January 5 - 9

I hope everyone enjoyed the snow day on Wednesday!  

Please note that we will have school on May 22 

due to the number of snow days taken so far this year.

This week we learned the following song, which goes to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.  Ask your student to sing it and read along with the lyrics below:


J-a-n-u-a-r-y
Time to tell the old year "bye"
Snowmen, mittens, cold wind blows,
It's the first month we all know
J-a-n-u-a-r-y
2009, let's all say "hi"


In math we measured various body parts with measuring tapes.  We reviewed adding two-digit numbers with a number grid ("counting up" or "counting down") as well as exchanging pennies, nickels and dimes.  We also reviewed telling time to the nearest quarter hour.  Many students came back from winter break with new watches which was helped them to practice telling time and has helped keep us on schedule!

In reading we practiced reading with a partner, remembering that when someone gets stuck on a word you should wait 3 seconds to let them think, ask them if they want help, and then give them a clue.  This is a strategy you can use at home, too. 

In writing this week we wrote letters to Zoe O. to send to her new school.  It was good practice using our word wall list, and checking that each sentence had a capital letter and question mark or period.  We also recorded each student reading aloud the snow books they wrote at the end of December.  Look for those to be posted here in the next few days!

We studied the two sounds the letter C can make: /k/ like "candy" and /s/ like "cereal."  We looked at some spelling patterns that can help us to figure out which sound the letter is making, for example usually C sounds like S when you see "ce" like cent, "ci" like city, or "cy" like icy.  See if you can list more words at home that fit that pattern!

Next week we will look at the two sounds G can make (/g/ like gorilla or /j/ like giraffe) and we will continue to study the effect of silent e on the sound vowels make throughout the rest of the month (tap vs. tape, hop vs. hope, kit vs. kite...).

The First Grade Chorus Concert will be Thursday, January 15th from 10:15-10:45 in the Annex gym.  You and your families are invited to attend and stay for lunch in our classroom!  I will try to videotape it and post that on here.

*** Next week's sight words will be: about, now, ride, stop, that  ***