Ms. McManus’ First Grade Room 214 Newsletter /7/13 Schedule Monday-Gym (gym shoes/clothes) Tuesday-Art (art shirt/leave in locker) PTO fundraiser delivery Market Day pick up Wednesday-Library Limo lunch Thursday-Music Parent/Teacher conferences 4:30-8:00 Friday- extra recess Coming Up: 15 th -Picture Day PTO meeting 5:30 18 th -No School What’s Happening : Fundations Unit 3 – Continuing with digraphs (ch, ck, sh, th, wh). Reading: listening and responding to stories. Focusing on remembering key ideas from a text. Introducing vocabulary words from last weeks story! Ask them the words they know! Writing: listening and discussing good writing. Focusing on sentences with sentence structure. Sharing and reading our own writing. Reviewing past writing in our class books and looking at how to improve for our next writing. Math- Continuing to focus on number bonds. Working on addition sentences to 10. Science-apples and their lifecycle. I Can… ~I can ask and answer questions about a text I have read. ~I can retell a story. ~I can tell the characters, setting and what happens in a story. ~ I can take part in group discussions. ~I can write with others. ~ I can tell about different sounds in a word. ~I can use the commutative property of addition. ~ I can use digraphs to help me read. ~I can talk with others. ~ I can punctuate sentences. ~ I can revise and edit my writing. ~ I can publish my writing. ~I can count to help me add. We will focus on these for a few weeks. Fire Safety: This week is fire safety week. We will be learning about firefighters and what they do, safety when around fire, and preventing fires. Please go over a plan with your child of two options they have in the case there might be a fire at home. We will be sharing in class. It is so hard to believe that by Friday we have completed the first nine weeks of school. We have been working so hard on our listening skills, writing on our own, reading words and books on our level. This month has a lot of events coming up. For Halloween our school does a parade with our costumes. There will be more to come on this. At the end of the month we are taking two more field trips: carillon park & the landlab.

A digraph is two letters that when put together make a whole new sound. The digraphs we are focusing on th, sh, wh, ch, ck. Ck is used after a short vowel. With Fundations the words that we use do not end with c and only k when there is a long vowel. To help you child have them make a list of words with these sounds. Also have them try to find words/ things with the sounds. We underline digraphs in words. Ex. chin Trick words are from Fundation and they are certain sight words that can not be sounded out. They just need to be known from sight. The words we are currently working on are: as, has, to into, we, he, she, be, me, or, for, the, a, and, his, is, of Addition Strategies: Addition Properties: The zero property states that zero added to any number is the same as the original number. The commutative (or order) property states that the order of addends does not matter: = Counting on and counting back: For facts such as 9+1 or 7+2, you can count on from the greater number. Similarly, for facts such as 6 – 1, you can count back. (Counting back is often harder to master than counting on.) Fact families: A fact family is a group of related facts using the same numbers = 7, = 7, 7 – 3 = 4, and 7 – 4 = 3. Fact families are a very powerful tool for mastering facts; once you know one fact in a family, you can work out the other facts in the same family. Doubles: If you have two of the same numbers. 2+2=4, 3+3=6. Doubles facts are usually easy to remember, and can be used to learn other facts. Websites: Reading Prompts ~Wait a few moments to see if the student tries to attempt to say the word. Don’t just give it to them. ~Ask the student, "Does the word make sense in the sentence?" ~Say to the student, "Look at the picture, see if that helps you figure out the word." ~Say, "Put in a word that you think makes sense." ~Say to the student, "Start the sentence from the beginning and try saying it again." ~Ask the student, "What letter does the word start and end with?" ~Tell the child to read the sentence from the beginning and skip the word. ~Say, "Now that you skipped the word, what word do you think fits in the sentence?" ~Tell the student the word if they still cannot get it. Reading Strategies: ~Look at the picture and prepare your mouth to say the word. ~Read the sentence again from the beginning. ~Skip the word and come back to it. ~Sound the word out slowly. ~Break the word into parts. ~Ask yourself, does the sentence make sense? ~Does it sound right? ~Ask a friend or teacher or parent.