Grade 1 Mrs. Waugh
Week at a Glance (Oct. 29-Nov. 2)
Wednesday Night – Pack library books to be sent back Thursday.
Nightly – Practice sight words, sound teams and read good fit books/Raz-Kids.
Literacy:
Words of the Week: out (Please highlight these on your high frequency word list). There is only 1 word this week so your child can take the time to do a good review of all sight words sent home so far. If he/she reads them with ease, try spelling them!
Letter/Sound practice: Two Vowels Go Walking
We are reviewing “when 2 vowels go walking the first one does the talking”. For example, in the word seat the first vowel “says its name” (we hear the long e sound and the “a” that follows is silent). In the word pie, you hear the I but not the e.
When your child is struggling to sound out a word and you notice a sound team, remind him/her to look for it. For example if they do not notice “ea” in the word meat, ask him/her to cover the m and cover the t. Emphasize the “ea” sound team.
You can also have your child practice reading the following words at home to practice two vowels (make a memory/matching game or flash cards to make it more interactive):
· boat, coat, soar, coal, goal, soak
· beat, seat, peach, flea, sea, deal
· hair, chair, jail, rain, paid, train
· pie, lie, ties, flies
Word Family: -est How many words can you find that end with est ?
Reading strategies: Eagle Eye-Look at the picture for clues
Lips the Fish-Say the first few sounds in the word
Stretchy Snake- Stretch out the sounds slowly then put them
back together to figure out the word
Chunky Monkey-Look for a “chunk” in a word that you know
Skippy Frog- skip the word and read to the end of
the sentence. Hop back and read it again.
Flippy Dolphin – flip the vowel sound
The new reading strategy- “Tryin’ Lion”- Try a word and if that word does not make sense stop and try another word.
This week we will also focus on fluency while we practice reading in phrases instead of word by word.
The grade one reading benchmark for the November report card is level C. The children are expected to read this level independently, fluently and with good comprehension for appropriate achievement (3).
Writing: When writing, your child should now be using uppercase letters for the first word in a sentence, for the pronoun “I”, and for the first letter in someone’s name. He/she should also be using end punctuation, and know when to end with a question mark, period or exclamation mark. Words that are easy to sound out phonetically (ie; cat, big, that, etc.) should be spelled correctly. At this point, students should not be using uppercase letters in the middle of words, and there should be no reversed letters. The word wall in class should also be used to spell sight words correctly. These are the areas I look at when I evaluate for report cards.
Math (Numbers to 20):
We are continuing to work on recognizing groups without having to count. It is important that students begin to recognize that a set of 3 and a set of 3 is 6, that a group of 5 and 1 also is 6, and so is a group of 2 and 4! We have not started “formal addition” yet, however this recognition is an important pre-skill. Please try the following at home:
· Play games with dice to help with recognition of dot patterns “at a glance”
· Have your child tell you quickly how many fingers you are holding up
· Practice what is 1 more than 5? 1 less than 7? What is 2 more than 8? What is 2 less than 10?, etc.
· Ask your child “What number comes after 4? What number is before17?”, etc.
· Practice counting forward and backward from different starting points (1-20)
· Hold up 9 fingers and ask “If 5 is one part what is the other part?” We have now used this skill to figure out questions like “I have 9 books. 5 are on the floor and the rest are on the shelf. How many books are on the shelf?” or “There are 6 dogs. 2 are black and the rest are brown. How many are brown?”
· Ask your child questions such as “8 is 2 more than….?, 6 is one less than….?”, etc.
Reminders/Important Dates:
· October 31- Happy Halloween! Black and orange day - No costumes please.
· Nov.2-Field Trip to Delta (more info. to follow)
· Nov. 5 – Picture Retakes
· Nov. 9 – Full day Professional Learning Day – no school for students
· Nov. 12 – No school due to Remembrance Day
· Nov. 16 – Report Cards go home
· Nov. 22 – Parent teacher conferences (evening)
· Nov 23 – Parent teacher conferences (morning), Professional learning in
the afternoon. No school for students.
Thank you for your support!