Happy New Year!

Brr!! I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays! I am looking forward to seeing all my sweet first grade friends in the morning! Second semester is here! This half of the school year comes with more responsibility for the children as we are working hard to prepare them for second grade. We will begin writing on notebook paper, taking a minimum of 4 AR tests every week, as well as having a spelling test each week. I know 2010 is going to be full of excitement, fun, and lots of new learning in our classroom!

READING
Our whole group sound for this week is /e/ as in engine. I sent home writing portfolio notebooks from the first semester before the holidays. These are for you to keep, we will begin a new writing portfolio this week.

MATH
We are on Chapter 13 in math. This chapter is addition and subtraction facts to 12 and adding 3 numbers. Homework for math will be lessons 13 in the Practice Math Workbook. We will finish up this chapter and test probably Thursday. Look for the review sheet to come home the night before.

LANGUAGE - (DOL)
We have covered rules 1-13, skipping Rule 12 for now. I will introduce Rule 14 and 15 Wednesday. These rules can be found in your child's take home notebook. Thursday is usually a worksheet related to the newest rule introduced and Friday's DOL is sentences from Monday-Thursday for a grade.
*We will begin using notebook paper when the children return to school.

SPELLING
Each week there will be 12 spelling words. Your child will be responsible for copying these words on Monday. (I will also update this site each week with the words.) We will do different activities each day using the words, these activities will come home each day. (similar to DOL) On Friday we will have a test on the words for the week. There will be a space on the second semester report card for the spelling grade. The spelling grade on the report card will be an average of all the tests given during the nine week grading period.

This week we will focus on words with the long o sound. We will also recognize do & you as sight words on our spelling list.

This week's spelling words:

go note bone
so robe stove
no do hope
home you cone

FUTURE DATES TO KEEP IN MIND
January 4-Teacher In-service
January 5- Students return to school
January 12 PTA Meeting
January 18-No School
January 21-Report Cards and Teacher Treat Day

We will rotate to Music for three weeks with Mr. Darby. I will be taking the children outside – when weather permits.

Have a wonderful week and bundle up!!