Super Person Day!

Today, we enjoyed Super Person Day at South Perth! Students came dressed up as a favourite super person or came up with their own unique super hero. We wrote about 'If I was a super person...' and had some really exciting ideas how we could help the world and make it better preparing for World Kindness Day tomorrow! Check out student digital portfolios for their writing today! 

Phonics Lesson 55 - Silent/Super Hero E i_e: Nov 9-13 (Reading Practice Book)

Phonics Lessons: Super (Silent) E 

Note: please leave the clip on the previous completed pages and focus on the last two pages in the book. Mrs. Herbert will move the clip as pages are completed. Thanks!

Lesson 55: i_e /ī/

We have learned that the letter i spells two sounds so far with short and long vowel sounds. The letter i as in itch and the long vowel sound i as in ice cream. The long vowel sound is the same as the vowel's name. 

I spells /ī/ when there is a silent e at the end of a word, like in the words bike and side. The silent e makes vowels say their names, or long vowel sounds. It is important to notice when there is an e at the end of a word because it will tell us to say the long vowel sound like in the words, cake, same and made. Remember the e does not make a sound, it is silent.

In this week's text called, Kites for Sale, students are looking for words that have the silent e to make the i say its long vowel sound. They are looking to highlight the whole word that has that spelling pattern. Be careful for spelling patterns that are included in the story that include those letters that aren't part of this spelling pattern. Students are also looking to illustrate the story to demonstrate their understanding of the text.  

Heart (Irregular) Words of the Week

Heart words are words that do not decode or follow the spelling rules that we have been learning. We have to know them by 'heart'. However, once we learn more spelling rules, they may be only temporary heart words and the rules will come along later! In the meantime, we have been focusing on reviewing and learning the words below with focused in class practice.

This week we are reviewing (introduced last year):

• or
• for
• there
• where
• who

We are introducing as more review words also introduced last year:

• by
• my

Fluency Grids
With each lesson, there is a fluency grid with the lesson focus that is intended to help students recognize the phonics rule and assist in reading it with accuracy and automaticity. At home, challenge your young reader to read the word (aim is to decode/read each word within 3 seconds) and then recall it each time they see it within the grid of mixed up, repeated words. A couple minutes of practice is all they need. This acts as a warm up before reading the text that also applies the same skill while building on all the previous skills as well. Each week we are building on the previous week to become more fluent readers so we can focus on what the text is sharing rather than spending all the time decoding the words.

Homework Reminders 

Students have been working on the story in their Reading Practice book that will come home each weekend. At school, they work with a partner to complete their fluency grid, read with someone their story and highlight the focus words. Following, they are illustrating a picture for the text to show their understanding. At home, students are to finish the above tasks and read to an expert the week's lesson(s). After completing, parents are to initial at the indicated spot at the top. This week, we are have completed one lessons so there will be one story to complete in their white Reading Practice booklet. Please see the information letter in the front of the book for more, detailed information about this weekend practice book coming home. Please return on Monday (or Tuesday if there is a no school day on Monday). 

Happy reading!

More Word Work - Digraphs

We are now into our next focus of our phonological and phonemic awareness! Students are really showing a lot of growth in understanding word knowledge as we complete these daily activities! 

The focus of the next newsletter below is all about digraphs. This will be our focus for the next couple of weeks while in our class oral activities to really build our strengths in letter sound knowledge within words. Digraphs were introduced in Kindergarten and then reviewed in our decodable Reading Practice Books that have come home in the last few weeks. 

Included below is some information and activities to work on at home to compliment our learning in the classroom.  

More About Our Mental Math Strategies...

  

We are learning more addition and subtraction mental math strategies!! We have now learned five different strategies. A collection of the first four came home last month. Please use these at home to help with our math work that comes home and to practice these strategies when you get a chance to build our skills of our math facts! Students are loving the math challenges that are presented and should be proud of all they are learning! 

This past week, we introduced another new strategy called 'Zero Facts'. We have been focusing on this throughout the week and reviewed all strategies we have learned on Thursday. Friday we have our 5 question quiz to see how we are doing with all the strategies we have learned this far.   

Next week, we are going to introduce a new subtraction strategy called 'Wipe Out'. This is for all subtracting questions where the minuend and the subtrahend are the same number, we will always have a difference of zero! We will be focusing on this throughout this week and reviewing all strategies on Thursday. Friday we will have our 5 question quiz to see how we are doing.  

Following the learning of our 6th mental math strategy, and as marked on our mental math strategies poster, we will spend some time learning more about general math strategies of Count On for all addition sentences and Count Back for all subtraction sentences. These will help solidify the concepts of addition and subtraction. As well this will open our learning about learning how to add and subtract with bigger numbers. While that won't be mental math, it will be the next step in understanding numbers, and ways we can use hands on materials or drawings to help work with larger numbers.   

Learning About Empathy!

October's Cultivating Character focus was Empathy. We have been learning about the meaning of empathy and how to be an empathetic person. Little people are some of the best examples of empathetic people as they figure out the world around them. Research shows that empathy actually peeks at age 8! Let's continue to cultivate that empathy within ourselves and our wee ones to grow this world into a more peaceful and understanding place. 

We watched these short video clips:

We read these stories:

We listened to this song:

We have a pretty good understanding of what empathy is. We created a brainstorm of our ideas throughout our learning and now have it posted in our class:

We also watched a movie for our Halloween party called, Spookley the Square Pumpkin, learning all about differences and understanding how other's feel. 

In November, we have our Bullying Awareness week and World Kindness Day to explore a little bit more about empathy and what we can do to 'fill someone's bucket'! Watch for our posts about what we are learning about next month with this idea!

Scholastic Book Orders - Getting Ready for the Holidays!

Scholastic's Digital Flyers are now available for November & December! Click on the image above to take you to the digital flyer. As you click on items, it will load the online shopping link to be able to add items to your cart instantly. Remember at checkout to apply the Grade 1 Busy Bee Class Code RC192592 to add rewards to our class resource account. Due dates for these books will be Wednesday, November 25 for ship to classroom options & should be here long before Christmas!

A paper copy of the flyer will come home to browse through as well We share on the blog as well in case that paper copy gets replaced or extended family would like to place an order. All ordering is completed online and sent directly to your home or to the school (free to the school if the order is completed by the class due date). If the order is going to be stowed away as a gift, please let Mrs. Herbert know and she will let you know when the order arrives at the school to coordinate getting it to you. 

If you require any help, please let me know. Happy to help get books into little people's hands in any way possible to find a love of reading. 

Happy reading!! 

Phonics Lesson 54 - Silent/Super Hero E a_e: Nov 2-5 (Reading Practice Book)

Phonics Lessons: Super (Silent) E 

Note: please leave the clip on the previous completed pages and focus on the last two pages in the book. Mrs. Herbert will move the clip as pages are completed. Thanks!

Lesson 54: a_e /ā/

We have learned that the letter a spells two sounds so far with short and long vowel sounds. The letter a as in apple and a as in acorn. The long vowel sound is the same as the vowel's name. 

A spells /ā/ when there is a silent e at the end of a word, like in the words made and tape. The silent e makes vowels say their names, or long vowel sounds. It is important to notice when there is an e at the end of a word because it will tell us to say the long vowel sound like in the words, cake, same and made. Remember the e does not make a sound, it is silent.

In this week's text called, Cave in the Maze, students are looking for words that have the silent e to make the a say its long vowel sound. They are looking to highlight the whole word that has that spelling pattern of a_e. Be careful for spelling patterns that are included in the story that include those letters that aren't part of this spelling pattern. Students are also looking to illustrate the story to demonstrate their understanding of the text.  

Heart (Irregular) Words of the Week

Heart words are words that do not decode or follow the spelling rules that we have been learning. We have to know them by 'heart'. However, once we learn more spelling rules, they may be only temporary heart words and the rules will come along later! In the meantime, we have been focusing on reviewing and learning the words below with focused in class practice.

This week we are reviewing (introduced last year):

• could
• would
• should
• or
• for
• there
• where

We are introducing as more review words also introduced last year:

• who

Fluency Grids
With each lesson, there is a fluency grid with the lesson focus that is intended to help students recognize the phonics rule and assist in reading it with accuracy and automaticity. At home, challenge your young reader to read the word (aim is to decode/read each word within 3 seconds) and then recall it each time they see it within the grid of mixed up, repeated words. A couple minutes of practice is all they need. This acts as a warm up before reading the text that also applies the same skill while building on all the previous skills as well. Each week we are building on the previous week to become more fluent readers so we can focus on what the text is sharing rather than spending all the time decoding the words.

Homework Reminders 

Students have been working on the story in their Reading Practice book that will come home each weekend. At school, they work with a partner to complete their fluency grid, read with someone their story and highlight the focus words. Following, they are illustrating a picture for the text to show their understanding. At home, students are to finish the above tasks and read to an expert the week's lesson(s). After completing, parents are to initial at the indicated spot at the top. This week, we are have completed one lesson so there will be one story to complete in their white Reading Practice booklet. Please see the information letter in the front of the book for more, detailed information about this weekend practice book coming home. Please return on Monday (or Tuesday if there is a no school day on Monday). 

Happy reading!