November 5^nd, 2012

Dear parents,

November is now upon us and the children are busy and productive at school. I am excited about how they are learning and the tremendous amount of progress each student has made in this short time. During the month of October, we achieved a lot in the classroom and beyond.

In Language Arts, we continue to practice printing the upper and lower case letters of the alphabet and whenever we do so, the children come up with their own alphabet words to accompany the letter being studied. Our weekly journal writing has allowed each student to become more comfortable with the writing process and with each passing week, they gain the confidence to use inventive spelling and sounding out techniques to write about their weekend happenings. In word family practice we have completed the “am”, “at”, “ap”, “an”, “it”, “in”, “ig” and “ing” families and in phonics, we have been learning the short vowel sounds. Whole language activities, which are often integrated with other parts of the curriculum, continue to be a most enjoyable part of the language program as the children have the opportunity to add a sense of creativity to their work, particularly when responding to literature. Our spelling program commenced two weeks ago and the children seem to be excited about the challenge that a spelling program offers. The weekly spelling quizzes are intended to be low-stress “spell-checks” which will improve the children’s overall ability to spell words correctly when writing a sentence or story. The students are expected to use the learned words in their writing at school. I have also begun introducing the children to various sight words from the Pre-primer, Primer and Grade One Dolch lists and through various activities, including sentence writing and informal games, the students are beginning to learn how to spell these important words. Each time we learn a new word, I attach that word to our alphabetized word wall in the classroom and once again, students are expected to spell these visible words correctly in their writing. In Reading Power, we have continued to explore “connections”. I am continuously amazed at how well the students are becoming at making connections and more specifically “self- to – text” connections. With each book we read, the students know to listen out for connections that they can make to things in their own lives. The students are becoming so accustomed to “making connections” that our universal sign for “connecting” (fingers linked together), is very much part of each of our reading sessions. We’ve read books like Rainbow Fish, Red Is Best and The Recess Queen, all of which have helped us learn to make connections. When we are able to meaningful connections, we strengthen our ability to comprehend text at a deeper level. Next, an exploration of “text-text connections” will be our focus. Our Home Reading program also began with a bang last week. The students are so motivated to read for beads and I am so proud of students and parents alike, who have committed so fervently to the process of home reading. In keeping with current research and literature around the behaviours of competent and effective early readers, students should and must be engaged in “high success” reading experiences and these reading experiences should be numerous and meaningful. In leading literacy expert, Richard Allington’s book, What Really Matters for Struggling Readers: Designing Research-Based Programs, Allington emphasizes the need for more in-school reading, noting evidence indicating that increased reading volume raises the level of reading proficiency (p. 24). He thus argues that any successful restructuring of reading comprehension instruction must include increased reading volume. To that end, one of the many ways in which we endeavour to make this happen, involves having the students read to each other every morning. I’ve begun to train the students on the ‘elbow to elbow, knee to knee’ sitting position which encourages book sharing in a functional way. Moreover, weekly guided reading group sessions with 4 different reading groups led by Ms. Perkins and I are proving to be invaluable times to explicitly teach many good reading habits, behaviours and strategies to students. We read various fiction and non-fiction texts and we focus on learning effective reading and comprehension activities. Moreover, the students are learning to use punctuation and writing conventions to further improve their reading skills.

In Math, our estimation jar activity proves to be a highlight of our week. The children look forward, with great anticipation, to making their estimates and then counting the objects in the jar at the end of the week. There is always much excitement as the winner of the “game” is revealed. Thank you to those parents who have promptly sent the jar back to school filled with new items on Mondays. We have also been working on other estimating activities in class and the children have been learning to make reasonable guesses when “eye-balling” groups of objects. During November, we will be practicing basic addition and subtraction to 12, using a number line as a way of introducing counting on and counting back strategies when it comes to adding and subtracting. For the most part, the children have been learning to recognize objects, dots and numbers between 1 and 10. Counting and recognizing groups of numbers has helped the children see number groupings in a new way. Our weekly math toolkit activities and games have proven to be most beneficial and the students use certain tools to work in partners or small groups to practice concepts we’ve been learning about. Recently, we have been working with our froggy number lines to add and subtract and we continue to look at variations of ten. We also continue to practice a variety of math skills, including counting by 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s during our calendar activity time. 

In Social Studies/Health and Career Education our ‘All About Me’ theme continued with a look at names and how they define and shape our identities. Each child made a beautiful name wheel which focused on their names and “told a story” of how and why they got their name. They also finished working on their “All About Me” booklets and together with their Grade Seven buddies completed various theme related projects. In an effort to learn about empathy, kindness and sharing, we have recently read stories linked to these ideas. Most relevant to this topic, was the reading and understanding of the message inherent in the well known story, “The Rainbow Fish” by Marcus Pfister. Each student responded to this story by making their very own rainbow fish and by writing an accompanying sentence in which they expressed empathy for the characters in the book. We have already begun our new Social Studies unit entitled, “Rules, Roles and Responsibilities”, wherein the students are learning to define, compare and contrast each of these concepts so as to better understand their place in our social community. This unit is one that will resonate with students and with parents alike, on many levels. It is our PROGRAM OF INQUIRY designed to help the students learn about rules, roles and responsibilities by making connections across the curriculum. We will discuss the various rules we have in our homes, highlighting for the students that each family follows a set of very different rules at home, e.g., "take off your shoes at the front door", "don't use too much toilet paper", tidy up after playing with toys", and "take your plate to the sink when you have finished eating." We will also discuss rules at school which are more similar and universal for everyone.  The students will come to realize that rules exist to protect us and keep our world ordered and safe. This unit culminates with a look at responsibilities. The children will learn that a responsibility is "something we care for and can't forget to do". In the context of this very articulate Grade 1 definition, we will be looking at responsibilities in terms of chores and duties as well as from the perspective of doing good deeds. Through important stories and discussions, we know that we are all responsible for our actions towards others. In Grade One we all strive to be "bucket fillers", filling our own and other's imaginary buckets by enacting mitzvot and deeds of kindness. 

This month in Science, we continued working on our magnets unit. The children are busy learning about what magnets are made of, how they function, the effect that the poles have on attraction and repelsion, the earth’s magnetic field and how a compass operates. Opportunities to explore magnets by participating in hands-on activities and learning to classify objects that repel and attract magnets, form crucial parts of this unit. We have also been learning about Autumn and the many changes the occur in our environment with the change in weather and temperature. Most recently, the students have been learning all about hibernation. Ask your child to tell you about how to distinguish hibernating from non-hibernating animals and the many adaptations that some animals make in order to survive the cold winters. You’ll be amazed at how much your child knows!

NOVEMBER AT A GLANCE:

Language Arts	Math	Social Studies/Personal Planning	Science
-Journals - Printing - Reading groups - Spelling  - Phonics – short vowels  - Practice of weekly sight words - Whole language activities (responding to literature and poetry) - Reading power (text-text connections).	- Estimating cntd. - Addition and subtraction to 12 - Recognizing, building and ordering sets of objects - 10 frame work - Math toolkit - Introduction to Graphing (Data Analysis)	- Rules, Rights and Responsibilities	- Magnets cntd. - Weather (end of Nov and Dec)

Reminders:

• Daily home reading is a very important part of the Grade One year. Please continue to read with your child as often as possible. I am thrilled at how motivated the children are to ‘read for beads’ and I appreciate the effort that you have made to help sustain the home reading program. Some of the students are wanting to move extremely quickly through the home reading levels. Although I am delighted with their desire to challenge themselves, I ask that you encourage your child (as will I) to remain on the level they are currently on for a reasonable amount of time. Daily reading does not have to be “hard” or “harder” each time and should primarily function as a source of pleasure and enjoyment. Furthermore, the readers in our leveled home reading section are designed to be short, succinct texts with repeating pattern sentences. As a result, children should be spending about 10-15 minutes a night reading. It is therefore perfectly normal for your child to be finishing these readers quickly. They are intended to be short texts aimed at developing fluency and adding to each child’s growing sight word bank. Please also feel free to supplement your child’s home reading with books from home or the library which can then be recorded on their reading logs as a way of affording them the opportunity of earning more beads. Lastly, for those students who are already reading chapter books, please note that how you record the books on their reading logs may be different. They may count each chapter (+/- 10 pages) as one individual book so that they earn beads as quickly as their peers. 
• November 8 and 9: P.T Conferences
• November 12: Remembrance Day
• Early Friday dismissal time begins (2:20pm)
• November 20^th: Individual photo retakes

• November 21: Pro-D day (no sessions for students)

At the beginning of the school year at “Meet the Teacher” evening, I distributed a parent package containing important information and activities relevant to our Grade One program. Within the package, I included three sight word lists and I provided all the parents with a website that you may visit to print off the each of the words in each list as flashcards (the flashcards are already prepared in flash card form for you on the website). Many of the students have informed me that they are indeed practicing sight words every day but there are also many who are not. Please visit the following website:  www.mrsperkins.com/dolch.htm , print out the flashcards for the Pre-primer, Primer and Grade One Dolch sight words (the second item in each list numbered 2, 3 and 4) and practice these nightly with your child. Should anyone need me to walk them through how to access these flashcards, please come to me after school and I will gladly demonstrate. Practicing sight words is an excellent way to foster reading skills and you will notice an improvement in your child’s reading fluency and confidence level when these words are committed to memory. We of course practice three new sight words a week in class, but the added practice is highly recommended and very beneficial. 

As we move through the month of November, I am confident that all the children in Grade One will achieve great things. Thanks again for your continued support.

Warmest regards,

Mrs. Ariel