Week of September 12th

 We are in our second week of school and already learning lots! 

Each day students have written in our agendas and I am very pleased with how well students are printing. I have no expectations about what printing should look like at the beginning of grade one - good printing is something we work on all year long. 

Printing I follow the Printing Without Tears guide to letter formation. We will start with C based lowercase letters. We have started by learning that the letter C starts at the top, touches the roof (top line) goes around in a big arc, touches the floor (bottom line) and comes up on the right. Other C based letters are o, a, d, g, and q. You will notice that all of these letters start like a c and continue to form the letter.

Phonics Please work with your child on all of the letter sounds. Most students know their letters but not all know what sounds the letters make. We are singing a song to the tune of Row, Row, Row your Boat for our vowels. A says ah, ah, ah, - ah, ah ah, ah, ah, it can also say ay, ay, ay - ay, ay, ay, ay, ay. It continues for all of the vowels and later for all letters. Listen to your child sing it and correct sound mistakes if you notice.

Math We are learning about patterns. Please look for patterns with your child and have them describe the pattern. Can they repeat the pattern in a different way? Example - red, blue, red, blue can also be stomp, clap, stomp, clap, or stand, sit, stand, sit. Be creative. ababab patterns are quite simple, try aabaab or aabbaabb or abcabc or abbcabbc. The possibilities are endless but we are looking for students to understand and then to be able to explain the pattern they see or hear.

Science We are learning about our senses. We have learned that we have five senses and we are starting with sight. Students went outside and looked for objects that were red, orange, yellow, etc. We also practiced printing the word for the object.