9/20-9/24

This week we read and wrote words with the short e sound. The short e sound is the most difficult vowel sound for students to recall and distinguish in words. I blame our southern accents. :-) We also learned to blend two consonants when they appear at the beginning of a word (as in block). We played several fun matching games to help us with this. The two trickiest blends are tr and dr, so I really try to emphasize their sounds.

We have practiced taking AR Quizzes, and some students have their AR Folder and are quizzing on their own (almost). The other students should receive their AR Folder this week! I love that AR motivates students to read. They love that it is done on the computer and that they get a sticker if they make a 100! AR Quiz grades NEVER count as report grades in my class, so if your child has a little trouble on a quiz, don't get too alarmed. There is a learning curb to this process!

In grammar this week we distinguished telling sentences from other sentences. To practice, I wrote a telling sentence starter on my board and let the class complete the sentence on their boards. They could only write a telling sentence though. They caught on pretty quickly. Next week we will learn about asking sentences, or questions. This should be easy, since they are already such fantastic question askers! ha!

In math we began subtraction. We used cubes to help us subtract and we played a fun ActivBoard flipchart game.

We wrapped up our Farm Life unit this week, and began studying apples. We will continue our apple study until fall break. On Friday we had an apple tasting, in honor of Johnny Appleseed's birthday. We had apple slices (with 3 dips), dried apples, apple chips, applesauce, and apple juice. I think the students were pretty shocked that they actually liked the apple chips. After we tasted our apple products, we made a chart to show our favorite way to eat apples. I truly appreciate the parents who sent items or volunteered to help with our apple tasting! Your children love seeing you at school, and I love for you to come too!

This coming week brings our Burritt Barnyard field trip! YEAH! It is such a fun trip. Please check the weather that day. Your child may need a sweater. Also, your child will definitely need to wear tennis shoes. We will pet animals, learn about food chains, enjoy a picnic lunch, and so much more!

I hope you all have a well rested fall break. We are leaving early, so the class will have a sub on Thursday and Friday. Normal tests will still be given on those days. Our sub is fabulous. Her son was in my class a few years ago, and she has subbed for me a little bit (as well as for other 1st grade teachers), so I know she'll do great!