We continued to work with Magic E yesterday and will do so again tomorrow. I recognize that our words of the week are tricky this week, we worked on them both as a group and in centers and will practice them again tomorrow.
In Math, we have been working on distinguishing between addition and subtraction. I have been telling students the following: Addition: the answer gets bigger, it has the + sign, you go forwards on the number line Subtraction: the answer gets smaller, it has the - sign, you go backwards on the number line We have began our journey through Advent this week. I will post an update on the Catholic Faith section of this website so you can see what we are up to! Please see below for the message regarding our school-wide Advent service project.
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We are pleased that all classrooms at St. Angela Merici School will be participating in the annual Adopt a Family Charity Project. This year, we will be supporting families in one of our sister schools in
Regina Catholic Schools. Items and Monetary Contributions are due THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8th We are asking that each child from kindergarten to grade 3 donate a non-perishable item for the food hampers. Please note below your child’s classroom and the list of items needed from his/her room. Organizing items as such ensures that all the needs of our adopt-a-families are being met. Ms. Brcic 1 English – Dry Cereal It was great to meet with everyone last week. I really appreciate your support both at home and school in regards to your child's progress. I have enjoyed the first term with them and am looking forward to the remainder of the school year, sad to believe it’s almost December!
We will have spelling quiz on Friday as usual, put-she-if-be-how. Pattern words: ut, ug, un families. Last week two of our Guided Math groups began Subtraction, the last group should also be starting this week. As many of us spoke about in interviews, everyone's skills are coming along. Today, students learned about Magic E, this is a long vowel reading/spelling trick I use in class. For example in a word like cake, the e is magic and makes the a say its name, other examples might be bike, name. Below is some work we did together (sorry not just how to rotate it). When students are just beginning a concept, I make sure to point it out almost all of the time (e.g. if its in a book we are reading, video, discussion in class). This also applies to spelling, remember their spelling doesn't have to be perfect, just their best effort with sounds. As you noticed in the November newsletter our Advent program/concert is on December 6th at 7pm at Rosewood Alliance Church. I will send home more details as necessary. Please remember to have a change of clothing kept in your child's backpack. This is not just for bathroom accidents, also in case of a food spill at lunch or recess incidents (e.g. wet pants because of the snow). If they do not have clothes, I have to hunt around the school for siblings' clothes or in the office, neither of which are guarantees and your child then has to then wait in soiled clothes until either I find some or you are able to bring a set. Having a spare set makes it much easier for the child as they are able to simply grab their clothes and go change in the washroom, making for a near seamless transition. We will have our spelling quiz on Thursday. Words of the week are: the-all-ran-my-like. Pattern words are –ip and –ig families.
As you will see in the agenda, I am planning on taking the kids to mail our Advent service project cards tomorrow. Like I mentioned in the little note, I will watch the forecast, if the day turns out to be really miserable, we won’t go. So hard to know at this time of year but hopefully it is fine, looks to be at this point! Reminder that progress reports go home tomorrow and interviews are Wednesday and Thursday evening. Today we worked on two strategies to assist with addition.
A. Counting on: for example 4+5=, so 4-5-6-7-8-9. This is a great strategy as students often start from 0 and go 1-2-3..... Counting on also becomes more helpful as the numbers increase. B. Using a number line: for example 4+5=, start at 4 and take five steps, the number you stop at is your answer. Tomorrow, we will work with the idea that 5+3 and 3+5 are the same thing. We also started Mad Minutes! Mad Minutes are simply for fun and reinforcement. The skills I have on Mad Math are all concepts that students need to learn and then know, quickly and solidly. Today our Mad Math was counting on so the sheet looked like this: 5, ___, ___, ___, ___ 7, ___, ___, ___, ___ etc. We will not do Mad Minutes every day, just a couple times a week. Today we also began our second Social Studies unit, starting with discussing holidays throughout the year. This will move into family and class traditions. We will have our spelling quiz on Friday. The high frequency words this week will be do-me-we-go-on, our pattern words will be -et and -en families (e.g. pet, wet, den, men). It is exciting to see all of the progress students are making with their spelling, thank you for working with them at home as well. Please remember to send back the blue books as soon as possible, we are still missing a few.
This week we begin our first Addition and Subtraction unit. As I mentioned last week, this unit mainly focuses on numbers 1-12. Below are a list of skills that students are expected to have by the end of our Addition and Subtraction to 12 unit. Skill I can recognize the + symbol and tell what it means. I can recognize the – symbol and tell what it means. I know at least 3 different strategies to add. I know at least 3 different strategies to subtract. I can consistently add numbers correctly, for a maximum sum of 12. I can consistently subtract numbers correctly, from a maximum minuend of 12. I can do some basic mental math. I can do word problems with some help. Just as an FYI: Last week I formally assessed each student on their reading level. Many were right on cusp of surpassing their current level but just just! missed the next one. I will continue to send home the levelled readers, for some continue to send a mix of two levels so they are not too difficult for them, yet not too easy. I am pleased with the growth I am seeing in the class! Today students continued to work on writing sentences independently. Yesterday and today they filled in sentence starters with words that made sense and they also had to do their own spelling. It is very exciting to see their progress. In doing their own spelling, students need to have consistent knowledge of all their sounds. Two of the progress report outcomes are "Knows letter-sound relationships" and "Recognizes and names upper- and lower-case letters." Students need to be able to complete these two outcomes all of the time and independently in order to be meeting the curricular objective.
This week we started our first Addition and Subtraction unit. This unit mainly provides an introduction and will focus on numbers 1-12. Of course, through our Guided Math, this lessons taught will be modified based on student needs/knowledge. I will send home some of the main points of this unit next week. Our agenda message today was "Wear red. Bring a PM snack." Since we have been blessed with warm fall weather, my plan was for us to have a little snack picnic at the park tomorrow afternoon. We will also do an activity together while we are outside. It would be great if the snack could be something easy to eat. Reminder that it is a three day week this week, no school Thursday, Friday or Monday.
I just wanted to mention, there were about 4 kids who came in from last recess (so at 2:35) and said they didn't feel well. I wasn't sure how ill they actually felt or if the day was just getting to feel too long or what. And being that there was only an hour left in the day, I kind of tried to get them to stay. I really hope no one came home and was quite sick! With any child saying they are sick, please know I try and use my best judgement and check with our office manager for a second opinion if children really insist. It is not that I think they should be at school if they're sick (quite the opposite!) but I also hate to make you come and get them if they are not, in fact, sick. I hope this makes sense and sounds reasonable. Please let me know if you have any concerns regarding this for your child. :) As well, please contact me if you are not able to make it to our school's interviews later this month, it would be great to connect in person with everyone regarding your child's progress! You will need to register on the schoolsoft website by the 9th, as it closes that day. Reminder that we have spelling quiz tomorrow!
I have sent home a parent information letter regarding the Zones of Regulation. We have been working on this for a few weeks now and have recently tied it to Inside Out. In Math we have been working on counting backwards and on grouping numbers. The latter is usually one of the harder part of the unit for children to grasp. Students need to group numbers 11-20 in groups of 3,4,5 etc. We will wrap up this unit tomorrow-Monday. Reminder to sign up for an interview time as soon as possible. The interviews are ten minutes each, I am looking forward to discussing your child's progress with you and your child. Students have brought home a lined piece of paper today with some sight word practice we did together. The wordshapes can be a good tool for students to practice as it helps with printing and it also can be good for visual learners for them to be able to picture the word in their head, for example, if they remember that the word “up” is short letter, hanging letter, it could be easier for them to remember the two letters. We will continue to work on this strategy in class, and feel free to do so at home as well.
On the other side of the paper, we did a practice quiz. Students were allowed to look off of the words, which we have posted up in our room. One of the report card outcomes this term is “Student is able to correctly spell common high-frequency words and patterns in daily writing.” As I mentioned Monday, students need to be able to read the high frequency words in everyday texts. They also need to be able to spell the already-studied words in their writing. We have not gotten into a lot of daily sentence writing, but the everyday writing includes: work at centers, work with me in groups, worksheets we may do, various activities interwoven with Language Arts (for example: a Social Studies activity). The high frequency words I will be watching for students to spell are the ones they have already had on spelling quizzes. Of course, for this progress report, there are only 15-20 words, nevertheless, it is important for students to get into habit early on. Yesterday and today students have been learning about estimation. This is a concept we touch on just briefly in Grade One. We estimate numbers 10-20. I explain estimate as a good guess, we are not actually counting (at first). Here they are working on their estimating skills. |