H. W. Mountz Elementary School
Happy “Day Before” Thanksgiving! Here’s our latest classroom update: * Word Study – Our last spelling pattern was with short e words. Next week – consonant blends. Please take a look at this page for tips on helping your child read unknown words. * Reading – When answering story questions, it is important for the students to look for the words in the story that give the answer. We call this text evidence. Reading levels have been assessed; I will discuss your child’s reading level at conference time. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving, Marcy McGowan Thank you for sending in your contributions to the school-wide collection for the food bank. The Holiday Hunger Challenge continues through November 15th. Mrs. Joyce McManus, a senior citizen, read to the class one day last week. Mrs. McManus has been coming to our first grade for five years! She tries to come each month and the children enjoy hearing the stories. We Are Learning About: * Word Study - We continue to work on short vowel sounds and words (a, i, and o). Next week – short e. I introduce the new spelling words on Monday and give a pretest. The pretest is optional at this time; several children do not choose to take it. If students score 100% on the pretest, they are given another list of words to practice during the week. These words have the same spelling pattern but usually have endings with _ed or _ing and include all the high-frequency words for the week. * Reading – We have been learning to analyze reading selections by retelling events in the order they happened, by understanding the plot of a story (problem/solution), recognizing the author’s purpose for writing the selection, and identifying the main idea and a few details to support the main idea. The details should be found in the selection itself. We call this text evidence. When you discuss what your child is reading with him/her, please try to consider these things. I’m looking forward to seeing you at the Halloween Parade next week. Reading: We are learning to analyze a story by thinking about the setting, main characters, problem, and how the problem was solved. With nonfiction books, we are noticing some features of this type of text such as photographs, labels, diagrams, and captions. Writing: We are almost finished with our fall booklets now. They will be displayed in the hallway soon. Math: We focused on subtraction problems: taking one part away (“How many are left?”), comparing two things (“How many more blue than red…”), and finding the missing part (“We have 6 pets. 4 are dogs. How many are cats.”). Social Studies: Christopher Columbus was an important explorer! We also had an assembly to kick off the school-wide Hunger Challenge to benefit the food bank. We had a fire drill on Thursday and there’s a fire safety assembly today. Next week: We’ll learn about an author’s purpose for writing a story, write describing and action words (about a ghost), and work further with subtraction and addition to learn how they are related. Finally, our class made a Walt Disney scarecrow for the Spring Lake Chamber of Commerce scarecrow decorating contest.
Class News Dec. 21Thank you so much for helping your child participate in our service project for the Monmouth/Ocean Food Bank, Coins For Kids. We collected $239.91!* Social Studies – We had a chance to attend the preschool Christmas program the other day. The little ones put on a great show! Our own Songfest on Tuesday was a big success too. As we get ready for Christmas, everyone is hoping for snow! We made special snowflakes today to send to Newtown, Connecticut. The idea from the Connecticut PTSA is to create a winter wonderland for Sandy Hook Elementary students when they go back to school in a new building in January.* Reading – We are looking forward to reading new stories in the third Treasures book. Please continue to send back the reading log and include book titles your child reads to you. Thanks! We had two special readers this week: Mrs. McManus (our first grade senior friend) and Maggie G.’s grandmother, Mrs. Muriel Zarb. Lucky us!* Spelling – We are going to start learning to spell words with the “long vowels” in January. These are the vowels that “say their name, like in cake.* Writing – Did you see our letters to Santa in the Coast Star last week? The children were thrilled! We will be learning more about writing friendly letters.* Math: Understanding addition and subtraction continues. Please help your child practice their facts. Our goal for the second marking period is to master facts through 6. January learning goals will be posted soon on our website. We sorted the coins collected for the Food Bank, identifying the quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies.
Finally, a special thank you to Talia's and Sean's moms, our room parents, for providing a holiday party for the children today. Jack K. guessed the closest to the number of candies in a jar!
Mrs. Libertucci (Mrs. L) and I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and peace in the New Year. See you in 2013! Dec. 7Thank you Parents, for coming to school for our American Education Week lesson and for helping your child participate in our service project for the Monmouth/Ocean Food Bank, Coins For Kids. The project continues through December 17th, so keep those coins rolling in!* Reading – We have been focusing on identifying story problems, solutions, and the correct sequence of events in a story or article. Our third Treasures book will be given out before the holiday break. * Spelling – We are getting used to Monday pretests now. If your child wants to preview the words, just go to my school website. All the words for the first two units are there (under reading/writing). More will be posted soon.* Writing – Students are expected to use capital letters to start sentences and ending punctuation now. Our letters to Santa should be published in the Coast Star this month.
* Math: Understanding addition and subtraction continues. Please help your child practice the doubles facts and facts to 3 (addition sums of 3 or less; subtraction facts beginning with 3 or less). Our goal for the second marking period is knowing the facts to 6.* Health - We are learning about keeping ourselves healthy with good food, exercise, rest, and cleanliness.* Social Studies –Our focus in December is on family traditions for celebrating holidays. It’s becoming a tradition at Mountz to have Buddy classes make ornament decorations for the lunchroom Christmas tree. Our buddies are in 8th grade. Another tradition in first grade is to be introduced to a fabulous web activity called Make-A-Flake. The whole family can try their online cutting skill! Here’s the link: http://snowflakes.barkleyus.com/ Nov. 19Dear Parents,
http://mrsmcgowan.com/reading/readingtips.html
* Writing – First graders wrote about fall using their senses and things they are thankful for. During the next few weeks we will learn about writing a friendly letter and responding to a prompt.
* Math: understanding addition and subtraction continues. Please help your child memorize facts to 3 (addition sums of 3 or less; subtraction facts beginning with 3 or less). We started timed practice on these math facts (Minute Math) this week.
* Health - We learned about fire and playground safety during the fall. Now we will learn more about keeping ourselves healthy.
* Social Studies – We’ve been reading about Thanksgiving and the difficult time the Pilgrims had coming to their new land. Our focus in December will be on family traditions for celebrating holidays.
I’m looking forward to seeing you at conferences next week. October 26 -
Ghost Writing
* Writing - Our fall booklets are on display in the hallway and our first grade ghostly descriptions will be there later today too. The class created most of their pictures in computer lab * Math: understanding addition and subtraction continues. Watch for two math tests coming home soon! Please note that first graders are expected to master all the addition and subtraction facts to 10 by the end of the year. That means knowing the facts without using fingers, counters, or number lines. The facts have to be memorized! Right now, you can help your child memorize facts to 3 (addition sums of 3 or less; subtraction facts beginning with 3 or less). Really knowing these facts also means being able to find a missing part (2 + ? = 3).
* Pro-Social Skills - We've had lessons on normal conflict vs. bullying, assertive responses (Monster, Mouse, Me), using I-Messages, Telling vs. Tattling, Bystander “We Messages”, and solving conflicts with “Win-Win”. We will be revisiting these lessons all year long!
* Social Studies - “My World" unit continues. Most of our social studies are included during the literacy block of time. Coming soon – Election Day (first grade style). We will vote for our favorite story book character! October 12 - This Week: October 4:Dear Parents, It was great to see so many of you on Back-to-School Night! Thank you for the wonderful books you donated to our classroom from the Book Fair. The children have been working very hard and everyone did great on our first spelling and math tests!
We Are Learning About:* Word Study - We have been working on short vowel sounds and words (a and i like cat, pack, pin, pick). Next week - consonant blends (like slip, flip, black).* Reading - Retelling a story in sequence, how photos and pictures help give information. Next week the focus is on story plot (problem and solution) and information texts.* Writing - Our fall writing has begun. The children have started a fall book that will go through all steps of the writing process (planning, drafting, revising, editing and publishing) as we learn about particular features of this season.
* Math: understanding addition and subtraction continues.
* Pro-Social Skills - We've had lessons on normal conflict vs bullying, assertive responses (Monster, Mouse, Me), and using I-Messages. Telling vs Tattling is coming soon!
* Social Studies: "My World" unit - neighborhoods, map symbols. Next week we will start learning more about Christopher Columbus. Here are some tips about how good readers can use strategies:
* Picture walk and talk - go through the pages telling about what is seen on each page. This helps the reader get a good sense of what the story is about and will help when trying to recognize or figure out a word during reading.
* Match the words on a page to what is being read - encourage students to use their "pointer finger" (the index finger of hand they write with) to point under each word as they read it.You can read more about reading strategies at http://mrsmcgowan.com/reading/readingstrategies.html A few reminders:
* Reading Logs are coming home on Fridays now and should be returned the following Friday. Although the log is optional at this time, focusing on reading at home is an important way for first graders to value reading.
* Guided Reading books must be returned the next day in the baggie. Week of September 10
Our Word Wall has 25 high-frequency words introduced in Kindergarten. It's important that everyone learn to recognize these words "by sight". You can practice the words - visit Sight Word Practice page.We will be working on oral word games to identify beginning and ending sounds and "share read" (read together) poems to find rhyming words. No one is expected to be able to read the poems independently at this time. We are starting a poetry collection so please send back any poems that are used for homework.
There will homework Monday - Thursday. I expect your child to write his/her own name on their work and return to school the next day. Parents (or other Homework Helper) sign the assignment page and return. Thanks in advance for helping!
