First Grade News

Happy New Year!!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. My family enjoyed
our first Christmas with our grandson, Will. God is good!

Mrs. Donohues
Class

Its so good to be back in the classroom. I missed all the children.

Thank you for all your support!
The end of the second quarter is Friday, January 16th. This is our
halfway point, it is just amazing how they have grown and how much they
have learned! Report cards will be ready on Friday, January 23rd.
Congratulations to the Regan family and the Deimel family. Brendan Regan and his family welcomed Mara Jane on December 20th! Margaret Deimel and her family welcomed Gabriel on December 24th! Gods
blessings to both of these families!

January 9, 2015

Important Dates

Peace,

1/16 Field Trip to Aquinas

College 9:15-12:30

Kelly Donohue

1/16 Book Orders Due

Aquinas college field trip

1/16 End of 2nd Quarter

On Friday, January 16th the first graders will be walking to 1/19 No School
Aquinas College for a field trip. The first graders will get a tour of 1/23 Report Cards
the college, talk about college with Aquinas student ambassadors,
Available
and eat lunch in the Aquinas cafeteria. A permission slip will be
1/26 Catholic Schools
coming home. I am also attaching a permission slip with this newsletWeek
ter. I will need 2 chaperones for this trip. Thank you.
1/26 Non-uniform day

FLASHCARDS!!!!!!

The homework for the next two weeks is to make flashcards and
practice them. Please make sure you practice a LOT so the kids are ready
for one minute math (Mastering Math Facts) starting in a couple weeks. First I give
them a short test to see how fast they write. Even if you think they know them, it
takes lots of repetition to get it into the permanent part of their brain to recall the
rest of their lives! Dont worry, we will start with the 0s and 1s first. The sooner
they can memorize them, the better off they will be when we move on and when
they move on to the higher grades. Let me know if it is a problem getting index
cards and I will get you some. It is VERY important that they write their own
cards, rather than using store-bought, as it will help them remember. You can keep
these at home as they make them. Turn it into a game and they will love it.

Reading/Writing
Our Word Wall Words this week are: with, will, eat, play, said. Our Word Wall Words
next week are: fun, that, her, have, nice,
I will be assessing the students again on Word Wall Words before report cards. I will send
home an updated list next week. On this list I will highlight the words your child knows. Please
make sure they practice the words that are not highlighted. There are a few students who do
not know their Word Wall Words. These are important to know as it will make it much easier
for them to decode when they are reading. It might be a good idea to make flashcards. Please
go over these whenever you can at home.
For Guided Reading this week we read a story called Later, Rover. We worked on sequencing and comprehension. During Daily 5 we discussed 2 strategies to help us with comprehension: Predict What Will Happen and Back Up and Reread.
In phonics we are learning about digraphs (sh, th, wh, ch and qu). We learned that there
are two sounds for th, voiced (thin) and unvoiced (that). Next week we will begin learning
about initial l blends (plan, glad, slip) For writing the students will be writing an original
story about a penguin.

Math

*See the section in front about

FLASHCARDS!

Religion
We will begin Unit 3 in our religion book next
week. In this chapter we will focus on what
is means to be a follower of Jesus. We
are also discussing our next virtue, Perseverance and the importance of having
it when things get difficult.

We continue to work on Unit 4. In

this unit we will explore the number line
and begin to model addition and subtraction problems.

Science/Social Studies
In Science and Social Studies next week
we are going to start learning about penguins.
We will discuss their habitat, body parts, what
they eat, their predators, various kinds of
penguins, etc. We will also practice our Mapping Skills.

Fishers of men
Book orders due: January 16, 2015
Page 2

First Grade News