Mrs. Brown's 1st Grade News

More Jan.-Feb. Info.

CURRICULUM:

MATH- Wh have beeen working on identify fractions of an object and a set of objects.  We are focusing on a whole, halves, and fourths.  We will learn to read the fractions as "one-half" and "one out of two." and "one-fourth" and "one out of four".  Students also need to remember that fractions must be "equal" pieces.  At Home you can draw shapes and shade in a section.  Or you can draw a group of hearts or squares and shade in a section.  Another idea is to use objects, such a fruit loops, and have them create one-fourth of a group red, or one out of 5 green.  We will also start telling time on an analog clock telling time at the hour and the half hour.  It is important for the children to be able to have the hour hand between the numbers for the half hour.

LA:  We will be learning about Homophones (words that sound the same, but have different spellings and different meanings).  Ex: dear, dear.  We will also discuss pronouns (words like he, she, it, they, us, them, etc).  They need to understand what the word represents.  Ex: "he" is a boy.  "They" are a group of people without you included.

READING:  We are beginning Inferencing.  This is an extremely difficult concept for first graders.  Inferencing is inferring, which means "using the information you have already learned in life already to figure out what's happening in the story without the story telling you directly.  Ex:  If the story is talking about the sky getting dark, the wind blowing, the air becoming cooler and the people need to seek shelter, the student needs to identify that its getting ready to rain.  AT HOME you can asking inferring questions in stories as you read with your children.  Use mostly "why" questions.

PHONICS: We are continuing long vowels. 

The students are learning to recognize the patterns as a long vowel sound and   begin identifying these patterns.  The patterns we have been working with are:

                        Long a: vowel-consonant-e, ai, ay

                        Long e: vowel-consonant-e, ee, ie,ea

                        Long i: vowel-consonant-e, igh

                        Long o: vowel-consonant-e, oe, ow, ough

                        Long u: vowel-consonant-e, ue, ew, oo

At home you can have the students look for words with those patterns in books, magazines, menus, billboards, etc.

SOCIAL STUDIES: We have learned about Theodore Roosevelt.  We will do more activities with maps and continents.  Also, we will learn about Harriet Tubman.

HEALTH: We will be learning how exercise helps our Bones and Muscles .               

 

New Year, New News

DATES:

Jan. 19 CRCT/Curriculum Night, 5:30-7:30

Jan. 26 In-school Field trip: Music Man sings about "Fairy Tales"

Jan. 27 100th Day of School Activities

Jan. 30- Feb.3 Book Fair in Media Center

Feb. 1 Wellstar visits with a lesson about "Temper Tamers"

Feb. 2 Cosmic Bowling

Feb. 3 No Specials

Feb. 6 Super Specials

Feb. 9 All Pro Dads

Feb. 9 Barney the Bus to visit about bus safety

Feb. 14 Valentine Exchange in class

Feb. 16 I-Moms

Feb. 20 No School, President's Day

Feb. 21 Domino's Night

Feb. 23 Tentative Black History Program

Feb. 29 Chattahoochee Nature Center Field trip

INFO:

1) Ms. Malandro was hired as a fulltime teacher at Varner.  Ms. Lauren Mitchell will be the supply teacher in our room until Mrs. Hallmark recovers from her surgery.

2) On Valentine's Day we will be exchanging valentines.  Please prepare valentines for you child to pass out to their classmates.  Please prepare 19.  The valentines should be addressed to the student.  Your child should have their name signed on the back of each valentine BERORE bringing them to school.  Be on the look out for a class list coming home.  Feel free to attach a treat to the valentines if you choose.

 

DECEMBER DETAILS

DATES:

Dec. 20 Domino's Night

Dec. 21 Polar Express Day, wear pjs and bring blanket

Dec. 22 Holiday Party.  Bring your assigned food item

Dec. 22 Last Day of School before Winter Break

Jan. 10 Tuesday, First day of School after break

Jan. 12 All-Pro Dads Breakfast

Jan. 12 CRCT/Curriculum Night

Jan. 13 Report Cards home

Jan. 16 MLK Day, No School

 

NOVEMBER

IMPORTANT DATES:

Nov. 15 Domino's Pizza Night

Nov. 16 Our VIP Lunch is at 11:45. (We are wearing our tie dye outfits today)

Nov. 21 to Nov. 25 NO SCHOOL, Thanksgiving Holiday

Dec. 1 Barnes & Noble Night 5:30-7:30

Dec. 8 I moms Dinner Theater

Dec. 20 Domino's Night

Dec. 22 Our Holiday Party

Dec. 22 Last day of school before Winter Break

Important Info:

Dinner Theater – Sponsored by the Dowell Singers

 

Come see and hear select classes from each grade level, the Dowell Singers, Recorder Club, and more as we start the season off with music and celebration!

 

Thursday, Dec. 8^th - 5:30-6:30 PM

Performance - 6:45 -7:45pm

Dowell Cafeteria

 

For only $3, dinner will include:

1 slice of pizza, salad, drink, and cookie

2. Miss Malandro will be filling in for Mrs. Hallmark, as she is recovering from back surgery.

CURRICULUM:

MATH- We are beginning to work with money.  Our standard for this nine weeks is to count coins up to 50 cents.  This includes using pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.  How to help at home: Work with your child counting coins.  Begin counting pennies and nickels.  Then pennies and dimes.  Next pennies, nickels, and dimes.  Then add the quarter.  For those students at the very beginning stage of counting coins I will be teaching them Touch Points for money.  If you see papers coming home with dots drawn on them they are doing Touch Points.  I will also send home a parent letter to you if your child is being taught this strategy.

READING- We are working on the Reading Comprehension strategy of Fact and Opinion.  Facts can be proven.  Opinions are how someone feels or things about something.  The most difficult thing for them to understand is how to form an opinion about facts they read.  How to help at home: Help students identify facts and opinions in the context of their reading.  During family discussions, point out how the facts can be proven, looked up in the encyclopedia or found on the internet, or the proof in a picture.

LA-  We are learning about adjectives, words that describe nouns.  We are identifying them and trying to incorporate them into our sentence writing.  We are also learning about compound words.  These words have 2 words put together to make one word, such as mailbox=a box for mail.  How to help at home: identify and point out compound words in their reading, or in conversations.  Discuss how the two words create one word.

Social Studies- We just finished learning a little about Thomas Jefferson. We will be learning about Lewis & Clark and Sacagawea's journey across the US. 

RED RIBBON WEEK, SAY NO TO DRUGS!!

Next week is Red Ribbon Week.....October 24-28..... 

 

Monday-We Don't Sport Drugs-wear your favorite sport uniform

 

Tuesday-Be Like Me, Stay Drug Free- dress like a twin

 

Wednesday-Drugs are Wacky- dress wacky, wear clothes backwards, miss match

 

Thursday-Don't Let Drugs Sneak Up on you- wear sneakers, a hat, and something red

 

Friday-Black Out Drugs!- wear ALL black

2nd Nine Weeks

CURRICULUM:

MATH: We are focusing on addition and subtraction.  For addition, the strategy we would like the students to use is putting the larger number in their head and "counting on" the smaller number.  Ex: 6+3=_. Put the 6 in your head, "think 6".  Hold up 3 fingers.  Tap your head and think "6, then count your fingers 7,8,9.  The answer is nine".  For subtraction, the strategy is similar.  Put the large number in your head and count backwards the smaller number. Ex: 11-6=_. Put the 11 in your head, "think 11".  Hold up 6 fingers.  Tap your head and think "11, then count your fingers backwards 10,9,8,7,6,5.  The answer is five." How to help at home: Practice this strategy with your child.  You can create your own problems.

READING: We are finishing up our introduction to Sequencing Events.  We looked for key words to help us identify the transitions in the story.  KEY WORDS: first, next, then, last, finally, in the morning, later that day, etc.  How to help at home: As you are reading stories with your child look for these key words and other words that give clues that a transition is happening. No we are beginning to learn about Comparing and Contrasting.  We will look at comparing characters in a story, comparing books, comparing the illustrations/photos used in a book.  Comparing= how things are the same. Contrasting=how things are different.  We will be using the Venn Diagram graphic organizer to help. (This is where the 2 circles overlap.)  How to help at home: Use a collection of books to compare.  Do you have several books by the same author?  Use those books to compare how the characters in each book is the same.  Or...Discuss how the princess of one story is the same/different as the princess of another story.  You can also do this outside of reading.  How are baseball and football the same?  How are they different?  How are the expectations of home the same/different than those at school?

WRITING:  We will be incorporation the Compare/Contrast skill in our writing in addition to continuing the Narrative writing we've been doing all year.  Also, we will continue to work on writing complete sentences, using a capital at the beginning of the sentence and using punctuation at the end.

LA: We have learned about Nouns ( a person, a place, a thing). We have learned about Action Verbs (hop, skip, jump, think), and have been introduced to BE Verbs (am, is, are, was, were).  Next we will be learning about adding the suffixes -ed and -ing to those verbs.  We will learn that when a word that has a short vowel is followed by a consonant, that consonant must be doubled before adding the suffix. Ex: hop=hopping.  We will also learn how adding the suffix to a word changes the meaning of the word.  How to help at home: As you read books with your child point out words that have the -ed and -ing suffix added to it.  Also, have them search magazines or the newspaper for words with those endings.

SCIENCE: We are having WATER DAY on Friday this week.  We will learn about how water weight remains the same if it changes from a solid or a liquid.  We will learn how water can be a solid (ice), a liquid, or a gas (evaporation).  We will also look at how water appears to change the size of an object when it is placed in water.

AR: Students are slowly reading AR books and taking tests.  They are being given about 30 minutes daily to read AR books while teachers are instructing at Reading Groups.  They are also allowed to go to the library to get new books during this time. (This week was difficult to get into the library because testing was being done in the media center).  I will be sending home weekly reports that are a computer print out so you know how many tests your child has taken throughout the week and the results of those tests.  If your child is not taking test, that means your child is NOT using their independent reading time wisely.  AR is most successful when the parents are involved in requiring their child to bring home books and make sure they read the books twice.  If you are finding that your child IS reading them at home and are not taking the tests, please drop me a note in their buddy folder.  You can write on their homework log, "AR TEST NEEDED: book name".  I look at these every morning.  If your child is not bringing home AR books, jot me a note in their buddy folder too!!  It is a team effort!  I gave the students extra motivation last week.  If they passed 4 AR tests they could eat lunch in the classroom and watch a video.  Saundra was the only one to accomplish this goal.  YEAH SAUNDRA!!

FIELD TRIP THIS WEEK:  Thursday we are going to see a musical presented by Theater on the Square.  We will be going to the STRAND Theater to see this.  We will not be taking parent chaperones due to limited seating.  The musical will be based on the book, "THE TRUE STORY OF THE 3 LITTLE PIGS."  We will be comparing/contrasting the origional story The 3 Little Pigs and The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs earlier in the week.

SUPER SPECIALS:  We did NOT have super specials on Friday, as the buddy folder indicated.  When the school calendar was made we did not know that ITBS testing would be going on that week for third and fifth grade.  The dates were changed.  So, we will not have any specials on Monday, Oct. 17 and we WILL have Super Specials on Tuesday, Oct. 18.  I had the students write that information in their buddy folders.

CONFERENCE WEEK is soon.  I look forward to meeting with all of you and discussing your child's performance so far and making plans to help your child be successful throughout the remainder of the year.  If you are unable to attend the scheduled conference, please call the school to let me know!  678-594-8059

 

OCTOBER OBJECTIVES

DATES:

Oct. 4 Publix Math Night (see flier)

Oct. 5,6,7 CogAT testing, begins at 8:00

Oct. 11 Wellstar Visitor In-house Field Trip

Oct. 13 All Pro Dads 7:15am

Oct. 14 End of 9 weeks

Oct. 14 Cultural Heritage Night

Oct. 20 Field Trip to Theater on the Square

Oct. 20 No Specials

Oct. 21 Super Specials

Oct. 24-28 Conference Week, Early Dismissal 12:20

Oct. 24-27 Book Fair

Oct. 27 I-Moms

Oct. 28 Fall FestivaOL

 

 

 

SEPTEMBER STUFF

IMPORTANT DATES:

Sept. 15 Open House/PTA 5:30-7:45 (see purple flier)

Sept. 22 I-Moms

Sept. 23 School Pictures

Sept. 26 "Give Peas a Chance" puppet show, in school fieldtrip

Oct. 3 & 4 Wellstar Visit "Get Fit" , in school fieldtrip

Oct.5 &6 CogAT testing

CURRICULUM:

MATH- We have done introduction to addition and subtraction and will do more in October.  We are starting Place Value to 30.  This is understanding the values of the tens and ones place.  The most difficult challenge is like this question: 35= ____tens and ____ones.  Then we will move on to Graphing and analyzing data.  We will collect data and graph it using a pictograph and bar graph.

PHONICS- We have already worked with the c-v-c words (consonant-vowel-consonant) using the short vowels a, e, i, and this week we are doing short o.  Next week is short u.  I'm sure you've noticed the word lists coming home for practice.  Please feel free to keep those lists at home to continue practicing with your child if they can not read them quickly.  Also, the xerox minibooks that come home include the phonics skill (letter sounds) that we are working on in class. Your child should be reading these books with you for perfection.  If your child has difficulty reading the book, you need to have him/her reread the page over and over until he/she can read it accurately.  Also, have them reread books from previous weeks for practice.

READING- We have started identifying the characters and setting of stories.  We also have begun identifying the main idea of a story or paragraph.  Two strategies we are using are 1) using the title 2) using the first (topic) sentence of the paragraph.  We will also discuss how the details support the main idea and give information about it.  The analogy we use is a box of crayons.  The box gives the main idea of what's inside.  The crayons support what the box says.  Soon we will begin to work on sequencing events of a story.

WRITING- We have been focusing on a complete/incomplete sentence, making sure the sentence "makes sense".  We are focusing on using a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence and using a period and a question mark at the end of sentences.  They are working on identifying and writing "telling" sentences and "asking" sentences.  We have also started modeling and practicing correct letter formation of print.  We need LOTS of practice!

CONTENT: We alternate Social Studies, Science, and Health units throughout the year.  So far we did a big unit about responsibilies at school, at home, and in the community.  Last week we learned a lot about Benjamin Franklin, focusing on the fact that he was a founding father, a writer & printer, he was a leader, and he was an inventor.  Next we will do a Science unit about weather and the seasons.

WELCOME TO FIRST GRADE!

Welcome to Ms. Brown's and Mrs. Hallmark's Class!!

I'd like to thank you parents for all of the supplies!  I think we will be stocked for most of the year.  We may need to resupply the tissues half way through.

It seems that you are understanding the procedures of the Buddy Folder and the homework log.  Thank you in advance for all of your support throughout this year!!  Communication is the key to success!

MAY MADNESS

DATES:

May 6 Mothers Day cakes home

May 6Drive-In Movie 7-10pm

May 11 Student Library books due

May 11 Stevie B's Night

May 11 AR Fiesta

May 12 First grade Field Day 11:55-2:05

May 12 Creativity Festival @ 6pm (Fundraiser for OM students)

May 12 +13 May Bookfair, BOGO

May 13 Donation of $3 due for end of the year activities

May 19 All Pro Dads Dinner 6-8pm

May 20 First Grade "Game Day"

May 23 First Grade "Picnic/Watermelon/Bubbles/Water Day"

May 24 First Grade "Autograph Day and Ice Cream Sundae Day"

May 24 Early Release at 1:30pm

May 25 Last Day of School

May 25 Early Release at 1:30pm

May 25 First Grade "Movie + Popcorn Day"

IN THE NEWS:

1) Our Odyssey of the Mind Group (OM) will be traveling to Maryland at the end of May to compete in the World Finals!!!  They need to raise $10,000 for traveling and lodging expenses.  Tax deductable donations are be accepted.  Also various fundraisers are planned.

2) Every Tuesday morning OM will be selling Krispy Kreme doughnuts for $1.00

3) May 6th will be PTA Movie Night from 7-10pm.  "Gulliver's Travels" will be shown.  See flier for more info.

4) May 12th will be a Creativity Festival, a fundraiser for our OM group. Watch for a flier to come home.

5) First grade teachers are asking for a $3.00 donation from each student to help purchase items for our many fun days the last 2 weeks of school.  Please send it in by May 13th so we can purchase the supplies.

6) On May 11th we will have an AR FIESTA for those students that have passed 12 AR books on their level this nine weeks. 

7) Our First Grade Field Day is Thursday, May 12 from 11:55-2:05.  Please dress your child in comfortable clothes to participate in physical activities.  They may bring a water bottle that day as well.

8) May 20th is "Game Day".  Your child may bring a board game or card game to share with their classmates.  Your child needs to be able to explain the rules and procedures of the game.  No electronic toys allowed (DS, etc)

9) May 23 is "Outside Day".  Your child will be eating a picnic lunch outside.  Watermelon will be served as well.  Students will be provided with a bottle of bubbles, will have a water balloon toss, and be able to squirt water at each other.  Since we cannot have waterguns at school, we use squirt bottles.  If your child has a small, clean squirt bottle you use like at the pool to cool off, send it in.  Also, send in a small towel for your child to use to dry off.

10) May 24 is "Autograph and Ice Cream Sundae Day".  We will provide the students with an autograph book to collect signatures from their friends.  If your child wants to bring their yearbook for students to sign they may.  Students may have their Dowell t-shirt signed with a marker AS LONG AS I HAVE A WRITTEN NOTE WITH YOUR PERMISSION.

11) May 25th is "Movie and Popcorn Day".  Students MAY NOT BRING A BOOKBAG TO SCHOOL ON THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!  Students will be able to choose from 7 different G rated movies to watch.

OTHER HOT ITEMS:

1) If you did not adhere stamps to the brown report card envelope, you will be able to stop by the school office in June to pick up the report card.  Those who sent in money for me to purchase the stamps will be mailed out with the others.

2) If your child has NOT returned their library book, OR owes money to the cafeteria, OR owes money to ASP, their report card envelope will NOT be mailed.  You must come to the office to pay for these items first.

3) If you did NOT return your registration card, PLEASE DO IT NOW!!