We are well into our second week of school now and starting to fall back into school routines. Our days are still very new and very busy, but the students have been doing an excellent job! Thank you to all our students and parents for your support as everybody settles into their roles this year.

   This week we have been reviewing a lot of important concepts in Language and Math as both a refresher for the students and as a guide for myself to lead my teaching this year.

      In Language this week we have been reviewing:
                         - Grade 1 sight words.
                         - Including important features in our work (i.e. name, punctuation, neatness, etc,,,)
                         - Making meaningful predictions and connections to read-alouds.
                         - How to read a book to yourself (productively!).
   
     Our review in Math has included:
                         - Counting and writing numbers up to 100.
                         - Math games to reinforce number sense and counting.
                         - Review of simple patterns.
                         - Creating and interpreting information found in graphs.  

    We began our science Unit this week on "Growth and Change in animals." Students were introduced to the 6 classifications of animals and completed a sorting activity to place a variety of animals into their proper categories: mammals, birds, fish, insects, reptiles, or amphibians.          

    Today we started our first Art activity where we created Name art and only used two elements of design to decorate: lines and shapes. They are looking magnificent!

     We celebrated two birthdays this week: Happy Birthday to Dahlia and Gabe!

     Some parents have started asking about daily homework assignments. I will update everyone soon on the homework program I will be following. In the meantime I would suggest to read with your child every night and to play math games to reinforce their number sense and counting skills (these can be electronic games or simple dice/cards games).

    It has become very clear to me this week that our class is filled with very hard workers who take pride in the work that they do and I am so excited to see how the rest of the year unfolds with such a great group. Please continue to check this blog for updates, now that we are settling in I hope to update it often :)

    Cheers,

        Mrs. Miller