The new year brings us to the half way point of first grade. Students will be tested for mid-year progress in math, DIBELS, and DRA at the end of January and beginning of February. Look for report cards to come home at the end of the month. The students are growing and learning so much each day, it is very exciting!
Writing Workshop this month focuses on persuasive writing, or opinion writing. We will start by writing a list of things we really love, and would love to persuade others to like. The students have been able to write on their own for longer periods of time, and are becoming very convincing in their writing. Watch out parents! This can be a powerful tool!
Our phonics lessons will reinforce short vowels, hard and soft c and g, r,l, and s blends, and contractions. We are doing an author study of Jan Brett. We are also reading The True Story of Balto.
Social Studies will focus on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We will tie this in with our character education lessons and discuss how it feels to be excluded and what we can all do to be part of a solution to the problems of prejudice and stereotyping.
Math skills to focus on this month include basic addition and subtraction facts, and a review of temperature and time to the hour and half hour. Please keep working on basic facts. We are up to subtraction to 6. Students should be very fluent in all addition facts (to 20) and subtraction to 6.
In Science, we will be discussing how the weather affects us and how animals adapt to their environment. We will do some experiments with ice, snow, and water. We will make frost and compare that to how snowflakes are made.
There is no school for students on January 20. Our therapy dogs will visit on January 15. We will have our Spelling Bee on January 13. Our school wide Spelling Bee will be on January 17.
A special thank you to the PTA for the Lenne Lenape Assembly on January 14. It was fantastic! The students learned so much and were interested in everything Mr. TwoSteps had to say.
I am looking forward to a great month with these awesome first graders! Stay warm and healthy!
