News From Our Classroom

         Hello!  Happy weekend!  It's been a busy week, so I am enjoying this weekend very much.  Before I present our "snapshot" of this past week to you, I'd like to remind you of several important happenings in the near future:
       -First, I'd like to thank all of the families that sent in supplies for our class "Scarecrow".   It looks as though it might be a gender-neutral "skier scarecrow"!  I will try to remember to take a picture of him/her for our next week's blog page/ newsletter.  Mary Scanlon (Cody-Ann's mom) is coming in Monday morning to help groups of kids problem-solve the scarecrow's design, and then build it.   We may keep it together for the month of  October, so you should get a chance to see him/her.  You should get any items lent back (other than the newspaper and shredded paper) on November 1.   Next, I will be talking with the class on Monday afternoon about the  "Lock Down" practice we will have on Tuesday morning from around 8:30 until it's done.  We will not be going anywhere (although the 4th and 5th graders are going to practice evacuating to a bus, as well.  The bus will not GO anywhere this time, but it will give the police and support people an idea of what they would be dealing with, should the "Lock Down" ever be real.)  Please just reassure your child that everything will be okay, and that Mrs. D. will take care of them through the "Lock Down" drill time. 
       -The Coyote Coupon celebration will happen on Thursday morning (I think I mistakenly told you Tuesday in last week's newsletter) around 9:30.  This is when our scarecrow will make its debut.   The children of this class have collectively earned around 300 Coyote Coupons!!!!!  That's amazing!  I have to tell you all and them how proud I am of the friendly, cooperative kids who make up this class.  Way to go, you Superstars!!!!  You earned 1/6th of all the Coyote Coupons given out this month!  Impressive!  
        -The final thing which I would like to remind you of is that there is NO SCHOOL on Friday, October 7th (Teacher Workshop Day) or on Monday , October 10th (Columbus Day)!

       And now for the "snapshot". . . 
       On Friday, you should have found, in your child's Daily Folder, a certificate telling you how many sight words your child "read" correctly when quizzed on them Friday morning.  In addition, at the bottom of the certificate, you will find written those words (if any) with which he or she had difficulty.  They are listed there so you and your child can practice them whenever you get a chance.  The certificate lists how many words your child SHOULD have known, as well as how many he or she did actually know.  Now, some of the certificates say 25 words!  Be rest assured that only 5 of those words are new  words for THIS WEEK.  However, since the goal is to be able to build up a student's overall sight word bank, I am practicing ALL words learned to date with them throughout the week, and evaluating them on Friday.  This makes it especially important that a child practices the words NOT known last week, as well as this week's new words, since they will all appear on every test each week!  Practicing these words with your child for even 3-4 minutes each day will help tremendously to make them a permanent part of your child's sight word knowledge.  This, in turn, will make reading a LOT more fun, since it stops being such hard work.  To all of those parents working to help their children acquire these sight words--thank you!
       In Phonics this past week, the children worked on the sounds of the letters Ii, Ll,  Rr, Dd, and Cc. (Did you know that "c" USUALLY says /k/ when followed by an a, o, or u, and /s/ when followed by an e, i or y ?.   It's true--and now your child has heard that, too.)  We also talked about the 3 sounds Aa can make.  Many of the children knew 1) the "short sound" of /a/ (as in "cat"), and  2) it's name --A, but most of them did not know that Aa can also sound like a "short u".  This usually happens when it appears as the first letter in a multi-syllable word (like "ahead", "again", "above", "against", "afraid").  We will go into more details over the next few weeks as we begin studying those "short a" ConsonantVowelConsonant (or CVC) word families.  Suffice it to say that when we come across an unknown word, we should try the short sound of a vowel first (unless we see other vowels in the word), the long sound next, and finally any exceptions we have learned for that vowel, until we come up with a word that we recognize.  So, let's say your child doesn't know the word "what" in the following sentence:  What are you doing?  If he tries the first option (the short sound) he would get /wat/, which is not a word he or she recognizes, and which doesn't fit correctly in the meaning of the sentence.  Next, she should try the LONG sound of A /wait/, a recognizable word that wouldn't make sense in the sentence.   Finally, he should try /wut/, which is both recognizable and would make sense in the sentence.  I refer to this activity as "flipping the sound" (since most letters have one or two sounds, not three).  Hopefully, by the end of the year, you will be able to see your child doing this "flip" whenever trying to "figure out" an unknown word! 
       I continue to share at least one story each day with your child.  Mrs. Raymond let us borrow a special book called The Mixed Up Fairy Tales by Hilary Robinson.  In it, elements of various fairy tales are mixed up together until the reader helps sort them out.  I was impressed that the children were able to identify so many of the fairy tales from their "pieces" of story, and had so much fun doing it!!!  It was a lot of laughs for all.  Starting next week, though, I will be reading Halloween picture books to the children, instead of a chapter book.  There are so many beautiful, funny, scary, amazing Halloween books out there that I just have to share as many as I can.  My goal this year is to find AT LEAST one book that each child in this class LOVES.  So, that means reading a lot of stories to them!  However, I will return to reading a chapter of a chapter book a day after Christmas, because it is also important that children be able to listen, learn from, and love books that are currently too hard for him/her to read by himself/herself.
       We did several new things in Math this past week: We were introduced to "odd" and "even" numbers (We will need to practice this concept a LOT before the kids "get it", but that's okay.); we were reintroduced to the US coins of a penny (cent), nickel, and dime, and reviewed the value of each; and we learned how to "write/draw" numbers as they are shown on a 20 Rekenrek"--by drawing out the position of the various beads on a 20 rekenrek.   This is a VERY difficult skill for some children, but one of the things I have noticed by making it something they HAVE to be able to do is that the drawings of the numbers helps them FOCUS on the location of those various beads.  
Two important Math skills that are coming right up in the near future are "teen numbers" (a demonic challenge for first graders) and addition.  We will begin both next week.  We will continue to work on money EVERY DAY by adding one cent to our "Calendar board" each day as a means of keeping track of the number of days we have been in school.  As we accumulate 5 pennies, we "trade" those coins in for a nickel.  Then, once we have accumulated two nickels, we "trade" them for a dime.  This coming week, the children will be introduced to a quarter as we "trade" the two dimes and the nickel (a value of 25⍧) for a quarter.  We will continue to talk about and interact with money in this way every day until the end of the school year.  We also are learning to write money "the cent way" (25⍧) and "the dollar way" ($0.25).   We will try to determine "odd" and "even" numbers as we build them this coming week on our ten frames.  When filling the ten frame to determine "odd" or "even", we "Pair fill" (by putting one on the top row, and then another one on the bottom row to make "two".)  If the top and bottom of the same column are filled with no "left overs", then the number is even.  If there is a top without a bottom (or a bottom without a top), then the number is odd.  Finally, we will use both the rekenrek and the ten frames to add numbers.  We will start with using pom poms in a ten frame to show easy equations Mrs. D. dictates to us; then we will try to do the same thing as we concretely "build" the numbers involved in simple addition equations.
      Given the interruptions coming next week,  we will have to see how many of these plans are actually accomplished, but at least you will know what I have in mind to achieve.  Have a wonderful weekend!  I will be in touch after your LONG weekend, so enjoy the extra days off with your child(ren), if you can.