Welcome Back

Welcome back from Spring Break!! I hope you had a restful and enjoyable week. This week: In math--we will begin our measurement unit; we will begin by measuring with non-standard units and then switch to standard inches and centimeters. In reading--we will be focusing on giving detailed and sequenced retellings of the books we read. This is an important component of reading comprehension. In writing--we will plan and write sequenced stories with a beginning, middle, and end. We will focus on correct capitalization and punctuation. In science--we will continue our discussions from our Monday All Science Day. We will discuss and experiment with the 3 phases of matter. It looks to be a busy week.

Reminders:

March 11, 2009

Dear Parents,

Just a reminder that Read-a-thon packets are due by Friday. The child who turns in the most money for Read-a-thon will get to have pizza with Principal Miller. The child who read the most minutes will earn a Sonic lunch in the room with me next Monday. Remember to turn in your packets! We want to put Mrs. Miller on the roof by making at least $4000 as a school!

Report cards will go home tomorrow. I will be here for conferences next Thursday evening (19th). If you would like to have a conference, but have not yet requested one, give me a call or send me an email. I still have available times and would be happy to visit with you.

Next Tuesday, March 17th is our 1st grade music program. We will perform a school program at 2:30 and then for the parents at 7:00. Please have your child to my class room at 6:45. At that time, you may go find yourself a seat in the gym. (If you would like to arrive earlier in order to get a good seat, I ask that you keep your child with you until 6:45. I will not be in my room until 6:45, so the children will be unattended if you send them earlier.) I will watch the class until time for the program and take them down to the multi-purpose room for you. All of the children are supposed to wear their green Willard East t-shirt for our programs. That will work perfectly for St. Patrick’s Day!

Have a great rest of the week!

Your partner in education,
Mrs. Newman



Ask your child about: "talking about books", reading our Kirsten books, naming the coins and telling how much each is worth, counting coins (pennies, nickels, and dimes) together, writing the very exciting fiction stories for Mrs. Newman to read at home in her jammies and slippers :), what sound double letters make in a word, our new spelling dictionaries, and telling time to the hour and half hour.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Read-A-Thon
Information is coming home today about The Willard East Read-A-Thon. This is our spring fund raiser. The school goal is to raise $4,000 by just getting pledges and reading! The 1st grader’s goal is 200 minutes of reading over a 7 day period. We will be reading at school also and those minutes will count towards the total minutes. Even though we read all day long at school, we will only be counting the children’s independent reading time and the end of the day chapter book read aloud time. This will average around 30 minutes each day or around 150 minutes of school reading time. This only leaves 50 minutes of reading time for the students to earn at home (you may certainly read more). We are hoping that each child in our class will be able to reach the goal of 200 minutes! So, begin reading and recording minutes, and collecting pledges. You have until the 13th to get your records and money turned in. As an extra incentive, I will be eating a Sonic lunch on Monday the 16th with the student from our class who reads the largest amount of minutes (not who collects the most money) during our read-a-thon. Thank you for helping us out!

Field Trip
The 1st grade will be taking a field trip to a puppet theater on April 17th. Permission slips and more information will be coming soon. We just wanted to let parents know ahead of time that, due to the set up of the theater, we will not be needing adult chaperones. We didn’t want you to be saving a vacation day and then be disappointed (however, you could save it instead for our Field Day Activities in May)

Ask Your Child About:
Our new chapter book, our animal writing projects, editing and revising during writing, place value in numbers (hundreds, tens, and ones), what number comes before or after another, putting numbers in order from least to greatest (ie. 13, 43, 89), counting by 2’s to 50, and On Top of Spaghetti.

Happy Valentine's Day

We have had a fun "Almost" Valentine's Day at school. We had a great party! Thank you to all the moms who sent items and/or came to help; and a big thank you to Mrs. White for coordinating all of our parties this year.

I have an exciting opportunity to tell you about. The teachers of Willard East have decided to try something new this year. We will be offering spring parent-teacher conferences in a couple of weeks to discuss your child's progress and any concerns or questions you may have. You may request a conference with me or I may request a conference with you. The teachers will be individually selecting a night to hold our conferences. I have chosen March 19th as the night I will be available to have a conference with those that would like it. Here are the times I have available.

4:00-4:15
4:15-4:30
4:30-4:45
4:45-5:00
5:00-5:15

6:00-6:15
6:15-6:30
6:30-6:45
6:45-7:00
7:00-7:15

Please fill free to contact me at school (742-4639) or (dnewman@willard.k12.mo.us) to pick a time for a conference. This is a great new way to share with you the progress your child has made in first grade.

Valentine's Day is coming!

February is a month of friendship and fun. We will be having our Valentine's Day party at school on Friday the 13th (oohh). We are going to have a lunch time party. We will begin our party at 11:00 with a craft or game activity, then at 11:30 we will eat pizza in the room. As always, all parents are invited (however, to help in the pizza ordering, I am asking the parents to not expect to eat pizza). We are asking each child to bring in $2 to help with the cost of the pizza. We will also, of course, be passing out Valentine cards to our friends. Each child can decorate a box or bag to collect their cards in. You may get as involved and creative as you and your child would like. I am asking that the boxes not be brought in until the day of the party. We just don't have space in the room to store these. And finally, each child should make, or purchase, cards to pass out to their friends. I have included a list of first name here in the website and I will also be sending home a list. I ask that your child does the work of writing the names on the cards. This is good handwriting practice (and we have a small class this year).

Class List: Braden, Brandon, Darrell, Jacob, Katie, Matti, Neely, Nicholas, Paige, Paul, Savanah, Taylor, Wyatt

GREAT JOB: I want to take just a moment to brag on the students. We are just about to meet our 6th reading goal this year. I am so impressed with all of the reading that you and your child are doing at home!! It is not just a couple students who are bring in the reading records for us to get to our goals. It is just about everyone. During the last few weeks, I have had reading records brought in from 11 of the 13 children!! Thank you so much for helping at home!!!!!! I appreciate it and I know your child does. :)

Upcoming Dates:
Friday, Feb. 6th- Hats on for Community Service
Friday, Feb. 13th- Valentine's Party
Monday, Feb. 16th- Snow make up day
Monday, Mar. 23rd-Snow make up day
Monday, Apr. 13th- Snow make up day

December 12, 2008

Merry Christmas to you all. I hope this time of year finds you and your family well and enjoying the holiday festivities. We have definitely been busy at school. Your first grader is working on a special gift for a family member. Plus we have been busy working hard on our academics. In reading, I am seeing the children blossom into good readers. We have been working on tying it all together; knowing the strategies to try when figuring out a tricky word, being able to use them on our own, and then self checking ourselves to make sure the word makes sense, sounds right, and matches the letters. This is a lot to think about at one time, but the children are doing a great job. Something to work on at home to help with reading would be the sight word list. The more words the students "just know" the less words they have to figure out :)

In math, we have just finished a geometry unit. Hopefully your child came home and impressed you with some new words (sphere, cube, rectangular prism, cone, and cylinder). A few things to work on at home to help with math would be: recognizing the numbers to 100 quickly (especially the teens), writing and counting by 5's to 100, and adding and subtracting quickly.

Here are a few upcoming dates:
Class Christmas Party: Friday, December 19th at 8:45
Christmas Vacation: December 20-January 4
2nd Quarter report cards go home: January 7th
Hats on for Community Service: January 9th
December Tiger Pride Assembly: January 9th at 2:30
No School: January 19th

Have a very Merry Christmas and thank you for the gift of your child!
Debbie Newman