Welcome to our final days of First Grade. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to get to work with you and your child this year. I appreciate your dedication, support, and patience as we ended the year much differently than we started. Below you will find some resources/news for this week.
Student items pick up- Monday, June 22nd, from 1:00-2:30pm will be the last opportunity to pick up your child's belongings from Clark. Their bag will include all of their work from their desk, any personal items, and an end of the year gift. Assignments for this week- On Monday and Tuesday there will be three different activities for your student to do. There will be a math skills review packet, a literacy review packet, and a memory book. All of these will be assigned on Monday, but your child can work on them on Tuesday as well. If these tasks are not finished in one sitting, you can always press the "Draft" button on Seesaw and come back to it later. Summer Learning- Lexia, Zearn, Clever, and Seesaw will be available throughout most of the Summer. Please see the attachment for more information. Thank you again for your partnership and please let me know if you have any questions. Have a wonderful summer and I can't wait to work with the kiddos again in second grade!
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Hello Families!
It is our last full week of first grade! Where did the time go?! In your email and on Seesaw you will find our schedule for the week. Monday and Tuesday the students will be completing their end of module math assessment. The first grade teachers have condensed the assessment just a tad, as to not overwhelm the kiddos since they have a limited amount of time to complete. If you'd prefer, you can print the assessment and just have your student complete the problems that are on Seesaw on paper. Don't forget!!! First Grade's pick up day is on THURSDAY! 9:30-11:00, swing by Clark in the pick up/drop off line and your kiddos stuff will be brought out to you. Each child has a garbage bag full of the contents from their desk, and an optional summer packet that they can complete throughout the summer. I will be there to give a goodbye wave and can't wait to see their faces! Remember to keep working on Lexia! Last week as a class we completed 1,462 minutes! Let's see if we can reach even more this last full week of school! As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns, I am here to help :) I hope you are all enjoying the weekend! In your email you will find the schedule for the week and you will also find the correlating Seesaw activities each morning at 7 am. On Friday, you will notice the reading activity on Seesaw that asks the students to record themselves reading a book and answer questions about the text. This book will be at your child's last instructional reading level and I will be using it to check in with their reading fluency, accuracy and comprehension skills. Because of this, I ask that you please have them do this activity independently!
This past week our class completed 1,478 minutes total on Lexia!!! I am so proud of the students' hard work and dedication! Let's see if we can beat that number this week! I will post a mid week check in on Seesaw with our minutes on Wednesday. I look forward to another fabulous week of learning! We've made it to June!! Nice work, families!!
This week's post will be short and sweet :) In your email and on Seesaw you will find the learning activities for the week. A few reminders- all of the enrichment activities will be available starting Monday but DO NOT need to be completed Monday. Don't forget about those Lexia mintues!! I posted certificates on students' journals yesterday for everyone who met their target minutes! Let's have a great week of learning!! Happy Memorial Day!
On your child's Seesaw you will find the activities for the week. This week for math, rather than using the exit ticket that corresponds with the lesson, students will be completing tasks from their problem set books you picked up from school. Students can complete their work right in the book and then post a picture in Seesaw OR they can complete the activity directly in Seesaw, as they have been doing the past few weeks. Whichever works best for your family! I was able to post quite a few Lexia certificates to journals on Seesaw last week for reaching new levels. This week I will also be posting certificates for students who reach their target minutes! Let me know if you need help logging in! I am excited to see the learning that happens this week :) I hope you were all able to enjoy the sunshine today and had a great weekend! In your email you will find the menu for this week's activities. The activities will also be posted to Seesaw each morning at 7 am for the students to complete. Please remember that you can complete these activities at the pace that works best for you and your child and that specialist activities are optional!
I am so proud of the hard work the kids are doing on Lexia! I will continue to post their certificates on their Seesaw journals, so be on the lookout for those to celebrate!! Have a fabulous week! Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns- I am always here to help :) I was so impressed with the published reviews that our writers turned in on Seesaw last week!! I can tell how hard our writers worked on each piece making sure to write their opinions and give lots of reasons to convince their readers!
I have attached our learning schedule for this week. On Thursday and Friday, our kiddos will be taking their End of Module Assessment for math. This is a great opportunity to see what they can do on their own. Feel free to read the directions, read the problems and help with the Seesaw tools but try your best to let them work on the math independently. I have LOVED seeing all of the Flat Mrs. Spradling adventures!! I am so glad the kiddos are having fun, getting creative and being silly :) We are going to have another great week of learning! Keep working on those weekly Lexia goals!! I will continue to post the certificates on Seesaw as our readers complete the levels. Enjoy the sunshine 😎 I hope you were able to enjoy the beautiful weather today! Another great week of learning is ahead of us! I have attached the schedule for the week and wanted to point out that all of the enrichment activities on the right column are completely optional and will become available to you on Friday!
This week we are wrapping up our opinion writing unit. I would like each student to submit one piece of review writing for me to grade by Friday. This can be done by clicking the green plus on Seesaw and adding it to their journals. I have been noticing all of the awesome progress students are making on Lexia lately and I am so proud of them! As students complete levels, I will be uploading their certificates of completion to their Seesaw journal. A handful of them are already posted for celebration! I sent each student some snail mail last week, so be on the look out for those envelopes! We are going to have another awesome week of learning and I can't wait to see the students' work! Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns, I am always here to help :) I am so impressed with the first week of our essential new learnings! I had so much fun reading, watching, and commenting on all of the posts on Seesaw!
I have attached the schedule for this week. Again, just like last week, everything will be done through Seesaw, with the exception of the extra resources (Lexia, Raz-Kids, Zearn etc.) I have also attached a 'how to' document for creating drafts in Seesaw in case your kiddo needs more time on a task. All of the activities will be posted the morning they are needed. We are fortunate to have a few activities from our counselor and our PBSES coach for enrichment this week. These activities will be posted on Friday but your child is welcome to complete them anytime. If you have not yet accessed Lexia at home, please do so this week. Lexia is an incredible online resource that supports your student's reading skills at their individual level. Your student will work through the program at their own pace and as they demonstrate mastery of a skill, the program will then move them on to more challenging tasks. In order to find your child's exact needs, they will take a placement test the first time they login. The placement test should only take about 10-15 minutes. There will be some things they already know and some things that may be tricky. It is important to encourage your student to try their best but DO NOT help them. It is crucial they work independently in order to be set up for success once they begin the program. I want to thank you all for your patience, understanding and cooperation as we were figuring out Seesaw together last week. Learning how to use the templates, the tools, take photos and videos was a lot to take on, but I think we did it pretty well! :) This distance learning wouldn't be possible without all of your support! As always, please do not hesitate to reach out with ANY questions you might have!! It's going to be a great week of learning! Good Afternoon Families!
I hope this email finds you well. I am super excited for the essential new learnings to begin this week. The first grade team has been working hard all week and we appreciate your patience as we work through this new phase of learning together. Attached you will find a few PDF's to assist you this week in getting your child set up to participate. One PDF contains information about the week and a schedule you can follow at home with your child. A second attachment explains how to complete a Seesaw activity, which is how your child will be completing work for the rest of the year. Next, you will find our poem of the week, which goes to the tune of "I've been working on the railroad". I will record myself singing it and post it on Seesaw so the kids can hear the tune and practice singing it if they would like. I have also attached a writing paper template that you can print and have your child use or you can use any paper that you have at home or they can type their writing response onto Seesaw. If you have not already, please have your child take the Lexia placement test this week. Once the placement test is completed, Lexia will give your child a weekly goal of how many minutes to use it per week. Please let me know if you have any questions or have any problem accessing Seesaw this week. I am here to help and am so excited to start interacting with the kids more through Seesaw!! Good Evening Families!
I hope you are staying sane, healthy and safe and that you got to enjoy the weekend :) ISD First Grade Learning Website: https://wakelet.com/wake/93a14174-2af5-4b69-9b4b-cba3414139d9 The website has been updated for the week and has activities, tasks, and links for Reading, Writing, Math, Science, Social Studies, SEL, and Enrichment. Your child can complete any of these throughout the week. Learning Menu- Attached you will find an Online Learning PDF of the same activities from the district Wakelet website that is linked above, just in an alternate format. Many of the tasks from the Menu/Wakelet are also Seesaw activities if you and your child prefer to complete them that way. PDF Attachments: I have included some PDFs to this email. I have attached a PDF of story problems from Math Module 2, the "Resources at a Glance" page to support a daily schedule for your child, and our weekly poem "Eggs". Mystery Science- Mystery Science is a free website that has a variety of mini-lessons and projects for different grade levels. I have done almost all of the full lessons/hands on activities for First Grade before and they are very fun and engaging. Printing and some materials are required for most lessons. https://mysteryscience.com/school-closure-planning Seesaw: If your student hasn't already been on Seesaw it would be a good idea to use it this week to start getting familiar with the app and posting. Once we start our new learning after spring break, I will be using Seesaw frequently for assignments, activities and to give feedback. Your child can complete Seesaw Activities via Clever if they would like (after logging onto Clever scroll down and click on the Seesaw icon). I posted a read aloud to the class journal and there are a variety of activities available for your child to do this week. Please feel free to also upload a picture of your child doing an activity, reading a book or a page, or a picture of a completed task. If you need help accessing Seesaw from Clever, or you would like to connect to your child's journal, please let me know. I apologize for the lengthy email. Please let me know how I can help navigate through any of this information and support you and your child at home. Please let your children know that I miss them and think about them often! I can't wait to start interacting with them through Seesaw!
Attached you will find resources from Ms. Hogan (our P.E. teacher), Mrs. Massey (our school counselor) and Mrs. Wride (our PBSES coach): http://clarkpbses.weebly.com/covid.html Please know that Kylie Massey, our school counselor, is here to support your family through this ever-changing time. You can contact her via email at [email protected]
I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe. I want to start by saying that YOU are doing great! Thank you for being awesome teachers and most importantly awesome parents at home! Remember, all activities are completely optional, not expected so please do what is best for your family each week! Thank you so much for completing the survey I sent out last week and for your kind words of encouragement and suggestions. I see you and hear you, and will do my best to meet everyone's needs. Hopefully you will see some of what you requested in this week's learning menu. Attached you will find a PDF that the first grade team has put together of optional resources that you can use as you see fit. Some of these activities are taken from the district Wakelet website that I shared with you last week, and some of them are additional activities. To try to make the resources as clear as possible, you will find a star next to the activities that were taken from the Wakelet. Here is the link to the Wakelet again, it has been updated for the week as well. https://wakelet.com/@ISDTLS411 ISD TLS (@ISDTLS411) - Wakelet Public Collections from ISD TLS. wakelet.com On the attached PDF you will also find a suggested schedule for those of you who asked for one, and log in information to additional resources. I have also attached this week's poem- this one does not have a tune or melody. Please remember that this is all completely optional and that what works for your family is what you should keep doing. I am hoping to set up a class meeting over zoom this week so that the kids can talk to me and each other. I will send out information on that later in the week. Please let me know if you have any questions on any of this information. I am happy to help and want to make sure I am supporting you and your student from afar :)
I hope you and your family are staying safe and healthy. I am excited to share with you some tasks and activities that your child can complete throughout the week. Please see below for a variety of resources.
ISD First Grade Learning Website: https://wakelet.com/wake/93a14174-2af5-4b69-9b4b-cba3414139d9 This website has activities, tasks, and links for Reading, Writing, Math, Science, Social Studies, SEL, and Enrichment. Your child can complete any of these throughout the week! Extra Reading Information: Along with the activities and links on the website mentioned above, your child can also use Raz Kids to read daily. If you need help accessing Raz Kids, please let me know. It is a great resource and comprehension tool to use at home. If your child has a Lexia Account, he or she can also use that at home. Please let me know if you have any questions about these online resources. Poem: Attached you will find our weekly poem. The kids really enjoy these poems and I hope they can read and have fun with it at home too! Extra Science Activity: Go on a safari at home with the Cincinnati Zoo using this link- http://cincinnatizoo.org/home-safari-resources/ Class Dojo: On the Class Dojo story you will find a video of me with an activity and opportunity for the kids to respond. They can respond with a video on Class Dojo through your parent account or you can email me a video of their response. Remember, all of this is completely optional! Please let me know if you have any questions about any of the above information or any online tools. I miss the kids and hope to see them all soon! Math: To practice math students can use their clever log in information to access Zearn- which is the district provided resource for math. From there you also have access to code.org and other sites. To access Clever at home:
1. Login to the Clever online portal: http://www.clever.com/in/issaquah 2. Username: Student user names for Clever are the first four letters of their last name, first three letters of their first name and their two digit graduation year. Examples: SullSte30 (student – Stephanie Sullivan, graduation year 30)) 3. Password: Clever student passwords are set to their 7 Digit Student ID number. In Family Access this will be displayed as “Other ID.” If a student’s ID begins with a zero, the zero will be part of their password. 4. Once on clever, you can scroll down and you will find “Zearn” Reading: All Raz kids subscriptions are up to date with your child’s latest reading level. Website: www. Raz-Kids.com Teacher Username: spradlings Password: picture of the rabbit Writing: We are in the middle of our opinion writing unit. To practice this at home have your child write their opinion or a review of a restaurant, a movie, a toy or a store. Make sure they state their opinion and list lots of reasons why they believe what they wrote. Our magic word is because! Please let me know if you have any questions! We have had a fantastic week in first grade! In science, we continued to learn about habitats and animals. We discussed animal adaptations for survival and special features of animals. In math, we compared two digit numbers and learned about the symbols and phrases “less than” “greater than” and “equal to”. In social skills, we learned about managing worry and what strategies can help when we are feeling worried. In writing, we started writing our opinions on our collections and how to convince our readers of our opinion. In reading, we started discussing and practicing the skill of visualizing. Visualizing is when you make a picture in your mind while you are reading or while someone is reading to you. In addition to practicing visualizing, we set new reading goals for ourselves based on the skills we have been learning in class. Each student chose a goal and is going to practice using that skill during their reading. You can find your child’s reading goal on their personal Class Dojo portfolio. We also made a leprechaun paining- pictures of this are on our Class Dojo story.
Wish list: Our classroom is in need of a few items to help us with our everyday learning. If you would like to donate one of these items to our classroom we would greatly appreciate it! We need: plastic sheet protectors for math and blue painters tape Missoula Children's Theater Registration opened March 1 for Missoula Children's Theater production of Peter and Wendy returning to Clark Elementary, March 23 - 28. We are looking for 50 - 60 students to cast for the production. REGISTER HERE Rehearsals are March 23 - 27 with performances on March 28. Cost is $50. More information at clarkpta.org. PTA Board Nominations The Executive PTA Board officers for the 2020/2021 school year will be elected at the April 27th membership meeting. We are currently seeking nominees for President, Vice President, Treasurer, & Secretary. If you are interested or would like to nominate someone, email Ashley Conner no later than April 1st. Volunteers Needed We are looking for a handful of PTA members to help fill our last 3 committees for the 2019/2020 school year to help with our final Staff Appreciation Week, Walkathon, and Field Day. SIGN UP HERE Questions to ask your first grader: Science: What animal did you choose to make your poster on? Can you tell me about its special features or adaptations it needs to survive? Math: Compare the two sets of numbers: 32 and 23 27 and 13 Which sign would you put in the middle? (<, >, =) Social: What can you do when you are feeling worried? (count, take belly breaths, use self talk) Can you give me an example of using self talk when you are worried? Writing: Which item in your collection did you choose as your favorite? Why do you think that item is best? Reading: What does it mean to visualize a story? Can you practice visualizing while I read to you without showing you the pictures? Happy Valentine’s Day!
We had so much fun this week learning and celebrating today with kindness! In social studies, we learned about Australia and Antarctica and finished up the unit with a picture sort of all of the continents. You can find photos of this on our Class Dojo story. In math, we learned how to interpret data on a graph, how to collect data, and how to graph data we have collected on a chart. We finished up the module and took the assessment on Thursday. In writing, we published our non-fiction books and had our publishing party to celebrate all of the hard work the writers have put into their pieces of writing. In reading, we continued to learn about good habits for solving hard words and learned specifically about checking that the words look right and make sense while reading. Next week we will be goal setting with all of the skills we learned and students will choose one of the skills to really focus on while reading independently and with me at their small group! When we return from break, we will begin our next writing unit. Each student will need a collection of items to participate in the unit. These collections will stay at school until the unit is over and will be used as writing tools. The collections can be as simple as 5 Lego pieces, 5 Pokémon cards, 5 different colored rubber bands. Please do not send any valuable items- if your student collects something they would like to write about but do not want to bring to school, photos of the items are welcome as the collection. MISSOULA CHILDREN'S THEATER Our next production from the Missoula Children's Theater is returning to Clark from March 23 - 28 with the production of Peter & Wendy. Students from all grades can participate in speaking, non-speaking, or behind the scene parts. Keep an eye out for more info. ART WALK COMING SOON Plans are in the works to bring our first ever Art Walk to Clark Elementary! If you are interested in helping with this event or would like to share your own artwork (play music, drawings, sculptures, and more) email [email protected]. GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING Learn about volunteering, where your donations go, upcoming events and more at the next PTA General Membership Meeting on February 27 at 6:30PM. Also, want to be on the PTA board? More on nominations for the next year will be discussed School Wide Headphone Donations: We are in need of headphones for our students. If you have any headphones or earbuds that you are no longer using, please donate them to Clark. We will be disinfecting any donations and getting them into our classrooms to support students and use of technology. Please drop of any donations to the office. Have a wonderful and safe mid-winter break! I look forward to seeing all of the students back at school on Monday, February 24th! We have had an amazing week full of fun and learning! In social studies, we traveled to Europe and learned about all about it while comparing and contrasting it to where we live, along with the other continents we have studied. In math, we started our new module on measurement and had lots of practice comparing objects by length. Mrs. Massey has joined us this week in social skills and taught us about asking to talk, feeling left out and knowing our feelings. In writing, we took stock of the books we have written so far and edited them and added a table of contents. In reading, we continued to “get super smart about nonfiction topics” and discussed chatting about pages in the book with our peers to help recall important facts and reading with a lively and smooth voice. We also discussed the importance of eye contact and taking turns during the peer discussions about books.
Next Friday we will be doing a Google Exploration in social studies. If you have not returned the permission slip, please do so by next Thursday, February 6th. The students will have the opportunity to exchange Valentines within our classroom- the list was sent home earlier this week on a bright pink sheet of paper. If you choose to send in Valentines, please make sure you have one for every student. If you choose to send Valentine’s with candy, please know that students will not be eating the candy at school. One of our key goals is to keep all students safe. We are asking students to take their Valentines and candy home so parents can make the decision. If you need any materials to make your own valentines, please let us know as we are happy to help provide materials. Thank you for your support in helping us celebrate this special day in a safe way. Questions to Ask your First Grader: Social Studies: What did you learn about Europe this week? Math: When measuring, where is it important to start? (at the end point) Social Skills: If you need to talk about a problem, what should you do? (1- decide who to tell 2- decide when 3- say it) Writing: How many nonfiction books have you written? What are they about? What will your next book be about? Why is the table of contents important? Reading: Why is it important to use a smooth and lively voice when reading? When reading at home- stop and discuss the pages periodically. We have had a fun filled week in first grade! In social studies, we learned about Ramadan, Hanukkah, Christmas, Las Posadas and Kwanzaa! The kids had a great time finding similarities and differences between all of the different holidays! In math we practiced finding ten before we subtract to help us solve subtraction problems in the most efficient way. In social skills, we learned about identifying our own feelings and how we can use clues our bodies may be giving us to help us figure out how we are feeling. In writing we continued our illustration study and learned about creating detailed backgrounds, how to make people not as stick figures, and how to add weather to our illustrations to give our readers even more details when they read our stories. In reading, we continued to practice retelling the story from beginning, middle and end. We also discussed the problem and solution in the stories throughout the week. This week we met with our fifth grade buddy class and did another online coding activity!
Winter Break begins tomorrow and school will resume on Monday, January 6th, 2020! Questions to ask your First Grader: Social Studies: Tell me something you learned about (about Ramadan, Hanukkah, Christmas, Las Posadas and Kwanzaa). What is one similarity between Hanukkah and Christmas? How are they different? Math: Jenny had 14 markers in her bag. 9 markers fell out of the bag. How many markers does she have now? (look for a picture with labels to help them solve, a number sentence and a statement) Social Skills: How can your body help you know how you are feeling? How might your body be feeling if you are nervous? Frustrated? Writing: Tell me about how you created a detailed background in your writing. Did you add weather? Reading: When reading at home, ask your student to retell the story from beginning to end I hope you all have a happy and safe winter break! I can’t wait to see the students back at school in the new year! We have been busy and productive this week at school! We started our social studies unit of holidays around the world this week and had a blast learning about Diwali and Loi Krathong. Next week we will be learning about Ramadan, Hanukkah, Christmas, Las Posadas and Kwanzaa. In math, we continued to learn about finding 10 to help us add when solving addition sentences, and started learning how to find the 10 to help us subtract when solving subtraction sentences. In social skills we learned how to show care and concern for others and acted out scenarios to help practice showing care. We read the books One and Those Shoes and discussed how the characters showed care and also stuck up for what was right. In writing, we started our illustration study and learned about how to draw stick figure people in motion and stick figure animals to help enhance our illustrations in our writing books. In reading we have been practicing retelling the stories we read from the beginning, middle and end. We also did a super fun comparison activity with the books The Gingerbread Baby and Gingerbread Friends. The students were able to compare and contrast the two stories while also practicing their retell skills.
The students were very excited about their poem of the week, A Chubby Little Snowman and asked that I record them reading it and put it up on Class Dojo, so there you will find a video from this morning! Questions to ask your first grader: Social Studies: How are Diwali and Loi Krathong similar? How are they different? Where was Diwali originally celebrated? (India) Loi Krathong? (Thailand) Math: Sarah had 16 cupcakes and her friends ate 7 of them. How many cupcakes does she have left? Can you make a number bond to find the 10 to help you subtract? Social Skills: How can you show care and concern for others? (ask them if they are okay. Ask them if they would like to play. Notice the situation and ask if they would like help) Writing: What animal did you practice drawing this week? What story did you write about that animal? Reading: How were the books Gingerbread Baby and Gingerbread Friends similar? What characters did both books have? I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!! We had another fabulous week in first grade! We continued to learn about the sun, moon phases, and stars. We made team posters and each team learned and presented about a different planet. We also started our expert groups and will have those groups present next week! Pictures of the team planet posters are on Class Dojo! In math we started our second module, which focuses on introducing place value through addition and subtraction within 20. This week we learned about adding three numbers together and how to find the ten within those three numbers to help us add efficiently. In social skills, we learned about how feelings can change over time and read the book The New Girl and Me and discussed how the main character’s feelings changed from the beginning of the book to the end. In writing, we spent the week studying punctuation and the students were able to write any genre of choice. In reading, we read Caps for Sale and practiced retelling the story.
If you have not signed up for parent teacher conferences and you would like to meet, please email me and I will let you know what times I still have available. I would love to meet with each family! Holiday Gift Barn – *Tree up near PTA Office* Help families in our community through giving and sharing of gifts for children from birth to 18 years old. All gifts can be dropped at the Clark PTA office from November 12 - 27. See the wishlist for gifts HERE. Please do not gift wrap presents and all gifts should be brand new. Gift wrap and supplies are also appreciated. Contact [email protected] for questions. Gingerbread House Night – Fri, Dec 6th 6-8PM Please join us for a night of fun and architecture. Gingerbread Houses and Pizza are now available for preorder here: http://clarkpta.org/Packet/gingerbreadnight. and MUST BE PREORDERED before Monday, Dec 3rd. Houses are $11 for PTA members | $13 for non-members. Pizza is $3 per slice (includes water). Hope to see you all there! Clothing Donations Needed The nurse's office is in need of boy's sweat pants, and underwear for the Health Room. Sizes for 3rd - 5th grade students are needed. Please drop off all donations to the front office. Questions to ask your first grader: Science: Which planet did your team make a poster on this week? Tell me something new you learned about space. Math: Rick made 7 cookies, and mom made 9. How many cookies did Rick and mom make? Find the ten and then add. (7+3 =10, 10+6=16 so 7+9 = 16) Social Skills: Can you think of a time when you felt one way and then your feelings changed? Writing: What did you choose to write about this week? Reading: When reading at home, ask your student to retell the story. What happened first, next, then and last? Another great week of first grade is in the books! This week, we finished up our first module in math, and continued our learning of subtraction! In science, we learned about the Sun, the phases of the Moon and about what an astronomer’s job is. We read a few books on space and learned a new chant. We finished our narrative writing unit with a publishing party, read each other’s books and gave compliments. In reading, we continued using our schema to make connections to books we read and read aloud Chrysanthemum. In social skills, we learned about similarities and differences and how it is okay if someone feels differently about something than we do.
There are only 5 days left to sign up for a parent teacher conference! Sign-ups will close on the 20th. Vision & Hearing screening will be conducted at Clark on November 21st and 22nd. We need volunteers to serve as Hearing Screeners, runners that escort classes to and from the screening area, and to assist the SLP and Nurse with logistical/administrative tasks. No experience is needed. Training will be provided. If you are interested, please sign up at: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0c4baeaa2ca3ff2-vision3 Please make sure to complete your volunteer application since it can take a couple of weeks to process. If you have questions, please contact Ashley Conner at [email protected] Upcoming Dates Nov 27- Mustache Day Nov 28 & 29- NO SCHOOL Dec 4 & 5- Parent Teacher Conferences (NO SCHOOL for students) Dec 6- Popcorn Friday Dec 6- Gingerbread Night 6pm Questions for Your Student Math: After dinner, Mrs. Spradling wanted a treat. She ate 6 cookies, 4 candies and 7 ice cream cones…yum! How many treats did Mrs. Spradling have in all? Science: What is something you learned about the moon this week? What is an astronomer? If you can see the moon, ask your child which phase of the moon is visible. Writing: Show me your published book! What are you proud of in your writing? Reading: When reading a book at home, ask your child to make a connection. Have a great weekend! We’ve had a great week! We learned more about subtraction in math, making math drawings, number bonds and number sentences that match stories, and looking for easy numbers to take away, like a group of 5 or 1. We began our next science unit Sun, Moon and Stars by making observation charts and making a model of the night sky. In social emotional this week, we continued our learning of looking for clues on somebody’s face or body and thinking about the situation to tell how someone might be feeling. In writing, we read the book Shortcut to look for more craft moves to try in our own writing and began publishing our small moments. In reading, we read Mcduff and the Baby and used our schema to make connections to our own lives. We learned that word detectives do a slow check of the word and the picture to make sure it is correct.
Conference sign up is now open, please make sure you sign up before November 20th. I am looking forward to meeting with each family! Upcoming Dates Nov 11- NO SCHOOL Nov 14- Coffee with Christy Nov 15- PTA Recess with Kids Nov 27- Mustache Day Nov 28 & 29- NO SCHOOL Questions For Your Student Math: Use a 5 group drawing (think- white circles and colored circles) to show 8-5=____. Science: Show me how to use the night sky model you made in class. Social Emotional: How can you tell how someone is feeling? Writing: How do you make your writing fancy? Reading: What did the story Mcduff and the baby remind you of? We have had a fun and fabulous week in first grade! In science, we finished up our unit on motion and magnets by talking about how magnets repel, singing the magnet song (a video of this is on Class Dojo) and by finishing up some explorations. We took our assessment today and we will begin our next science unit on the sun, moon and stars on Monday! In math we learned how to draw picture number bonds and continued to work on writing addition and subtraction number sentences that go along with the number bonds. In social skills, we discussed and practiced how to identify feelings of others by looking for clues on their face and their body. By using these clues, they can help guide us in our social interactions with others! In writing, we learned about using familiar words to help us spell tricky words, edited our work by adding punctuation and studied a mentor text to try and incorporate some of their craft moves into our own writing. In reading, we discussed making text to self connections and read the book Matthew and Tilly. We also met with our fifth grade buddy class for the first time this week! Pictures will be on the Class Dojo story by the end of the day.
Mid- Module assessments were sent home earlier this week with students. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about those! Our classroom will start using the reading program Raz Kids on the computers during reading rotations. This is an AMAZING resource for students to use both at home and at school. Each student has an account with their instructional reading level. Students will be bringing home log in cards with information on how you can use this resource at home. Conferences will be held on December 4th and 5th this year. The window for signing up for conferences begins next week- Nov. 4th 9:00am until November 20th by 3:30pm. After November 20th you will need to coordinate sign- ups or changes through me. Once you have logged into family access you will need to click on the Teacher Conferences tab to sign up. Directions with step-by-step screen shots are here & here in Spanish. As many teachers run their conferences back to back. Please do NOT schedule back/back conferences if you have more than one student as you will not have time to get from one classroom to the next. I am looking forward to meeting with each of you! The Second Grade students of Clark Elementary are hosting a school-wide Food Drive to help out our community! We will be collecting items from Wednesday, November 6th- Wednesday, November 13th! All items will be donated to the Issaquah Food and Clothing Bank. While all items are greatly appreciated, some of the items they are currently in need of are: non-perishable foods, breakfast cereal, oatmeal, and condiments. The classroom who collects the most items will win a bonus recess with Mr. Merritt! Questions to ask your first grader: Science: What does it mean when magnets repel? Math: Jenny had 4 cupcakes. Her grandma brought over some more. Now Jenny has 9 cupcakes. How many cupcakes did her grandma bring over? Solve and show a number bond with an addition and subtraction number sentence. Social: How can someone’s face give you clues on how they are feeling? Where else can you look for clues? Writing: What craft moves did you decide to put in your own writing? Reading: When reading at home, ask your student to make a text to self connection to the book. |
About our blog:Inside our weekly blog you will find a glimpse into our first grade classroom, questions to ask your child, and updates! |