The week of Jan. 18

 It sounds like the kids had a grand time playing in the snow over the weekend!

We have had fun doing "snow" activities in class!  

ELA/Social Studies

With Kansas Day coming up on January 29th, we will be learning Kansas history in first grade.  Today we read about the life cycle of a sunflower since the sunflower is our state flower.

The other Kansas symbols we will learn about this week are:

state tree--The Cottonwood Tree

state animal--American Bison

state bird--Western Meadowlark

Phonics--Magic e --long o, u, e vowels.  

The kids are beginning to remember to change the vowel sound when they see the silent e on the end of a word!  It's harder to remember to add the magic e on the end of a word when it's a long vowel sound.  It's also tricky to know whether the long o is a word like -note, soap, or snow!  The more your child reads books, they will begin recognizing what way to spell words.

The Phonics decodable books are great to practice the long vowel words.  Have your child read these books multiple times to improve their fluency--Reading it without having to sound out each word.  It would be helpful to hold on to all of these decodable paper books to pull out for your child to read on their level and reinforcing the skills we are working on.

Math--We are continuing with Chapter 5 over place value.  We are learning ten more and ten less along with different ways to write a number- using tens and ones blocks, writing the numeral with digits, and writing the number word.  We will be comparing using greater than, less than, and equal to.

Also, counting nickels and dimes.  Although, we have already been counting coins each day in our calendar when we count how many days we've been here.  The class is doing great recognizing and knowing the amount of the penny, nickel, dime, quarter, and half dollar, along with counting them.  We have learned to start with the biggest amount first.  See if your child can count some change at home!

Specials this week!

Wed-PE

Thurs-Art

Fri-Library

Coming up!

January 28.     100th Day of school -look for information coming soon!

January 29.     Kansas' 160th Birthday!

January 31.     Kansas Day activities!

February 10.    1st grade music program @ 6:30