Our Firsties are really getting into the swing of things in First Grade! We went to mass as a school, we had our first Computer, Spanish, Music, and PE classes, and we tried out Centers in our classroom this week! I am positive Centers is probably one of their favorite parts of our busy day! Centers occurs during the last hour or so of our school days. We split up the class into groups of 6 students (with two groups of 5), and we spend three afternoons visiting our centers. Centers cover both math and reading/writing standards. Friday afternoons will typically be saved for an art/holiday project or a Meet the Masters project. For those of you who aren't familiar with Meet the Masters, it is a K-5 art program that exposes our students to famous artists from various periods, along with their works of art. The students then replicate one of the works of art to display in the classroom and to eventually be taken home and admired by family members = )
Speaking of art, if you are looking for a clever way to store the many wonderful art pieces your child has brought home from school over the years, check out this idea I found on the wonderful (and addicting) website Pinterest: art binder link .
Has your child talked to you about Reward Recess yet? Reward Recess is a K-5th Grade recess that occurs from 2:35-2:55 every Friday afternoon for any students who have had wonderful behavior in the classroom all week long. It is obviously very popular! For those students who had a rough week, a detention will be served instead of Reward Recess. Detentions occur in the Science Room with either Mr. English or Mrs. Schulte watching over them. In First Grade, this truly is a rare situation- it takes A LOT for Mrs. Coulter or I to handout a detention slip to a little Firsty! I will further explain the First Grade Behavior System at our Back to School Night this TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 11th! Please remember that Back to School Night is a PARENT ONLY evening. I will also cover many other topics such as homework, reading, testing, Mathletics, Super Student, birthdays, what to expect this year for your Firsty, as well as our First Grade grading system. You don't want to miss it!
This upcoming week I will be trying to schedule as many one-on-one Informal Reading Inventories with your children. This means either Mrs. Coulter or I will be sitting one-on-one with your child, showing them flashcards of words, giving them a few seconds to read each word, and we will use that information to gauge their reading level. I will then use this information to better plan my guided reading groups. We obviously take into account that this can be a little nerve-racking to a First Grader, but we hope that after 7 days of getting to know us it won't be that bad! I will share the results from the Informal Reading Inventories with you at my earliest convenience. This takes quite some time to squeeze in with 34 students, so I appreciate your patience! Thank you!
I also want to inform you that beginning this week our Firsties will attend mass weekly on TUESDAYS, unless there is an all-school mass scheduled for that week. Please note that students are not allowed to wear shorts on Mass days, so please don't send your child to school on Tuesdays in shorts.
Finally, last week's homework load was a nice transition into their normal homework load- if it seemed particularly "simple", that's because I want to ease them into homework. By the way, thank you parents for doing your part and covering all of their books! This week's homework will include a math sheet and a phonics sheet (usually copied onto the same sheet), as well as a reading log and a page of sight words flash cards to cut out & practice/review for the week. I would recommend cutting out the flashcards, hole punching them, and saving them on a metal ring for easy access, but obviously you can figure out the best way your child can use these flashcards. I would also recommend copying the sheet so you have two sets of flashcards, then playing memory or go fish with the flash cards! Whatever makes learning fun! I will test the class on their ability to read those sight words every Friday. Please note that homework MUST be returned in the Red Homework Folder EVERY DAY (this is a part of your child's grade on their report cards). While we send home the entire week's worth of homework on Monday, we would only like you to return the homework on the date that it is actually due. We also don't encourage you to complete all of the homework on Monday evening- they are related to the Math lesson and Phonics lesson taught that day, and things may get confusing if completed before I've taught the lesson.
I apologize for the ridiculous length of this particular blog... the beginning of the year is always jam-packed with so much information! I promise they will get shorter as the year goes on! Don't forget to send me an email with any questions or concerns! I'm here to help! nhudson@stjudeschool.org
And please remind other First Grade parents to check out this blog weekly- they don't need to scan the QR code- that was just an easy way for parents with Smart phones to link to the blog = ) Just tell them to go to http://hudsonstjudefirsties.blogspot.com
Take care, and enjoy the wonderful weekend!
~Ms. Hudson
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