December 2nd-December 6th Newsletter

First Grade Newsletter

December 2nd-December 6th

Literacy

Reading Street: Unit 2 Week 3 

Main selection:  Who Works Here!

Weekly Question:  Who works to make our community a nice place? 

Amazing Words: citizen, community, law, leader, branch, headquarters, earn, patrol

High-Frequency Words: people, live, work, who, out

Phonics Target: Long i: i_e; Digraphs- wh, ch, tch, ph

Comprehension skills: Author's purpose

Comprehension strategy: Important ideas

Genres:  Expository Text

Written Expression: Predicate Expander "Where" (The sunflower blooms under the blazing sun.)

Reading Street Parent Connection:

• Unit 2 Family talk letter for concept conversation starters and 6-week overview of the unit. (Sent home November 16th)
• Practice reading words (see orange sheet sent home Monday) for Unit 2, Week 3 (third column). 

PHONICS

Lively Letters (Sounds)

• Review each letter/letter pairs: p/b, t/d, k/g, f/v, qu, m/n, ng, a/o, j, s/z, ch, r/l, u/i, wh, e, x/y/c, w/h

Spelling 

• Skill(s): Tapping out sounds in words with CVC patterns (Consonant, Vowel, Consonant; such as 'cat') 
• Spelling words with digraphs (sh, ch, th, wh, ck)
• Trick Words: REVIEW
• Taught Trick Word List: the, of, and, a, was, to, or, for, me, be, she, he, me, as, has, into, you, your, I , was, one, said

**Trick words are irregularly spelled words that each child is expected to be able to spell in their writing.**

Handwriting Without Tears

• Review formation of the following letters…c, o, s, v, w, t, a, d, g, u, i, e, l, k, y, j, p, r, n, m, h, b, f, q, x, z
• Alphabetical order  

Math in Focus

Chapter 5
**Chapter 5 Test on Tuesday, December 3rd**

Shapes and Patterns

Thinking Skills
- Induction; Analyzing patterns and relationships

Problem Solving Strategies  
- Guess and check

                               Objectives

                                                                                  - Identify, classify, describe, and sort plane and solid shapes.
                                  - Divide shapes into two and four equal parts and describe the parts.
                                  - Describe the whole as the sum of its parts.
                                  - Combine and separate plane and solid shapes.

Science

Patterns in the Sky

 Last week students learned about observing stars through a fictional story, How Many Stars in the Sky? by Lenny Hort. Students were split into three groups to learn about how to present the different patterns we have learned about, the Sun, Moon and stars. Each group will create a poster that will hang out in the hallway for the rest of the school to use to learn about the patterns of the sky. 

Social Studies

          Jan Brett Author Study 

The Mitten

Animal Riddles: Students will come up with
animal clues and make an interactive writing
piece for others to guess their animal.
Vocabulary: admire, jostle, commotion
Winter Holiday Unit-  During the month of December, students will be learning about different holidays that are celebrated. This week students will learn about Kwanzaa and major symbols that represent the traditions of the holiday. 

Second Steps—Mrs. LaBella will be coming into the class to share different ways that we can help others. 

 Specialists

MONDAY: Music; Book Fair (Wish List)

TUESDAY: P.E.

WEDNESDAY: Music; Book Fair (Purchase)

THURSDAY: P.E.

FRIDAY: Art; Music

Writing Workshop

Jan Brett Author Study~ Mitten Riddle

     This week students will begin their mitten riddles. Each student will choose an animal that crawls into the mitten from Jan Brett's story, The Mitten. Once each student has an animal, they will begin to write three clues about the animal to help readers guess what the animal is before the reader uncovers the picture. Students will work on their rough drafts this week.  

Six Traits of Writing~ Ideas

      This week students will conference with me about their Tom the Turkey stories and begin writing their final drafts. 

Framing Your Thoughts~ Predicate Expander of Where
This week students will begin to brainstorm winter- and holiday-themed subjects, predicates, and predicate expanders of where to begin creating our second barebone sentence book. 

This week’s mini-lessons will include… 
- What an individual conference is and includes
- Using complete thoughts
- Punctuation
- Uppercase at the beginning of a sentence and lowercase at the end

  Parent Reminders

1. Our class will not being going to the library this week due to the book fair. Our book fair dates are Monday, December 2nd to fill out our wish lists at 1PM. Our class' purchase date is Wednesday, December 4th at 9AM.

2. Scholastic Book Club catalogs will be going home this week. I know we just had the book fair and I do not want anyone to feel pressure to order more books. I had some parent requests for the December catalogs and thought I would just send them to everyone. If you want any “surprise” or gift books for your child, please let me know and I can contact you when the books are in.) Orders are due by Monday (Dec 9th), so the books can be delivered before the holiday break. (Online code—P9JVK).

3. DIBELs Winter benchmark testing will be done with Ms. Nedde this week.

4. It’s just about hat and glove season…please label everything, if possible. Sometimes the children have a hard time identifying their own clothes.    

Have a fantastic week! 

Miss Biggar

Homework for the Week

 Daily

Reading Words (Phonics/Sight)

Reading Log (with discussion questions)
Number/Letter Formation
Number Sense Math Games

This week's homework:
Reading Log (due on Friday) [Passed out on Monday]
Number Bond Addition & Subtraction Sentences Game Sheet (Daily) [Passed out on Tuesday] 
Dialogue Journal #10 (due on Friday) [Passed out on Wednesday]
Kwanzaa Comprehension Activity (due on Friday) [Passed out on Wednesday]