NEWSLETTER 2-5-16

Hi! We have had a great week! We started learning about the many symbols of American. We also learned about a few presidents. We will continue with this theme next week.

READING AND LANGUAGE ARTS

We researched a president with our peer helper. It was fun learning to use Pages and/or Google Docs to create a mini poster on our president. First graders also had a chance to share their information with the class.

I couldn’t be more excited about the reading going on in our room! Everyone has really taken off. Please keep up with the reading at home, especially when a book comes home! Many are reading longer books now so if your child says they are only supposed to finish the book, read the next chapter, read their favorite part or take turns reading...please believe them :)! Of course if they are willing and you have time feel free to read extra or just sit and chat about the book!

We learned the five parts of a letter. We used our new information to write letters to Robert Munsch, our author of the month. His books are wonderful! He has a great website that we took a look at as a class. He has taped himself reading many of his books. The kids really enjoyed listening to a couple. If you have a computer at home, the website is http://robertmunsch.com.  I know there were other books they wanted to hear.

MATH

Chapter Six has been quite a tricky chapter so far! The book is trying to confuse us by changing up the way they write number models. These are some of the problems we are seeing:  _____  -  4 = 10,  10 = ____  -  2,   2  =  11  -  ______,  7  +  _____  =  10.  We are trying our best to take a deep breath and give it a try before giving up or writing a random number.  We did learn a great strategy this week.  It has the kids using their double facts to figure out other equations such as if you know 6+6=12 then you know 6+7=13 and 5+6=11 because it’s just one more or one less. It’s always good to take what the kids know and show them how to figure out something unknown.  If you happen to be in the car this weekend, ask your kids some double facts.

ITEMS OF INTEREST

• 100th day is Thursday, Feb. 11th.  Remember to have your child dress in the style they think will be “cool” in 100 years and bring in 100 things of one item.

• Our Valentine’s party will be Friday, Feb. 12th. We have already made our Valentine folders so feel free to have your child bring in their Valentines anytime.  You should have gotten a class list last Friday. If your’s didn’t make it  home, let me know.  I also sent home ways you could help with our two specials days. Please send in item(s) by Wednesday so I can know what I still need to get.