Weekly News!

We have had a fantastic start to our first grade year! These past few days, we have gotten to know each other, the school, and the procedures of our classroom. We were also able to start with our first math lesson, learning about our calendar routine and our classroom jobs. Writing has been an exciting way for us to share and learn about one another, from sharing our favorite summer memories, to writing about our first day of school, we have been keeping our writing pencils busy!

A great success of the week for all of us was getting through our lunch procedures without any major troubles. All of our first graders deserve a pat on the back, and parents too, for making sure to talk about your child’s lunch choice with them before arriving at school. That has helped alleviate some of the stress of making sure they are ordering the correct lunch, so keep up the great work at home! The first grade teachers will accompany the children to the lunchroom next week as well, so if your child is interested in trying school lunch at any time throughout the year, I would strongly recommend picking a day or two next week to try it out. It’s always easier to try school lunch for the first time on a day when a familiar face is there to help! (For future reference, I also supervise the lunchroom on Wednesdays, so Wednesdays are another good day to try out school lunch for the first time later in the year, as I will be in there the entire lunch period!)

You may have noticed the children coming home from school very tired this week. It is an adjustment to being at school for a full day, but I must say, they are doing very well keeping up with our activities! They are a hardworking bunch!!

Next week, we will begin our formalized writing instruction as we begin Writing Workshop for the year. This will also bring the start of our handwriting program. Please remind students to practice doing their very best handwriting when they practice at home! We will continue our math program, learning a game on the number line, all of the math tools we will use throughout the year in our math “tool kits”, practice writing our numbers neatly (and facing the correct way!), and finding the number that is one more or one less than a given number. Our formalized reading instruction will not begin yet, as I will start assessing the students for their reading levels and groupings. Those assessments will help me get a better overall picture of where each student’s instructional reading level is, and what other students in the class would be a good fit for them to be grouped with for small group reading instruction.

Soon, our blog will display pictures of the students working hard at school, but I cannot add them just yet, as all students must have a signed media release to appear on the blog. Those forms will be distributed at Curriculum Night, and as soon as I receive all of those back, we will be able to add photos of our activities! So check back often!

Upcoming Events:
Thursday, 9/1: Curriculum Night (our class presentation begins at 8:00 pm)
Monday, 9/5: Labor Day, No school
Monday, 9/12: Spirit Wear orders due
Tuesday, 9/13: Music for Youth demonstration concert 1:30 pm
Friday, 9/16: Constitution Day

Have an excellent weekend, and I cannot wait to see everyone next week!