First Grade Team Time

Team Time- In our first grade PLT (which takes place every Wednesday before school) we work hard to develop interventions for our kids who need more support and are not meeting grade level bench marks, as well as meeting the needs of our kids who are working above grade level. Afternoons at 3:10, we divide the students up into several groups based on your child’s understanding of retelling, phonic skills, word families, and rhyming words, etc. Each teacher will teach a different lesson and challenge the group of students based on their level of understanding. We hope that this added time for differentiated instruction will allow all students to be challenged in reading and help with retelling and other areas your child could use extra assistance in. If you would like to help out during our grade level team time, please let me know. Thanks!

Spelling Homework

Spelling homework will continue when we track back in. Instead of focusing on rainbow words, I will begin to place a weekly list of spelling words in your child’s homework folder. Please have your child practice reading and writing these words at home each night. Your child may also continue to choose activities from the spelling contract to help him/her learn these words. In class we will spend time sorting these words and reading/writing these words as well. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

*If your child is not able to read all of the rainbow words, please continue to work on reading these at home. Thank you!

Valentines

WOW, I can't believe that I am already sending out a class list for Valentines! Since we are tracking out and tracking back in on Valentine's Day, I thought I would go ahead and share this information. Students are welcome to bring in valentines for their classmates on Valentine's Day. However, if your child chooses to bring in valentines, he/she must have a valentine for each student in our class. We have a total of 19 students. I will be sending home the class list in your child's Friday Folder. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Thank you!

Class Field Trip

I am sending home permission forms today for our next field trip to the Poe Health Center. There are not any additional fees, so we do not plan to collect any money for this trip. If this changes and any money is due, I will let you know. Otherwise, please go ahead and sign the permission form and return it back to school ASAP. Thanks so much! Have a fantastic weekend!

Reading Logs

Tomorrow (January 5th) will be the last day to turn in the December reading logs for your free pizza coupon for the month of December. Please turn in each monthly reading log by the last day of each month.

I am sending home the Januray reading logs today. Please fill out the reading log and return BEFORE we track out. I would like to prepare the January pizza coupons and have them ready for when we track back in.

Thanks so much for your help with this assignment!

Sight Words Practice

FYI: Happy New Year! I am proud to announce that many of our students are starting the new year off being able to read all or many of the rainbow words (sight words) for first grade! However, I am finding that many of the students are not spelling these words correctly in their writing. If your child has not received all of the rainbow words to practice, I have now included them into their homework folders. Please have your child practice recognizing all of the rainbow words by the end of the school year if he/she is currently unable to do so. I suggest focusing on 5 words each week. If your child is currently able to read all of the first grade rainbow words, please see the two websites below for additional practice.

At this point in the school year, it is very important that your child spell these words correctly in his/her writing. For this reason, I am going to begin a word wall challenge each Friday. I will challenge the students on one color list each week. This challenge will be sent home for you to review with your child. Please practice spelling the words that your child has difficulty with on each challenge.
The order of the challenge will be as follows:
Week 1-Red Week 2-Orange
Week 3-Yellow Week 4-Green
Week 5-Blue Week 6-Purple
Week 7-Pink Week 8-Turquoise
*Once we have had a challenge on all 8 lists, we will start back over with the red list and move to orange, yellow, green, etc. again.
Websites for additional practice:
http://www.apples4theteacher.com/languagearts/dolch-sight-words/
http://www.mrsperkins.com/dolch.htm