised as there is a great deal of content that is NOT appropriate for children. However, there is some REALLY GREAT content, too.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rmYfo84hyg Harry Kindergarten Music’s Sight Word Version 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpVWGhuckcQ Sing and Groove’s First 24 High Frequency Words
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPiNTkCmmv0 MakeMeGenius’s Living and Nonliving Things—Lesson for Kids
That’s all for this week. I’ll write again over next weekend! Hallelujah that the weather is more fall-like!!!!! :)
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