Grade 1

Important Dates:

9/21-Free Dress Day

9/25- Curriculum Night (7:00 pm)

9/28-Fall Olympics (1:00 pm) *more info to come

10/3-PTH general meeting

10/10-noon dismissal

10/11 & 10/12-No school (teacher’s conference)

*Classroom Notes and News:

-Reading Homework: Each night your child will bring home an easy reader to practice our phonics focus of the week, as well as some other leveled readers that will highlight sight words or other vocabulary from our new reading curriculum. These books are intended to be easy and familiar so that your child will be confident and read smoothly. The goal is to improve fluency, or the pace and phrasing used while reading. Soon, your child will also be bringing home “just-right” books at their individual reading level. Please have your child read their book to you twice, and then sign the top of the book and return it in the daily folder. This will earn them a Dojo point for being responsible learners. The importance of nightly reading with your child cannot be emphasized enough; it makes a world of difference and hopefully having access to these little books for practice on top of other books you have at home will help. After you have returned the book to school each day, I will send home a new one and then you can keep it if it is a paper reader. When regular books come home for reading homework, it will be especially important to return those to the classroom. Thanks for helping your child become a better reader through intentional, daily reading practice!

-Field Trip to the Seattle Children’s Theater: Today a permission slip came home for our first field trip. We will see “The Velveteen Rabbit” production put on by The Seattle Children’s Theater. If you have not been to a show here before, I highly recommend you join us if you are able. I have reserved 15 extra seats for adult chaperones, as this is usually a very popular outing for parents. Once we have a final head count, I can adjust our numbers down if needed. Unfortunately they do not let us purchase more tickets once the order is complete and payment is made 4 weeks before the show, and they also cannot give refunds if plans change. Thank you for RSVP’ing early-I do realize it’s a long way off! On a side note, Kindergarten and Second Grade are also seeing the same play, but on an earlier date.

-Curriculum Night: I hope to see all of you next Tuesday, Sept. 25th at 7:00 for Curriculum Night. This will be a chance for you to hear about our first grade curriculum (especially the new language arts program) and also learn about classroom procedures and learning expectations. I will also go over the Raz-Kids online reading program that we will be using at school (and hopefully at home, as well.) In addition, I will explain more about Class Dojo and answer any questions you may have regarding that or anything else. It will be short, but jam-packed full of information, so I hope you can make it!

*What we are learning:

-Math: number bonds (two small numbers that make up a larger number, like fact families)

–Reading/Language Arts:

Essential Question: What happens during a storm?

Main text: The Storm (realistic fiction)

Phonics: short i, it word family, consonants-r,h,b,g

Spelling: if,is,him,rip,fit,pin (no spelling test until after Curriculum Night)

Vocabulary: bandits, chattered, brave, ears, still, steady
High Frequency Words (words to know): for, have, he, look, too, what
Grammar: possessives

Comprehension skill: understanding characters

Comprehension strategy: infer/predict

Writing: Narrative writing-labels and captions

–Bible/Faith: Moses

-Memory Verse: The Lord is with me; I will not fear; what can man do to me? Psalm 118:6

-Second Step: paying attention; what do good listeners look like?