| Blue Willow First Grade Newsletter |
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| September 2, 2003 |
| Welcome to grade one! It was with great pleasure that I welcomed your child today and began our learning journey together. Grade one is full of so many things to learn and do. Each day we'll work on reading, writing, mathematics and science. We'll have gym, music and art often. We share your child's excitement and anticipation! The first day of school is always very special. First Unit of Study Our first unit of study is "All About Me". We will identify the rules at school and in the community. We will learn about our environment by using our senses (touch, taste, hear, see, smell). We will identify the major parts of our body and learn about the stages of growth. We will use oral and written language to describe, explain and record information in a variety of ways. Library Book Exchange We will be going down to the school library to pick out books as soon as the Library is up and running (early october). We encourage the children to exchange their books frequently. This helps to inspire a love of reading. September Curriculum - printing using the correct letter formation - introducing the All Star Reading Strategies of "Look at the Book" and "Look at the Pictures" - writing using pictures, copied and known words and phonetic spelling - counting by 1's and 10's -collecting and recording data in graphs - using the five senses Peanut Allergies We are working hard to build a safe learning community for all children and one way we can do that is to avoid eating food that contains peanuts or may contain traces of peanuts at school. This respects those children who have life threatening allergies to peanuts. We appreciate your support by being aware and carefull with the food your child brings to school. Indoor Shoes To help keep the school and classroom as clean as possible and to ensure safe gripping shoes for gym time, we are requesting that the children have an extra pair of shoes for use inside the school.Veclro closures would be ideal! The children will be changing their shoes 3 times a day at school, and no one ever grows up not knowing how to tie laces, so for grade 1, if tying is a challenge, Velcro closure would be really helpful. Flat laces, not the round ones, are easier for children to handle. (Don't worry if you have lready purchased new shoes for this school year. They will be fine. Walking for Terry Fox and Fitness Research show us that getting into the daily exercise habit is a very good thing. During the month of September we will be walking or running daily to help the children understand the accomplishments of Terry Fox and to experience the benefits of daily exercise. We encourage the children to wear running shoes for safety during these walks. During the week prior to the Terry Fox Run, we will undertake a fund raising event that is tied to the math concept of identifying the coins and their values. As part of our Social Studies Curriculum, we will learn about an important Canadian each month. September's "Important Canadian" is Terry Fox. We will add up all of the coins and contribute them to the Terry Fox fund. Supplies The children could use the following items: - crayons - an eraser - pencil crayons - a pencil - a hand held pencil sharpener - 3 boxes of Kleenex - a glue stick - a pencil case - a duo tang - extra clothes (shirt, pants, underwear, socks) in a Large Labelled Zip-Lock Bag Homework Calendar Each day your child should spend 20 minutes engaged in reading. He/she can read books with your or you can read stories out loud. We will be sending home a Reading Log for you and your child to track the reading. With each classroom newsletter we will include a homework calendar with short daily exerceses that relate to the grade one curriculum. I will provide a homework book for your child to use to complete any written assignments. Please keep the homework book in the front pocket of the agenda and return it to school every day. Homework will be checked for completion approximately once a week. Agenda Every student in grades 1-8 will be provided with a School Agenda. Each day the children will record importatn information in their agendas. Parents are requested to initial the agenda daily. The agenda is also a place for parents and teachers to communicate. The cost of the agenda is $6.00. Please send the money to school as soon as possible. Thank you! Classroom Volunteers If you would like to volunteer in the classroom to work with children, please let me know as soon as possible. Volunteers provide that extra help and attention that the children benefit from and volunteers greatly enhance the learning environment. Things to Look for in the Future - Borrow-A-Book program when the children bring home levelled reading books from the library I look forward to working with you and your child this year, and take very seriously my responsibility as your child's classroom teacher. Please don't hesitate to contact me at any time during the year (905) 851-0043. Sincerely, Heather Metselaar [email protected] |
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