I am so glad to be back with our kiddos.  It has taken me a little while to get back into a routine but we are back in full swing.  I will try to get everyone up-to-date on our classroom happenings.

Spelling test tomorrow over these words: out, them, then, she, many, some, so, these, would, other.

Writing:  We are really focusing on beginning, middle, and end of a story and getting punctuation in our stories.  They are really getting the hang of revising and editing.

Math:  We are working on different ways to get to a number.  I give them a number like 15 and they have to come up with as many ways as they can to get to the number. (8+7; 9+6; 20-5; etc…) We are also starting to focus on money.  We will learn the value of the penny, dime, nickel, and quarter. (We do this daily in number corner but are really starting to focus on it)  The students also need to be able to count a collection of coins. (They do not have to know more than 1 quarter in first grade in other words a collection will never have more than 1 quarter in it.)

Science/Social Studies:  We have some new things in research that I hope your kiddos have told you about!  We will be studying the Antarctica and penguins over the next few weeks.  The kids LOVE this unit.

Please make sure you are reading with your sweetie every night!  They are growing so much in their reading.  I am amazed.  Ask them questions at the end.  What was your favorite part?  What did the main character do?  What would you have done differently?