This is an easy game to replicate at home to give your child practice counting pennies and reading dot patterns on dice. You must roll an exact number to take the remaining coins in the "bank." Player with the most pennies wins! Then it's time to play again.
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I asked the children to talk with someone at home about their Hopes & Dreams in 1st Grade. We made a list of ideas in school today. Tomorrow they will write about their hopes & dreams or "wishes" for 1st Grade.
If your child came home really excited the other day, it was probably about the Run4Fund$ kick off assembly. The kids were so excited about the FUN activities & prizes available based on pledges raised. Funds raised will be used for technology. Here are important dates to know. April 1-7:
April 7:
April 7-15:
May 18:
***Below are EXAMPLES of Inflatable Events that can be earned with total pledges of $50 or more. When we prepared for Friday fun today, many children were still missing homework from the week and several were below 90% on DoJo for the week.
If you saw my other post about the Shamrock cookies, I suspect that may have contributed to the emotions I saw at the end of the day. The cookies were not Friday fun, but I think some of the children misunderstood and thought they weren't going to get one. Friday fun was a very brief extra recess (less than 10 minutes). After we packed up to go home, we had juice (left over from Valentine's Day) and passed out the cookies. We talked about the homework and behavior expectations for Friday fun. We also discussed that some children were upset because they thought the cookies were part of Friday fun. Learning to take personal responsibility can be hard. At school we spend a lot of time helping children understand this. We model and coach them to recognize when they are blaming other people for their mistakes and how they could have done things differently I appreciate your support in everything you do at home to help us learn and get along at school. I hope you all have a very nice weekend! FYI... Every morning, the children take their homework out and it's checked off with a stamp. We have a checklist on a clip board to mark if it is done, incomplete, missing, etc. Children have until the end of the week to bring in their assignments if they left them at home. We also have extra copies available if they can't find it. Before Friday fun, we review the checklist. There were even children who presented it at the last moment today. If an assignment is still missing, they use this time to do it. Today our class had a surprise visit from some wee leprechauns. After lunch we discovered a trail of magical leprechaun dust and sparkling shamrocks. It lead us to a special delivery... Shamrock cookies from my dad! He had sent a special message earlier to let us know to be on the look out for the leprechauns. Our class earned 15 STARS again! The children voted to bring a stuffed animal to school.
So tomorrow the kids can bring a small stuffed animal. Take a moment to review the following expectations with your child:
Thanks for your support! I am offering my students an opportunity to practice reading and writing for fun over the winter break. This is NOT required. It is a CHOICE. Participation is optional and will be recognized and rewarded.
The children will be getting a book called Horrible Harry and the Holidaze. This is a book that should be "Read to" or "Read with" your child. There are 7 chapters so you will have time to read a chapter every couple of days. I think they will enjoy the story AND love snuggling up with you to share it. You probably know we have been working on main idea and details. We also started writing summary statements or topic sentences with guidance and support. We will begin to expand on this by adding a few detail sentences to support the main idea. I have created a journal to accompany the book, Horrible Harry and the Holidaze. Participating students will complete an organizer and write a summary sentence of each chapter as a reading response. They may also try to include some details with your support. Discussing each chapter is a great way to solidify their understanding and prepare them to write a response. Let me know if you are interested in having your child participate in this winter break reading and writing activity. Never forget, you are your child's 1st and most important teacher. We have been working on identifying the main idea and key details in nonfiction text. At first glance it seems pretty straight-forward; but if you dig a little deeper, the concept can be fairly complex. Below is a video message addressing this as well as our continued work on a Social Contract. We will be having a holiday gift exchange before the winter break. Since children love to read books so much, it would be nice if each child brought a NEW book wrapped in holiday paper and labeled:
To: 1st Grade Friend From: ______________ (write their name) Books can be purchased at any supermarket or discount store for only a few dollars. There are also inexpensive books on the Scholastic Book Orders. Scholastic guarantees delivery before break for orders placed by Dec 12. I would like to submit this order no later than Dec 11. Let me know if you are interested in ordering for the Book Exchange. You may use this link to place an order. Place an Order You will need our class activation code: HTK43 Please do NOT spend more than $5.00 for a book. Remember it could go to a boy OR a girl, so choose something any 1st grader is sure to enjoy. We will exchange books on Thursday, December 18th. Participation is optional, but you must bring a book to get a book. Thank you and Happy Holidays! Midyear Assessment Day is a wrap, but assessments will continue through the week. Even with a class 93% attendance rate, there are always a few random things to wrap up. The number of children per session is limited because we work one on one with each child. Thank you for helping get your children to school today! They were all rested and ready to do their best.
Overall, it was a great day and the children are showing improvement. Please make sure your child reads nightly for at least 20 minutes. I can't stress this enough. There are many possibilities:
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