News From Our Classroom

      I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the grandparents and "special friends" that visited our classroom on Friday for "Grandparents' Day at CPS".  Your "special child" really appreciated the opportunity to show you what they are doing in school.  I tried to keep the day as "normal" as possible, though that's hard to do when such important extra people are coming in and out of our classroom.  I hope that you enjoyed what you saw and did with the children.  Thank you to all of those people who included those children who were not able to have a "special someone" here when doing things with your own grandchild.
       Before I forget to mention it, we (the PTA) are attempting to collect bags of candy or treats to be handed out on Halloween evening here at Crescent Park.  "Trick or Treating" at Crescent Park provides a SAFE environment for children to enjoy the Halloween fun of dressing up and seeking candy in a place YOU can feel good about, but it takes A LOT of supplies.  We are, therefore, asking families who might be interested to contribute bags of nut-free Halloween candy or trinkets/ small prizes to our  "hand-out stash".  Please read the bag labels to insure that the candy you are providing has not been made in a factory where nuts are handled.  Thank you.  Mrs. Charette, our math coach, will be visiting our classroom each Friday from now to Halloween to weigh our contributions.  Would you be able to help us out with this worth-while effort? 
        In addition to collecting candy for the "trick-or-treaters",  students at Crescent Park will be joining with the Bethel Rotary to raise money to buy and donate polio vaccines to help eradicate polio from the surface of the earth.  Only a few countries in the world still have to deal with the polio virus, and it is hoped, with these vaccines, that our world will become polio-free!!!  Any spare change you can donate WILL make a difference!

       Okay--this week in our classroom,  everyone stepped up one level in their "little readers".  Hurray!  The reading is still very predictable, but not every word repeats on every page.  In fact, in at least one level, there are several sentences per page now.  We're beginning to notice our "sight words" in LOTS of other reading materials, too.  We didn't have much time to practice them this week, though, so we will keep the same words again next week.  Parents, that means I will not be sending home a new packet of words today.  Please use the same packet that I sent home last week.  When you are practicing the five sight words with your child, would you take a few minutes one night a week to help your child create an oral sentence using his words in sentences that show their meaning.  One of the things your child struggles with at school right now is writing, not because he doesn't know what to write as much as how to say his thought in a complete sentence (or two, or three).  We talk daily about "complete" sentences being ones that "having someone or something doing something".  Some kids have an easy time creating sentences for their sight words, and some kids don't,  but practicing doing so will help everyone.
      We began working with addition this week.  Right now, some kids are still using manipulatives and/or tools to help them figure out the answers, but those "crutches" will "fall away" once the children are comfortable with what they are being asked to do.  First graders are expected to be able to pass two timed math fact tests by the end of the school year.  One of these involves correctly answering 50 basic addition questions in writing in 5 minutes--quite a challenge!  The BEST way to pass such a test is practice, Practice, PRACTICE,  so we will be doing LOTS of addition from now on.  Using the Sites and Links tab of this blog, you can find several different means of providing practice in addition AND subtraction (the other timed test) if your child has access to some type of  computer.  If you have an iPad or tablet at home which your child has access to, there are quite a number of FREE or low cost (99c) apps available to practice various types of computation.  If you would like a listing of these apps, please let me know and I will provide you with the ones we use in school.
        We have been rehearsing the cardinal directions and medial cardinal directions this week.   We have a song from YouTube which helps us remember the order and location of the various points on the compass.  We have also learned that maps SHOULD contain a title (so one knows what one is looking at), a compass rose (so we know the orientation of our paper), a map key (a box matching miniature pictures of map features labeled with a word or words identifying them), and in some cases a scale (which shows the size of distances on the map).  In first grade, we do not really focus on "scale".  Over the next few weeks, we will spend time both reading maps and creating our own maps!
        I guess that's going to be all for this week.  There are no important events at school during the next few weeks.  Heads UP!!--your child will have November 8th as a "No School" day (Election Day) and will also have no school on November  11 (Veteran's Day).  Have a wonderful weekend!