Homework Folders in First Grade

Hello First Grade Families,
I hope you all had joyous holidays together. We are now ready for our first full week of school! Today we established Homework Folders which will be a part of our daily routine. Students will have approximately 1 page of homework Monday - Thursday nights. Please check their Folders when they get home each day for work they have to complete, as well as any completed class work or school notifications for you. Homework and paperwork that needs to come back to school should be placed in the Folder to come back each day. Here is what your child's Homework Folder looks like: 

This week for Homework we will be working on the math story problems that each student wrote in class. Please look for your child's story one night this week! 

I look forward to seeing you all for Back to School Night on Wednesday. 

Shavua Tov,

HaMorah Jaime

September 25, 2013

Dear Families,

The children had fun this week as they prepared for our Israeli high school student visitors. They created a beautiful welcome sign to greet our special guests. And then they worked together with our guests to make beautiful flags in preparation for Simchat Torah.

For Under the Sea we viewed some slides on the computer to learn about the ocean food chain. Terms covered were predator, prey, carnivore, herbivore and omnivore.  The kids were placed into groups and each group was to create a poster to teach the rest of the class about their given term. We will finish them next week and then they will be displayed in the hallway.

Next week starts our first full week! Second grade will begin spelling, a nightly reading log and we will start our fractions math unit!

Chag Sameach!

Hamorah Caren

Reminder: back to school night is Wednesday, October 2nd.

Showing our Baruchim Habaim sign.

September 18, 2013

Dear Families,

We had a wonderful trip to Tougas Farm today! The students all enjoyed a hayride, learning to pick apples by twisting, picking a pumpkin and playing on the playground after lunch.

This week in our Under the Sea unit we watched slides about the ocean food chain and we learned the meaning of some very important terms:  predator, prey, carnivore, herbivore and omnivore. We also learned why it is important that the food chain not be broken.

Wishing you a wonderful Sukkot holiday.

Hamorah Caren

Visit Rav Shira's blog to see what is happening in Jewish Studies!

http://yomtovatyourhouse.blogspot.com/

Hello Hitah!

We have had a wonderful first 2 weeks of school! We have all enjoyed getting to know one another and forming an inclusive classroom community. It has been awesome welcoming 2 new students into our class! In first grade we begin each day with morning meeting where we get to share things going on in our lives, our calendar keepers maintains the calendar and the schedule, and our meteorologist observes and records the weather. We also enjoy our morning Tefillah together, and at the end the week celebrating Shabbat as a school family.

In math we are reviewing addition (and for some students subtraction!) and having some fun combining art and math these first two weeks. After counting out the number of decorations for our pencil boxes each student created a beautiful customized container for keeping their supplies.  

We have started Fundations (our literacy program) this week and everyone is engaging in all of the different ways to learn about letters! If your child was at MWJDS last year they had Fundations in Kindergarten. We are in the midst of Unit 1 which is mostly review and will go quickly. If your child has not had Fundations in Kindergarten, do not become discouraged with the pace of the progress. It may appear to be slow moving, but it is laying the necessary foundations for your child to be a fluent, independent reader.

During the next few weeks, I will be reviewing:
• The sequence of the alphabet.
• Letter formation from a to z.
• The letter name and a keyword for the consonants:  bcdfghjklmnpqrstvwxyz
• The letter name, and a keyword for the short vowels: a e i o u

The keyword is a specific word which we will use to help your child master each sound. Notice the letter y is not included as a vowel. This comes later. If y begins a word it is considered a consonant and for now, it will only begin words. Please work with your child to reinforce the above concepts.

I look forward continuing to share our exciting achievements over the course of the year. Once we have all of the release forms from families we will be able to post pictures of more Hitah happenings. 

Gmar chatimah tovah,
HaMorah Jaime

Friday, September 13, 2013

Dear Families,

Now that we have completed our first full week of school, we are more into the swing of things. The students are getting used to the new school routines and transitions are running a bit more smoothly.

In second grade reading, we shared the story of Arthur's Nose by Marc Brown. Then, the children were given their first comprehension packet to go with the book. In the packet they are expected to answer questions in complete sentences. Some grammar skills are mixed into the packet as well. This one covered alphabetizing to the third letter, ending sentences with the proper punctuation and filling in a story map. This packet was a "practice" for when the students are put into their own reading books. We will be doing another "practice" next week.

We also spent some time this week working on grammar skills. We reviewed that we need a capital at the beginning of every sentence and either a period, exclamation point or question mark at the end. We also began to look at our writing to see whether we have capital letters and lower case letters in the correct place.

In math we have been reviewing addition and subtraction facts and will continue to do so for the rest of the month.

In writing we discussed that we can write a story about absolutely anything and that even the most tiny detail can be turned into something very exciting. We also learned that a story needs a clear beginning, middle and end and we did some practice work.

And, finally, for our Under the Sea unit, we completed our scuba divers and wrote about what we would find if we took a dive under the sea. We also labeled all the parts of a scuba diver's suit,  we created covers for all of our work by drawing oceans and filling them with different sea creatures and we began a fish fun packet.

Shabbat Shalom.
Wishing all of you an easy fast.

Hamorah Caren

Reminders: Next week there is no school on Thursday and Friday in observance of Sukkot.
Also, our apple picking trip is Wednesday. Please send lunch in a paper bag, labeled, with only disposable items. Also, please send in a labeled water bottle.