Friday, December 16, 2011
Dear Families in Room 102,
Hello from Room 102! We had so much fun decorating our gingerbread houses today. They look wonderful! Thank you to all of the parents who made frosting, donated candy, and helped our class decorate them. This project would be impossible without all your help!
Please come and pick up your child’s gingerbread house anytime by next Wednesday. You may want to bring a 10x10 box (or larger) to transport the house home. They are quite fragile. The houses can make a cute centerpiece for your table. They have also been known to be a tasty snack for the sneaky, curious dog!
This week in reading we took our Theme 3 Unit reading test. You will not see a score for the Theme 3 Skills test because we did an integrated, or “written response” reading test this time. Since this is a new type of test for first graders, we did most of it together. Your child will take another integrated reading test towards the end of the year. If you have any questions, please let me know.
This form of assessment is just one tool we can use to evaluate children’s progress as readers and writers. This week we reviewed several comprehension skills and practiced predicting what would come next in a story.
On Wednesday we started making number scrolls in math. The students filled in a 100 number grid and have continued filling in additional grids for numbers beyond 100. We talked about how to identify and use patterns in a number grid to count. Many children have written numbers up to 400! We will continue to add to our number scrolls throughout the year. At the end of the year, we stand over the second floor balcony and let them fall to see how many numbers we have written during winter and spring!
This week in math we also practiced measuring different items to the nearest inch. On Monday, we made a classroom graph of 1st grader heights. We learned that the average height in our room is 49 inches tall.
Tuesday is our field trip! We have been having many class discussions on what we might see and feel at an aquarium all week so we are anxiously awaiting the trip. This week, each student researched a sea creature and worked in a small group to create a painting of it. Please ask your child which creature they researched!
If you are a chaperone for the field trip, please look for the yellow paper in your child’s folder for additional information.
Have a fantastic weekend!
Sincerely,
Molly Stern