Adventures in 1st Grade

You may have noticed some spelling pages in your child’s folder today.  These are not “required”  homework but the activities will increase your  child’s knowledge of the -all rhyme we are working with this week plus help with his or her ability to spell some high frequency words.  Please keep doing the rapid word reads; I have noticed that many students can read the high frequency words that we’ve practiced with this routine better than the words that we learned before the routine.  For today’s Math homework, if you cannot cut and paste the pictures on the paper, your student can draw the appropriate number of snails and fish.

It is hard to believe but our 1st marking period is almost at a close.  Report cards will be mailed in a couple of weeks.  Parent conferences will occur at the end of the 2nd marking period, in November.  If you have immediate concerns, I will be happy to schedule a time to meet with you during the 3rd week of October.

The PTA is collecting box-tops for education.  Please send any that you find in to school with your child.

Thanks again to those parents who donated supplies to our classroom.

Regards,

Dave Ostheimer

If you would like to order Scholastic Books for your child, tomorrow is the last day for online orders : http://www.scholastic.com/parentordering username: y7wildcats password: y7wildcats (Please note that the username and password are not this years room number but last year’s. I will change them for the next order.) If you would like to order the old fashioned way, please send in exact change or a check made out o scholastic along with your book order.

Thanks!!

Mr. Ostheimer

This week in Science we will finish our study of the weather with an assessment on either Friday or next Monday. In Math, we will continue working on story problems as well as figuring out how many different ways we can come up with a number (1+9=10, 2+8=10, 3+7=10, etc). We will begin Unit 5 in Language Arts, learning the short o sound (as in octopus) and discussing characters, setting, beginning middle and end as our elements of a story. In Writing, we will start a piece on either where we have travelled or how we have helped a family member. I will continue to read from The Magic Treehouse Book 2: The Knight at Dawn and supplement from other picture books (Big Chickens was a big hit last week).
A big “Thanks” to those parents who sent in some supplies last week.

Mr. Ostheimer

p.s.: Here is a cool site with some Science experiments you can do a home.

http://www.weatherwizkids.com/weather-experiments.htm

Thank you to everyone who came out tonight.  I really appreciate your support and I know that together we can help your child to begin to reach  their potential.  Please read all the information in your folder.  Didn’t get a folder?  Email me and I’ll send one home.

A couple of things I forgot:

If you would like to help out in the classroom (or if you would like a job or two to do from home) please email with your availability and with what you might want to do.  (Some ideas, reading with a child – usually not your own, “translating” what a child has written to what they read to you that they have written – usually not the same thing, copying/laminating/cutting out/ tearing out workbook pages, hanging up work in the hallways, art projects.)

If you would like to contribute supplies for our classroom we are already running out of glue sticks, paper towels, clorox wipes (for those places germy hands get to), ziploc gallon or sandwich bags, brown lunch bags and uncoated white paper plates.  Please let me know if you are interested.

As for homework:  I expect I may have confused some of you.  If I sent it home, I do want it returned.  Please don’t have your child spend more than 20 minutes a night.  Rapid Word Charts should be done first; read, timed and signed every night.

If you forgot to sign in at Open House, please email me your name, and child’s name.

Want to talk about your child?  Email me and we’ll set up a time for a phone conference.

Thanks again and see you at parent/teacher conferences November 17, 18 and 19.

Dave Ostheimer

Yes it is true… Open House is this Tuesday from 6:30 – 7:00.  I hope you can make it!

This week we will continue our exploration of the Weather discussing rainfall, puddles and clouds.

In Math we have started adding numbers together.  I am trying to move the students from counting on fingers, toes etc. to using tally marks.  If we add 7 +4 , I would like to see them add  /////// + //// = 11.  By using tally marks students are able to easily and efficiently show how they arrived at an answer.  They can still use whatever way is comfortable for them (fingers, cubes, pictures etc.) but they need to be able to show and explain how they came up with their answer.

In ELA we are discussing story elements: characters, setting and especially the beginning, middle and end of a story.  This will enable students to retell a story and give a concise summary of who, where and what happened in a story.  You can help with this skill by having your child tell you the characters (who), the setting (where) and the beginning, middle and end (what happened) of their favorite TV show.

In Writing I am stressing the use of capitals at the beginning and punctuation at the end of sentences.  Sentences must also tell a complete thought. Spelling continues to be phonetic/invented, your child should spell a word  using the letters of the sounds that he or she hears (ie: pala is ok for play because he might hear p-a-l-a).

Another Rapid Word Chart will come home on Monday. Please have your child read these words to you every night, note his or her time in the space provided (remember your cell phone might have a timer in it) and return the paper on Friday.

Questions or comments?  Please let me know.

See you Tuesday evening!

Mr. Ostheimer

Don’t forget, there is no school on Friday September 4 or Monday September 7 in observance of Labor Day. Next week we will continue working on counting and comparing numbers and we will have our first assessment on how well we can count to 20 and comparing two quantities to see which one is greater. In Science, we will continue our discussion and observation of the weather. In Language Arts, a few of the skills we will practice: we will learn our short /i/ sound (as in igloo), we will make inferences when we read (what do you think the author is trying to tell us) and discuss fiction and non fiction text. In Writing, we will continue to learn what makes a sentence and continue stretching out words to write down the sounds that we hear.
Mark your calender: The evening of September 15 is Open House: details will follow.

This week in B4 we will be continuing our work on counting. We are strengthening our 1 to 1 correspondence, reinforcing the sequence that numbers have, finding numbers that may be missing in a sequence and discussing greater than and less than. In Science, we will continue our weather observations; adding discussions on wind and temperature. In Language Arts, we are still working on our short a sounds, singular and plurals, making predictions and we will work on identifying story elements (beginning middle and end, characters, setting, etc.). In Writing, we will learn what makes a sentence – a capital at the beginning, punctuation at the end and, most importantly, that it conveys a complete thought.
A note about your child’s writing. 1st grade students should spell words like they hear them, this is called inventive spelling and is developmentally appropriate for their age. If they cannot discriminate between all the sounds, that is okay, it will come with time. Your student’s should also write like they talk meaning that there should not be any missing words in their sentences. Even just beginning and ending sounds for every word could be appropriate for a particular student’s level of development.
Our special schedule – Monday: Library, Tuesday and Thursday: Gym (please wear sneakers) Wednesday: Art and Friday: Music.

Finally, don’t forget, Friday September 4 and Monday September 7 there is no school.

Questions or comments? Please email me or call and leave a message at school.

Mr. Ostheimer

It is hard to believe but we have started our second week of school!  Today we continued “exploring” with our Math manipulatives and some students came and worked with me so I could assess if they remembered their numbers from kindergarten and the strategy(ies) they use when they count items. All students will be assessed by the end of the week.  I handed out hardback readers (which your child does not need to bring home) and we started our first lesson in the Harcourt Storytown series.  In Science, we looked at our Science kit and started to get excited about studying weather.  In writing, we are starting slowly, we are following directions to draw a picture, taking some time to color the picture, we will add details to our picture and then we will write a sentence or four describing our picture.  We will also discuss  why and how we label things and label a few pictures, as well.

For homework, your child brought home a sheet that will help us learn something about him or her.  Please help your child fill out the paper and, if possible, attach a recent photograph.

Speaking of photos, here a few of our classmates becoming familiar with our snap cubes, pattern blocks and geo-cubes.

Dear Parents/Guardians,

This evening I tried to access the student ebooks on Storytown and found out that my old link was “dead”.  The new link is on the right (http://www-k6.thinkcentral.com/ePC/start.do) and I made a generic first grader sign in.  The user name is B4 and the password is wildcats.  This link will give you access to some of the stories we read in class (that way your child won’t need to lug their book home to practice) as well as some appropriate supplemental readers.  This week we are starting Book 1 Theme 1 Lesson 1.  We will be going in order but not necessarily on a Monday to Friday schedule (four day weeks etc., causing a bit of a problem).  I will endeavor to update this site to let you know when we start a new lesson, theme, book, etc.  Please try not to go too far ahead as this may cause a bit of confusion for your child.  Please email me and let me know if  there are problems.

Thanks and have a great rest of your weekend!

Mr. Ostheimer

What an awesome first day of 1st grade!!  I was very excited to see all me new friends this morning for what was a relatively seamless transition from summer back to school.  Please practice your child’s student ID with them so, when they buy lunch (or breakfast), they are able to put their number in our keypad quickly.    Speaking of breakfast, if your child will be eating breakfast at school, please send me a note or email so I can check that they have gone to the cafeteria and eaten before they come to the classroom.

Today was pretty much a blur,  I read some stories, we went over how to act in the classroom, how to walk in the hall, how to act on the playground, we graphed whether we ride a bus or ride in a car to school.  We met Ms. Ostafy our super-cool art teacher.  Ms. Howell, the principal, and Mr. Haber, the assistant  principal, stopped by for a visit.   We did some coloring and cutting and even tried our hand at some addition!  We  pretty much just got used to the idea of being back at school.

Tomorrow, we’ll work on learning our classmates names, work with some math manipulatives,  do some writing and maybe a bit of work with one of the reading websites (starfall.com).

Your child brought home a folder full of information… everything that needs to be signed, please sign and return ASAP.  Please make sure that I have  updated telephone and email contact for you, I would love to contact you and tell you how things are going with your child!!

Any questions, please email or call me.

Mr. Ostheimer