Dear Families,

         February is a short, busy month!  We are working on geometry and measurement inmath.   I was so pleased with the

3-D rocket creations thechildren made.  What a fantastic job theydid.           

        We will begin studying about our teethand dental health in health/science.    The children will be asked to keep track oftheir morning and evening tooth brushing on a chart we’ll be making inschool.  They’ll bring the chart home onFriday, February 5^th.  Pleasehave your child complete the chart and return it to school on Monday, March 1^st.

                We’ll be learning about consonantblends in Fundations soon.  Consonantblends are two consonants together that make their own sound as in the word trip.  The t and the r are heard when we pronouncethe word, trip.

        The children will be working on morewritten responses during reading groups. When writing responses, the children will be asked to look back intotheir books to find the correct spelling of a word.  They should also be able to look at theirmonthly spelling lists to help find the correct spelling of a word as theywrite.  I’m sending a complete list ofour spelling words home so you may go over them occasionally with yourchild.  They will also be asked to usecapital letters and punctuation marks appropriately.  Please encourage your child to check his/herwriting at home and ask him/her to “fix” it up if capitals and periods aremissing.  It takes quite some time forthe children to fix their writing automatically.  However, if I’m reinforcing this behavior atschool, and you’re reinforcing it at home, it will become more automaticsooner!

We hadbeen taking many assessments recently, but we’re back to our regular readinggroups. The class reading bag should be coming home almost daily.  Encourage your child to read to you each day.Some of the children will have “flashcards” in their book bag along with abook.  The children should practicereading these high frequency word flashcards daily.  These are taken from the 200 word readingtest which was just administered.  Firstgraders should have all these words down pat by the end of the year.    Pleasetry to have your child bring the book bag, book and cards back to school eachday. 

Ourspelling tests will be on Friday, February12th and Friday, February 26^th.

Wewill be having a little Valentine celebration on Friday, February 12^th.  You may be called by our room mothers to sendin something for our celebration.  Weplan to have some healthy fruit and popcorn since it’s Dental HealthMonth!  Your child may bring inValentine’s cards for his/her friends.  Weare working on alphabetical order using our classmates names.  The list of names will come home today andtomorrow.

Weare very lucky to have Ms. Martin in our classroom until the end of April.  She is a wonderful asset to our class!  She will be teaching some of our lessons verysoon.

     Have a lovely February!  OurFebruary homework folder and Book Logs will be due on Monday, March first!  Math homework is due the day after it is senthome.

        Please get in touch with me if you haveany questions, comments or concerns about your child’s school experience.  Good communication between home and school isextremely important!

Thanks again!

Connie Wilde