Fall has finally arrived, at least according to the calendar. The weather has been rather unpredictable so far, with Summer unusually cool and Autumn rather hot!! Hopefully things will change soon, as fall is generally a wonderful season to enjoy family and nature. Playing in the leaves, watching football, and enjoying the festive holidays of Halloween and Thanksgiving with family and friends.
At school, fall is also a time to celebrate. We have just reached the halfway point of the first trimester. Progress Reports will be sent home later this week, bringing with it the stress of reaching learning goals. Some students are making great progress, while others are just settling in to the routines of school. Parents are eager to know how their children are doing, and what they need to do to help their child meet these 1st Trimester goals. In Kindergarten, the goals are simple, while in 1st Grade they can be a little surprising.
Kindergarten families should expect reports that reflect their child's understanding of letters and sounds. We have also been monitoring student's abilities to read/write some simple sight words, as well as numbers 0-5. We've spent the early weeks of school identifying parts of a book, sentence structure, colors, patterns, and examples of good behavior. If your child still does not know all of the letters/colors/sounds, then I would focus attention here. I have added two more sites to our list to help in these categories. Anytime you can have your child identify/say/create/etc. the letters and sounds, the easier it will be for them to transfer the knowledge from short to long term memory. In all, the class has been performing very well on all learning objectives, and I credit this to the time and effort all of you have put in with your children. Thank you!
1st Grade families should expect reports that reflect their child's understanding of reading and writing, math and science skills. When they left Kindergarten, they were expected to read between a level 3 and 4 on the DRA assessment. Now at the end of the first trimester they need to read between a level 6 and 8 on the DRA. Writing has advanced from 2-3 sentences on a topic with phonetic spelling, to 5-6 sentences on a topic with correct spelling of sight words, capital letters at the start of each sentence, and proper ending marks to identify statements from questions. Writing is also moving away from simple sentence patterns (ie. I like the ..., I see the..., I can..., etc.) to more complex writing (ie. The ... is..., It can... and ..., It is special for... but not for..., etc.). If your child is not reading simple paragraphs or stories with ease (only pausing for new/difficult words), or is having trouble writing w/o sentence frames or having the story make sense, please make this the focus and practice these skills daily. Math has been focused on Addition, and we will be moving into Subtraction before the end of the Trimester, so please make opportunities for your child to practice these skills at home whenever possible. I will be linking addition/subtraction games to our Sites of the Month to help your child with extra practice at home. In Science, we have be learning about Weather and tools for understanding weather. Most of the class understood basic concepts like the Water Cycle, and Wind is moving air, but struggled with relating to weather tools like wind vanes, rain gauges, and thermometers. If your family has any of these tools at home, now would be a good time to introduce them to your child, and maybe even let them keep a journal monitoring them during the fall (wind vane) and winter (rain gauge). They might have fun with it, and it would greatly help them create a personal connection to their learning.
Overall, we've had a great start to the school year, and I feel extremely blessed to have the class that I have. All of my students are pleasant, hard-working, and passionate to learn. Thank you again to all the parents that put in the extra work, both inside and away from the classroom, and I wish all of you a positive and fun-filled fall!!
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