August 26th-30th

Dear Firsties and Families,

 

It was a delight speaking with you all on Monday at 1st grade Orientation! I hope that you found the information helpful as we continue to work together. Please visit the “classroom information” section of our blog if you still have questions about our class. As always you may also email me with any additional questions. I am so fortunate to be working with you and your child this year.

 

We had a VERY productive week learning and growing together in first grade! We traveled across the United States and discussed the importance of dividing labor at home, throughout our state and our nation. We know that the best communities collaborate well together to address their needs. We also practiced our mapping skills by playing a few games using our map of the United States. I was very impressed by their sense of direction! They seemed to catch on quickly to the cardinal directions, especially when reminded to Never Eat Soggy Waffles!

 

One of our main goals these first couple of weeks has been to be able to write a complete sentence. This tends to be an overwhelming task for first graders at the beginning of the year because they are decoding words as well as trying to remember a capital letter at the beginning, an ending mark, and checking to make sure their sentence is a complete thought (includes a noun and verb). Please kindly encourage your child to write complete sentences at home. They have already been making great progress in the classroom!

 

In math, we have been practicing skip counting by 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s for number fluency, interpreting data using a variety of graphs and finding different ways to compose numbers up to 10. (For example: 9=4+5, 3+3+3=9, 10-1=9, etc.) We have also been building our math vocabulary understandings by categorizing words such as: sum, difference, more than, greater, less, least, equal, same, etc.

 

 

 

Here’s what to look forward to next week in the curriculum:

Reading: Analyzing story structure and identifying the sequence of events, and analyzing the text feature: Labels

Grammar: Understanding Word Order and ending punctuation.

Phonics: Consonants- c,d,g,l,m,h,t Vowel-a

Red Words- the, and, is

Social Studies: Introducing Landforms and identifying mountain ranges in the U.S.,

Math: Solving story problems with addition and subtraction, and interpreting data using a graph.

Writing:Writing a personal narrative about our hard working families.

 

Important Announcements and Reminders:

 

-Please send in a picture that includes each member of your family with your child on Monday. This will be an important part of our writing. The picture will be returned to you.

 

-Please remember to visit our class’ Shutterfly website to view pictures, volunteer opportunities or events that pertain to our class. You can find the site in our “Links” tab.

 

- Please also remember that we are having a quick informative meeting in the classroom about “Small Groups” on Thursday August 29th at noon. Small Groups will begin Tuesday, September 10th.

 

-CONGRATULATIONS to Kyle Fu for being our first STAR STUDENT! Kyle has done a great job following our agreements this week and comes to school ready to learn with a smile on his face! Great job, Kyle!

 

Thank you for your support at home! Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

 

Sincerely,

    Mrs. Peake

jpeake@atlanta.k12.ga.us