Thank you!
If your child participated in the Children's Challenge this summer, please have them wear their participation T-Shirts on Tuesday! The Children's Challenge is hosting another Challenge- and we can earn $$$ for our classroom! This is for all grades!
Thank you!
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I am so grateful for the generosity of parents, and anonymous donors from Michigan and Minnesota! I am absolutely amazed that our pencil sharpener request was fulfilled in less than 8 hours! Thank you so much! We will be sharpening with smiles on our faces very soon!
Homework Logs Please don't fret over the lack of homework logs so far this month. We are very busy learning new concepts in math, and I would like students to practice more at school before they bring home problems to work on. We have moved into Place Value Concepts, and this is a challenging concept for young learners. It takes time to develop these skills, and I want students to have time to understand before I ask them to work at home. Students have been reading, reading, reading! The habits they developed during March is Reading Month are really carrying over! Keep reading at home. Remember, you can still read to them, too! It is VERY important for children to hear adults read out loud. Field Trip We are leaving for the play "Fly Guy and Other Stories" at the Potter Center at 11:45 tomorrow. We will be back around 2:00 p.m. Donor's Choose Request No Sharp Pencil Alert! Dear families, We are in a dilemma. Our classroom pencil sharpeners have cranked their last cranks! I have created a request for pencil sharpeners at Donor's Choose . These Heavy Duty Electric pencil sharpeners are the kind that first graders can use, and they will still keep on working! If you are able, please consider a donation to our classroom. If you make a donation this week, it will be doubled! We were fortunate to have a gift card for Donor’s Choose, and I have already applied this for our classroom! Remember: If you give to our classroom by April 29, your donation will be doubled thanks to DonorsChoose.org. Just enter the code SPARK on the payment page and you'll be matched dollar for dollar (up to $100). Thank you so much, Mrs. Hawkins P.S. If you know anyone who may want to help my classroom, please pass this along! Don’t forget to enter the Code: SPARK to have your donation doubled! Every donation helps! Dear Parents,
Please check your child's folder for the permission slip for the play, Fly Guy and Other Stories, on April 24th. As it states on the Permission Form, we only have 3 additional tickets per classroom. As of 6:20 pm. tonight, I have already had 3 parents contact me to attend the play. We will also have a trip to the park coming up in June if you would to attend a first grade event. Please return the permission slip as soon as you are able. Thank you for all of your continued support! Mrs. Hawkins I have had some requests for extra practice at home, especially in math. So, I have signed our class up for a One-Month free trial at the IXL.com site. I have each student registered as a user. You will find information about user names below. Please do not feel that your child has to work on these websites at home. They are only options for extra practice. If students are reading, working on words, completing a math story problem, and working on fact fluency, at home they are doing great. Some students enjoy extra work, so these are some options for you. Please contact me if you have any questions. Math- IXL.comFor the month of April, you may login to https://www.ixl.com/signin and your child may work on Math skills for first grade. There are other grade level options available, but please be sure he/she is ready before moving on. Usernames: Usernames are the students first name, last initial, and the number 930 (These assigned, so I am sorry they may seem complicated) Example: Sally Sample has the User Name: sallys930 Passwords: catdog IXL is a great site to practice Common Core Math Skills. You can start in the grade and area your child is comfortable with, and move on to more challenging skills. Activity is then reported to the teacher, and I can see where a child is successful or needs help. We will use this at school as well for the month of April. WritingWe are currently writing opinion papers. Students are asked to "take a stand" or "make a choice". They they write a paragraph (5 sentences) using the following format as an example. I believe football is a better sport than baseball. First, _____________________________________. Second, ________________________, Last, ____________________________________. That is why football is the best sport! Students need to focus on writing complete sentences, using capitals where they belong, and ending their sentences with correct punctuation. These can be challenging skills to develop. If this is a skill mastered by your child, try having them add interesting adjectives or more complex sentences to their paragraphs. ReadingWe are focused on finding text evidence to answer questions about fiction and informational stories. We reread stories to find the exact place that answers our question. If you are reading at home, try asking questions that would require your child to go back and look for an answer. ScienceOur next two units in Science are Life Cycles of Butterflies, and Plant Life. It is a great experience for kids to plant from a seed and monitor a plants progress. Also, if you are outdoors, look for chrysalis or caterpillars getting ready to transition! It is so much fun for kids to come to school and share what they have found in nature! Have a Great Spring Break! Above All- Rest, Relax, and Play, Play, Play! We have lots of learning to do in the last few months of school! We will need to be refreshed and ready to go in April!
Status of the AMAZING Class! As you know, our big focus in the month of March is reading, and we had an amazing month of reading! In addition to regular reading lessons with a focus on finding text evidence and rereading for meaning, students read, and read, and read. They still kept up with math, science, and writing, but in any additional time they picked up a book.
They read online, they read independently, they read in small groups with me, we read as a whole class, they read with their buddies, and they read to volunteers! We clocked in over 50 hours of volunteer time in the month of March! That is a lot of reading out loud! What did we accomplish? Aside from the great feeling of becoming a more fluent reader and enjoying so many books, poems, and magazines? Here are some of our accomplishments: *Our class accumulated 254.9 Accelerated Reader Points! *Our class read over 306,321 words in AR books alone! *Students listened to 287 books on Raz-Kids and read 245 books on Raz-Kids! *Students earned 47,140 Stars on Raz Kids! This was a great month of reading! As a celebration we had Rootbeer Floats on Friday afternoon! I am very proud of this class! What dedicated readers! Thank you to everyone for your great support during March is Reading Month! - Mrs.Hawkins Welcome back, again! It seems that just when we get settled, another big snowfall comes to town. I think that parents, students, and teachers are looking forward to getting back to a regular daily schedule. I have not sent home a new homework log, as we are still working on the same words from last week. Please read below to see upcoming events and important information.
Monday, February 9th: Unit Test in Math Please help your child by completing the review test that will be sent home on Tuesday. We will also practice skills on the test for the balance of the week. Thursday, February 12th: 100's Day Celebration and Valentine's Day Thursday will be a busy day! We are celebrating the number 100 in the morning, and Valentine's in the afternoon. Valentine's Day: We will have our celebration from 12:00-1:20. We would like to have pizza and pass out Valentines. I am asking each family that is able to donate $1.00 towards the purchase of pizza. I will contact other families that signed up for the party for extra items like chips, juice boxes, and cookies. Each student will need to bring a Valentine for every student in the class. We have 23 students. I will send a list of names home tomorrow. Remember, Valentine's cards do not have to be purchased at a store, they can be handmade. It is the thought that counts! Also, please send in an empty cereal box on Tuesday, February 10th for your child to decorate as a card holder. Reminder: No school on Friday, February 13th and Monday, February 16th! Enjoy your week everyone! Week of January 20th NewsWelcome back and Happy New Year! With our vacation extension due to the weather, we have been trying to get caught up on our daily lessons and review of materials presented in December. Last week we also went to watch the play Alice in Wonderland at the High School, presented by some amazing CMS students. This week we will be back to our regular routine, with the exception of completing the IReady mid-year assessment each morning. We will work in short segments each day from about 8:30 until 9:30 in the computer lab. Weekly homework will be coming again this week. Expect it on Tuesday. Students of the Week: Cecelia and Chase! Sight Word ListsStudents will bring home individual sight word lists on Friday. These lists will each have 20 words. Your child may be familiar with some, or most, of the words on the list. The goal is to recognize these word quickly, in any order. When your child has practiced enough that they can recognize the words automatically, please sign the bottom and send the word list (or a note) back to school in their folder. When they can recognize the words at school on 2 different occasions, they will get a sticker for their Star Words Chart. Once the words are passed, they will get a new list sent home. I DO NOT expect them to bring the list back in a day or two. They may need a week or more to practice their words. They should however, practice these sight words each day. They can practice in many different ways. Try magnetic letters, writing in marker, writing in sand or shaving cream, playing go fish with two sets of cards (make out of note cards), sticky notes on mirrors, or trying to find their words in a book or magazine. Sight words are to be studied in addition to the words that come home each week. MathWe have now finished up our addition and subtraction up to 10. Students will have many opportunities to practice their math facts in class, but will also need to practice math facts at home to develop fact fluency. Fact fluency means automatically knowing the answer. This takes practice, practice, practice! Try 10-15 minutes a night. This week in math we are learning how to understand the equal sign. Students will be comparing equations, yes, I said equations. Students will look at equations and decide if the number sentences are equal. We will start by using hands-on activities to represent numbers, but students will move to reasoning out their answers soon. Examples: 2+6 = 4+4 If you would like to support your child at home, try to create some hands on household examples in math. You can lay our forks and spoons, legos, or doll shoes! For Example: Are 2 legos and 6 army men the same amount of toys as 4 legos and 4 army men? Is 1 spoon and 8 forks the same amount of silverware as 3 forks and 7 spoons? Reading and ScienceWe have begun to dig deeper into topics this month. We are reading fiction and nonfiction books about the Arctic. We will also be writing a small research report together as a group. By the end of the year, students will be writing their own research reports. Upcoming EventsFirst Week of February----------100's Day (Depending on Snow Days)
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August 2016
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