First Grade Home to School Connection

Week of September 5th

Open House

I look forward to meeting families at open house on the 15^th. You will get to see your child’s classroom and will learn about your child’s year of learning in first grade. If you have any questions, please feel to email me at anytime. Please check this site each week to keep yourself up to date with classroom happenings.

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Right now the children are learning some sight words, and there are lots of ways you can help your child become a skilled reader.

  Skilled readers glance at a page of printed matter and get meaning almost instantly.  They can do this because they recognize the words and the meanings so rapidly that the words do not seem to come between them and the meaning at all.

*Sight words are words that we know at sight.  As soon as we see them, we know what they are.  We memorize them, just as children memorize McDonald's, pizza and Barbie.

*Sight words are service words.  If children don't know them "by sight", they spend a lot of time struggling with their reading.

                  Helping with Sight Words

The words on the Dolch 220 Basic Sight Vocabulary list make up 65-70% of the running words in early readers and children's picture books. We also include Fundation sight words on our list.

*Our sight vocabulary continues to grow throughout our lives.  As adult readers, we rarely find words in our recreational reading that we don't know; however, we often find new words in our instructional reading.

As children begin learning sight words, let them work with a few new words at a time so they don't become discouraged.  It is very important that children see this as a game and that you call attention to words they know with "one look" rather than calling attention to the words they don't know. (SRA DOLCH READING PROGRAM)

                        Sight Words a   all   am an   and are   at   can  come  did do   for   get  go  have here   I  is in  it  like  look  me   my  on  out  put  said  see   the  that to  up  was  went   what  when who  why    where  you  your   with

(Partial List to begin with, more to follow)

Check out the Kindergarten Word Wall Page on m on m website. Your child should also know how to spell these words so that will assist in both reading and writing.  We will be working on the Trick Word Wall Words all year.  These are the FUNdations words.

ESSENTIAL Question: What are the letter names, their sounds and how do you write them?

Please check out the first Fundations unit on my website.  It is the last one at the  bottom.  It explains what we are doing.  It is a review from Kindergarten.

Charts and writing paper is also available for you online to use at home.  I will not be sending this home.  It is your responsibility to run it off.  If you are unable to, please email me and I will send it home.  I really want to do my part in helping the environment and not over whelm you with papers.

Math Connects:

Trimester Math Essential Questions

●What are the next ____numbers after ____?

●How many are in this set? How can you write the numeral?

●What number comes before ______?

●What number comes after______?

●Explain with pictures, words, or equations: What is a turnaround fact?

●How does a turnaround fact help you learn math facts?

●Use manipulatives to show a number sentence for:

--Addition

--Subtraction

●What is a fact family?

●What does an equal sign mean?

Writing

Essential Question:  What is a complete sentence?  What elements does it need (capital, spacing, neatness and punctuation mark) to be a complete sentence?

We are working on writing a complete sentence.  They should contain all of the above.  Please reinforce this at home.

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Reminders: ***Bring a labeled Water Bottle Daily it is still warm and children get thirsty. Students may bring their water bottles to gym. PLEASE label with their name.

***ORDER Books online at Scholastic.  Check out the link on our webpage.

***PLEASE send in money for Scholastic/Science News.

***HOMEWORK will begin next week. Please check your child’s folder daily.  Completed work does not have to be returned until Friday.