Back to Work!

Hello 1C Parents,

I hope that all of you were able to enjoy a wonderful fall break. Thank you to all, who were able to make it your student's conference. It was so nice meeting all of you. It helps us, as teachers, to speak with you one on one about your children so that we are able to get to know your students better and how he/she learns best. It also allows us to discover the goals and expectations that you, personally, have for your first graders. It was a pleasure meeting all of you.

We are back at work. In Math we are still reviewing addition and subtraction and making 10. There are several ways to do this and techniques that are unique to Singapore Math which help the student as they continue through the math curriculum at Great Hearts. We have incorporated manupulatives such as dice and dominoes to help give them a concrete understanding of the concepts.  This makes math fun for them, and adds a new dimension. They have enjoyed this part of math.

Language Arts is full of fairy tales. We have started this unit and will be working through several fairy tales and elements of a fairy tale for the next week or two. We read Sleeping Beauty on Friday and the children enjoyed it very much. I am looking forward to reading more with them.

We are still learning about animals and their habitats, in Science. Hopefully you have seen some sea animals come home. The children have enjoyed learning about them and also making them!

We just finished our Ancient Egyptian unit in History. This week we will be studying World Religions. We will be spending three days on this unit. Due to the sensitivity of this subject I want to assure you that we will be teaching only facts about the three major religions in world history. I have added the material we will be sharing with the students in a graphic organizer. Please refer to the picture. We will begin our studies tomorrow, so please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.




We have several events coming up, school wide. Please keep your eye out for important flyers with important information that will come home in your student's folder.

This Friday is Literary Character day at school. Your student received a green sheet in their folder, last week, that acts as a Character Approval. If your child plans to dress up please fill out the form and return it to school so that I can approve the character. I will then send it back home. We have some fun activities planned for that day. Mrs. Aberouette, our classroom liaison is working on these activities. She will be sending out sign-ups for Friday's events. Please look for them so that you are able to contribute if you so desire.

Below are this week's phonograms. If you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact me.

Phonograms- October 24, 2016

t, u, v, w, x, y, z, ough, oe, ey, igh, kn, gn,wr, ie, dge, ei, eigh, ti, si

Twas the Week Before Fall Break....

Hello 1C Families!

It's hard to believe that we have almost completed our first quarter of the school year. We have been very busy and we have covered a lot of material. Your children have been a joy to work with and I consider myself very blessed to be their teacher. It has been so fun getting to know each of them, and each and every one adds something very special to our classroom community.

Although, we are closing out the first quarter, we will still be hard at work this week. We will be starting a new unit in math, where we will be "making ten" and learning about other concepts associated with tens. We are continuing our journey through the many stories of Cinderella that are celebrated throughout the world. The students have enjoyed these stories and have been successfully comparing and contrasting each Cinderella story that we read. We will be finishing up our second poem; The Pasture, and should be able to recite it from memorization. In grammar, we are still learning about the many different types of nouns and how we identify them in our sentences and stories.

History is full of all things Egyptian. We continue to study the ancient civilization of Egypt. The students have learned all about the Nile River and why it was so important to the Egyptians. We are now studying what life was like for this civilization and will be talking about mummies and the mummification process this week. As we have looked through several books on this fascinating culture, the children are very excited to learn more about how they lived and what they believed to be true. We are studying the ocean habitat in science and all of the amazing animals that inhabit this huge and, often, mysterious living space.

As you know by now, the book bags have made their return! We were able to fill the bags this week and I am hoping to continue to gather books for our leveled reader library so that we can continue to send home this precious resource with your children. The book log is included with the book. Please have your student read and log and return the book, bag and log by Friday. We will not be sending book bags home, over fall break. 

I hope that you have been able to access the Sign-Up Genius to schedule your Parent/Teacher conference. If you dd not receive the email from Mrs. Aberouette, please contact her so that she can double check your email address and get it sent out to you. I have noticed that some email addresses have been incorrect that appear in my master list that was entered by the office. As all of you know, it just takes one wrong character for an email to be invalid. I am hoping that we will have everyone's correct email addresses by the end of the quarter. I will be asking for email updates at conference time, just to ensure that we have the correct address. In the meantime, please know that you can always visit my blog and find out important information. It is updated every Sunday night. If you do not receive my updated blog email, you may always visit the school website and access it from there.

Mrs. Aberouette's Contact--  KAberouette@yahoo.com

I hope that you were able to attend this past Thursday's kickoff to literacy month. The PSO have worked so hard organizing these fun events. If you were able to attend you should have picked up your child's login information for the Read-A-Thon which begins tomorrow. If you did not attend, then the yellow login sheet was sent home in their green folders on Friday. Please take note so that they may participate in this wonderful and fun event.  

I love to read to the class and I hope that they enjoy it, as well. In honor of the Read-A-Thon I invite each student to bring one of their favorite books to school, this week, for me to read to the class. Any reading that we do in class, counts towards their reading time for the Read-A-Thon. I should be able to get through two books per day. Please keep in mind, no pop culture or pop culture related material, when choosing your books. 

Below are this week's phonograms and some important reminders.

Wishing you, your students and your families a very wonderful and restful fall break! 

Ms. Smedegaard

Phonograms for Sept. 3-Sept. 7

e, h, I, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, au, or, ck, wh, ed, ew, ui, oa, gu, ph

Important Reminders

Sept. 7- Early Release (12:30)

Sept. 10-14- Fall Break (No School)

Sept. 17-18- Parent Conferences (No School)

Sept. 20- Picture Retakes