Hello,
Welcome back! I hope everyone had a relaxing and enjoyable break. The snow was definitely an added excitement. With snow brings extra bundling up! Please remember to have your child bring snow pants and books in addition to his or her jackets, mittens and hats. You may also want to send extra socks and mittens as these can sometimes get pretty wet!
As we move towards January, New Directions begins to think about enrollment for next year. We have several informational sessions scheduled during the month of January for any families who would like to learn more about New Directions for their child. Word of mouth is the best way to spread the great things happening at New Directions, so if you know of any families who would be interested in sending their children to New Directions, here are the dates of our upcoming information sessions:
Tuesday, January 5th-6:00-7:00 PM Info Session at New Directions
Thursday, January 14th-6:00-7:30 PM District-Wide Info Session held at Tanner Early Learning Center
Tuesday, January 19th-5:30-7:00 PM-Spaghetti and Art Family Night
Wednesday, January 20th-10:00 AM-noon-Open House at New Directions
Monday, January 25th-6:00-7:00 PM-Info Session at New Directions
Families can also call Mrs. Frischmann at 766-6116 to set up individual tours.
Upcoming Events:
Friday, January 15th-11:30 Dismissal, end of 2nd quarter
Monday, January 18th-Friday, January 22nd-Celebrate New Directions Week
Tuesday, January 19th-5:30-7:00 PM Spaghetti and Art Night
Thursday, January 21st-6:00-7:00 PM-Gym Night
Monday, January 20th-No School
Friday, January 29-6:00-7:30 New Directions/EQ Dance
Curriculum Updates:
Readers' Workshop: We started our new unit yesterady, Readers Have Big Jobs to Do: A focus on fluency, phonics and comprehension. This unit will focus on having students take on the important jobs a readers needs to do. They need to have strategies to be in charge of their own reading, set their own agenda and get through the hard parts by themselves. Students will learn to begin solving their own reading dilemmas by using the tools and strategies they've learned this year. They'll learn to balance their reading energies between world solving and meaning making.
This week we will be focusing on the important jobs readers do. Reading are their own boss. They say, "I Can Do This!", readers use everything they know to solve a work, readers 'check it!' to self-monitor, readers make a plan and readers get help when they need it. The next week I will also be reading one-on-one with students to assess their reading level as they continue to grow as readers. It's amazing the progress first grader readers have made so far this year!
This week we will be focusing on the important jobs readers do. Reading are their own boss. They say, "I Can Do This!", readers use everything they know to solve a work, readers 'check it!' to self-monitor, readers make a plan and readers get help when they need it. The next week I will also be reading one-on-one with students to assess their reading level as they continue to grow as readers. It's amazing the progress first grader readers have made so far this year!
Writers' Workshop: This week we will start opinion writing in first grade, Writing Review. In this unit we will begin by judging items and explaining judgments in convincing ways. Next we will move into writing reviews about anything and everything: toys, restaurants, video games, and anything else important to students. During the last part of this unit we will learn to write book reviews.
Math Workshop: We are continuing our work with 10s and 1s. We will be doing some beginning grouping of ones to compose a ten, adding a 1-digit number to a 2-digit number, solve addition story problems that involve grouping tens and extra ones, and using place value to compare 2-digit numbers. For example, 70 < 80
Science/Social Studies: Yesterday we spent some time talking about goals for the new year. Today we will be starting our new unit: Families Today and Long Ago. We will be exploring what makes a family, what families like to do together, and how families today are similar and different than families long ago.
Word Study: We introduced 5 new word wall words yesterday. The words are: jump, not, off, have, eat. We will be assessing these words on Friday. These are words we want students to be able to read and write automatically without having to think to sound them out. Students also continue to work on phonics skills and word sorts at their developmental level.
January Homework Calendars came home before break. Here's another copy:
January Lunch Menu
As always, let me know if you have any questions.
Kathy Zobel
First Grade
New Directions Learning Community
No comments:
Post a Comment