News From Our Classroom

      Hello and   Happy Halloween! 
  Let me start off by thanking those parents who contributed to our class Halloween party.  I appreciate the contributions of food, and the assistance with getting kids ready (into their costumes) for the parade.  Hopefully, all costume pieces made it back to your house for tonight's big event.  As you know, there will be "trick-or-treating" at Crescent Park from 6 - 7 pm tonight, or until the treats run out.  Our class personally contributed another16 pounds of candy this week! The school as a whole has collected an amazing amount of loot (323 pounds!!!!!), so volunteers should be able to hand out treats for at least an hour.  To give you a sense of peace and tranquility tonight,  there is NO HOMEWORK!!  I mean, Halloween only happens once a year!!!!   We will resume "little readers" and sight words tomorrow night.   Just a quick word about candy--I know that it's tempting to send candy in for snacks until the Halloween candy is gone, but candy is not the even source of energy for learning.  Sugar provides a quick burst of energy, for sure, but that level is not sustained for very long.  Kids can have candy on Tuesday, if you wish, but please get them back to healthier snacks by Wednesday or Thursday, please.  Keep the candy for special treats at home.  Thanks.
      Several of the children have passed their Social Studies test for continents and oceans.  Everyone has taken the test at least once.  If your child has not yet passed this test, please help him/her study for it.  Report card grades close at the end of November, and I will be including a grade on the report card in this area.  We are taking a short break from mapping to become familiar with our first system in the human body--the skeleton!  It seemed appropriate to introduce this system the week before Halloween.
      I gave our first "timed test" (in addition) this past week, and was pleasantly surprised that several students were able to pass it!  In order to do so, you must be able to correctly answer, in writing, 45-50 simple addition problems (sums to 10) in 5 minutes.  More than half the class were able to do at least half that number (25 or more) already!  That's terrific, considering we have only seriously been working on addition skills for two weeks now!  The children will continue to practice addition daily, and will be given this timed test once a week from now until they can pass it.  The children who are able to pass the addition test will begin practicing to pass their subtraction timed test.  Each first grader should be able to pass both of these timed tests by June.  As with everything else we do in here, if the children are able to pass the first grade exams, we will begin work on what they will be given in second grade to prep them to pass those tests.
      We have been working this week on "teen numbers" and a VERY important math concept called "making ten".  Ours is a math system BASED on ten, and it is vital that all children learn what digits combine to make ten.  (In case you weren't sure, they are  10 +0 (and its "turn around fact" of 0 + 10), 1 + 9 ( 9+1), 2+8 (8+2, 3+7 (7+3), 4+6 (6+4),  and 5+5.)  Here is an easy game that you can play with your youngster at home, that will work on improving their knowledge of which digits add to ten.  It is based on the game "Memory", and only requires a standard deck of cards with the face cards (Jack, Queen and King, and Jokers, if there are any) removed.  Shuffle the cards and spread them out on table or floor in 4 rows of 10 cards.  The youngest person goes first.  At his turn, each player flips over two cards, being sure to leave those two cards face up in their spots so everyone can see them.  Then the player determines if the two numbers are "friends of 10".  (Do they add up to make ten?)  If the answer is yes, the player removes the two cards to his acquisition "pile".  If they don't make ten, the player turns both back over in their same spot, and everyone tries to remember where and what those two cards were.  Regardless of success, it is the next player's turn.  If a "10" is turned over as the first of two cards, the player keeps the 10 and "play" goes to the next person.  If the "10" is the second of the two cards to be turned over, the player has gone over the desired total of 10, and both cards are turned back face down, and "play" goes to the next person.  The game is over when time runs out or all cards have been made into collections of 10.  At school, I emphasize that the game is NOT a competition--we are playing to learn and to have fun, so we often help each other remember where the cards we've seen are, and we seldom count our "pile" at the end.  (We do this kind of noncompetitive play every week in Reading when we are playing "the slapping game" with our sight words, so it is definitely a concept with which the kids are familiar.)   The point is not to "best" someone else; it is to see how well we personally do.  If we had fun playing the game, then we are all winners!  It would be great if your child was able to "practice" his or her math at home by playing this game with someone (or someones) there.  They all tell me they have card sets at home.
    The kids in the Yellow Group (Kyler, Carter, Bryce, Lucian, and Zachary) completed their practice of all 35 required sight words last week, so they will be starting to learn ten sight words a week starting this week, and will be given their 12 fluency strips to practice all week.  They will be tested on them on Friday, and the test will involve a randomization of the strips, so practice them out of order, please!  The Blue Group kids (Tanner, Cody-Ann, Wyatt and Maceo) were tested on set 1 last week,  so they will receive set 2 tomorrow.    You will know they have passed because it will say on the bottom of that paper that goes home every Friday to let you know how they are doing on their sight words _____/12 fluency strips were passed this week.  They have to be able to read at least 10/12 of the sentences fluently.
      I think that's all for today. I did want to remind you that there is NO SCHOOL for students next Tuesday (11/8) because this Teacher's Workshop Day coincides with voting day.  There is also NO SCHOOL for anyone next Friday (11/11) as it is a holiday--Veteran's Day.  We will bring "little readers home on Monday and Wednesday of next week, but not on Thursday.  In addition, the sight word cards (and sentences) we bring home on 11/7 will not be assessed until 11/18, so you will need to hold on to them for TWO weeks.   Thanks for your help with this matter.