Dear Parents,

Hope your holidays were peaceful and joyous and the New Year finds you healthy and blessed.

We begin the New Year wrapping up the first half of first grade. Before you know it, report cards will be coming your way. I'm very proud of the progress we've made thus far. Please continue to work with your child at home. I can't stress this enough; it will benefit your child tremendously.

The curriculum for the second semester is quite challenging and we progress rather quickly through some concepts. I'm happy to say that several children have completed the Long Vowel Wordbook and have moved on to reading leveled books. We have a wide range of reading abilities in our classroom and this program is designed to meet the individual needs of each student. Some will be challenged and others will gain the confidence to find success in their reading. Unlike the wordbooks, the leveled readers stay at school. At home, please continue to read with your child 10 to 15 minutes each night.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the lovely Christmas gifts. I appreciate your thoughtfulness.

Have a great week!

Ms. Kopilchack

This week's activities:

Reading/Writing
Our story this week is, White Rabbit's Color Book. This is a delightful story that teaches us about combining primary colors to make "new" colors and about organizing information. It also introduces descriptive words, which will ultimately help us with our writing.

I'm sure you all loved your child's retelling of The First Christmas and am proud of his/her first effort at writing an individual story.

Phonics/Word Wall Activities
This week we will work on the short e sound. By now, your child should be able to spell most three-letter words that follow the CVC (consonant - vowel - consonant) pattern.

We will review the 70+ words on our word wall.

Math
We complete our unit on subtraction before moving on to Data and Graphs. Please continue to practice addition and subtraction facts at home.

Science
We begin a new science unit on Sound, Light and Heat.

Religion
Our new unit is Jesus Teaches Us To Love.

Homework - Making words, Sound, Light and Heat activity and read, read, read! Spelling.