August 24 - 28, 2009

What a wonderful group of children. We have had a super week and are really beginning to get into a daily routine. The children have done an exceptional job adjusting to first grade. We will continue to go over classroom and school expectations as far as behavior goes. If your first grader is coming home with some tickets please take some time and discuss this with them. If you have questions do not hesitate to contact me. Keep in mind that their conduct grade is cumulative as far as tickets go for a nine week period.

OPEN HOUSE - Monday, August 24 beginning at 5:45. Everyone will meet in the cafeteria and then we will dismiss to the classrooms. Please make every effort to attend this event. I will be discussing in detail the first grade academic calendar, our reading program, and grading. I hope to see you there.

We will begin our small groups in reading this week. Your child will bring home a blue reading notebook that is to remain in a safe place at home. It will have all of the homework stories for the entire year. There is a chart in the take home binder that will indicate what unit you should be practicing for the week. The only reading homework your child will have this year is to read to/with or independently for a minimum of 20 minutes each night and then to read the homework stories from the blue notebook each night. You will only read the homework stories for 1 unit each week.

We are finishing Chapter 2 this week in Math and will have a test on Tuesday. You will see a review sheet that will come home Monday night for homework. This is to complete at home. Just for your information any time a review sheet comes home that is an indication that we will be having a test the following day. Also, each time we begin a new chapter in math I will send a family involvement letter home. The children will be bringing home yellow practice math workbooks. These workbooks will contain their homework for the entire year. As with the reading notebooks, these should be kept at home in a safe place. You will see a chart in your child's take home binder that will indicate to you what pages to use as homework for review. Keep in mind that the children will not have math homework every night and we may skip some pages in the math practice workbook. If we skip some pages that you would like to practice with your child anyway, by all means please do so.

We will continue to practice Grammar Rules 1, 2, and 3 this week. Also the children will begin to EDIT sentences for their Daily Oral Language in the mornings. This means the sentences will be written incorrectly on the overhead, (missing capital letters and periods this week) and the children are to print the sentences correctly on their paper. We go over these daily together after the children have completed them. On Friday the children will correct the sentences and turn them in for a grade.

The lunchroom is now selling fruit roll ups for .50 and Gatorade for $1.00. This money can be taken out of their lunch account. Please talk with your child about this, I do not want children to deplete their lunch account because they wanted to get fruit roll ups and Gatorade each day.

I am reminding everyone to WASH their hands very frequently! I want our class to remain as healthy as possible. Please remind them at home to WASH, WASH, WASH!

I hope everyone enjoyed this WONDERFUL weekend! Wasn't the weather amazing?! Have a super week.