First Grade Rocks Back-to-School Week

It was a sweet back-to-school week with my new friends in first grade! We are working on reviewing kindergarten skills and working on our storytelling unit.  

HEADS UP! Office paperwork and weekly homework is going home today (Thursday).

Your packet should have the following items:

lunch status letter

health survey form

ABC's of First Grade (orientation)

this newsletter

homework packet

Homework

Homework is part of your child's "grade."

A realistic goal would be to complete one assignment each day and read with your child each day.

Here is what you can expect in the first homework packet:a

alphabet practice: fill in the missing letter

number maze 5

spelling quiz practice sheet (has handwriting lines for 10 words)

reading log (front and back)

reading response sheet titled The Story and Me (please use the book titled Blue Corn Soup that was sent home this week )

finish unfinished work (you are welcome to send it back)

Spelling quiz

Spelling quiz words come out every Thursday (see list below).

The quiz is the following Thursday, so there is one week to practice at home as well as at school.

The first spelling words are: at, sat, it, sit, in, tin, am, ham, nonsense word: lin, sight word: I (No sentence is assigned yet.)

Reading

Please read at least 15 minutes to your child every night and keep logging the experience on the reading log. Once it is completed, please send the reading log back to school with the homework packet on a Thursday.
Also, the hard-cover book Blue Corn Soup was sent home with each child as a gift this week. Hope you enjoy reading the book together and hang on to it as there will be assignments related to the book.

Nature table
There is a nature table in our room to explore earth science, the seasons and the magic of the natural world. I will be requesting "show and tell" items that can be displayed there as often as the children are done with each current theme. We have a harvest/end-of-summer theme on our nature table now. You are welcome to send one "show and tell" item any THURSDAY to be added to our nature table and returned to you at a later date. Please encourage your child to find something that fits the theme (possibly something not made by man) and is not especially valuable/precious.

Star students
There are "star student" notes sent home in children's lunch boxes daily. Everyone is eager to be helpful and kind in class to earn that note! Soon, students will be ready to get a small prize from our treasure chest. Please feel free to send in SMALL treasures (new OR used toys/stickers/craft items) for this exciting purpose.

Student of the Month ceremony
It's a monthly event to celebrate students at TISA. Our first student of the month celebration will be held at the end of August. Date and students will be announced in the next newsletter.

Birthdays
The children took a vote between fruit salad and pizza to celebrate birthdays. Pizza won by a landslide!


Specialty classes (drama, music and dance), lunch program and aftercare (4-5pm) are all slated to start next Monday. There is no school care on Fridays.

TISA students and parents are invited to a free event at Northern New Mexico College, featuring Ozomatli. The festivities are family friendly, alcohol-free and drug-free. We have a chartered bus available that will be arriving at the TISA Campus Friday, August 17th at 11:00 am.

As a grand finale to our first week, multi-talented Chris Pieper shared traditional native American stories and made ice-cream with liquid nitrogen with us on Thursday.