1st Grade T/Th- Week 9- October 7-13

1st Grade Week 9Tue, Oct 7Wed, Oct 8Thu, Oct 9Fri, Oct 10Mon, Oct 13Co-Teacher Notes
VirtuePrudence- "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age." Titus 2:11
BibleGP Week 9, pg 134-137GP Week 9, pg 134 & 138-140GP Week 9, pg 141-143GP Week 9, pg 144-146GP Week 9, Optional Fun Day, pg 147Big Picture Question: What can stop God's plan? Nothing can stop God's perfect plan.
MathHIG pg 56-59, TB pg 54-56, WB Ex 35 pg 83-85Parent read HIG pg 56-57, HIG pg 60, TB pg 57 through #4 on pg 58, WB Ex 36 pg 86-87 (read number words to your student), Ex 37 pg 88-89; Rainbow factsHIG pg 61, TB pg 58 #5 through pg 59, WB Ex 38 pg 90-91HIG pg 62-63, TB pg 60-61, WB Ex 39 pg 92-94; Rainbow factsHIG pg 61 Reinforcement;

Rainbow math facts

Parent read & understand HIG pg 64 for next week (preparing flashcards on pg 65 is optional; we will be teaching strategies for figuring these out, but extra practice never hurts!)
SpellingLesson 6:

Review sound cards;

Review syllable division rule for two consonants; complete syllable division VCCV worksheet

Dictate last three sentences on pg 79
Review/correct dictation from Tuesday;

Complete Karate Chopping Words worksheet (glued into student's Spelling Journal) to practice syllable division rule for two consonants
Lesson 6 written assessmentLesson 7, Words with Open and Closed Syllables:

Parent read pg 81;

Review a selection of Sound, Rule, and Word Cards from your card box;

Review previous concept, pg 82;

Use letter tiles for New Teaching, pg 82-83;

Dictate Word Cards 31-40 in Spelling Journal
Lesson 7:

Review a selection of Sound, Rule, and Word Cards from your card box;

Review pg 82-83;

Dictate first three sentences on pg 85 in journal

AND

Lesson 8- Syllable Division Rule for One Consonant:

Parent read pg 87-88;

Use letter tiles for New Teaching pg 89- middle of pg 90
Check assessment from Thursday and add missed Word Cards to Review tab of card box; file Word Cards that your student has mastered in Mastered tab
GrammarFLL Lesson 27, pg 40: "Hearts Are Like Doors"FLL Lesson 28, pg 41: Common and Proper Nouns (Family relationships and places)Write the Room- Nouns activityFLL Lesson 29, pg 42-43: Proper Nouns (Address and Zip Code)
WritingLowercase alphabet- neatness and speedCopybook pg 39- Copying (step 4); Write neatly and accurately.Lowercase alphabet- neatness and speedCopybook pg 39 - Proof/Correct and Illustrate (steps 5 and 6)
ReadingReview all phonograms;

SF Week 8, Day 1, pg 125-128;

Introduce The Vowel Pair IE as /ī/ and Y alone as /ī/ (OPG L94)
Review phonograms;

SF Week 8, Day 2, pg 129-131;

OPG Lesson 94: The The Vowel Pair IE as /ī/ and Y alone as /ī/, pg 171-172; Dictation: dry, sky, shy, try;

Read "Down the Hill" from "Frog and Toad All Year"- Orally narrate & discuss
Review all phonograms;

SF Week 8, Day 3, pg 132-134;

Introduce Y plus a Silent E as /ī/, sight word: eye (OPG 95)
Review all phonograms;

SF Week 8, Day 4, pg 135-137;

OPG Lesson 96
**top half only** (read story containing short and long i sounds), pg 174;

Read "Down the Hill" from "Frog and Toad All Year" again for fluency practice
Review all phonograms;

SF Week 8, Day 5, pg 138-140;

Play I Spy game from OPG L95, pg 173

Re-read story on the top half of OPG pg 174
Add sight word "eye" to Review box; All sight words that should be learned and reviewed thus far: the, I, a, of, have, give, to, two, too, was, said, do, who, friend, eye
Read AloudRabbit Hill, pg 59-62Rabbit Hill, pg 63-66Rabbit Hill, pg 67-70Rabbit Hill, pg 71-74
HistorySotW Ch. 11 Ancient Africa; Ansani and TurtleSotW Chapter 12: The Middle Kingdom of Egypt, pg 99-103; Discussion questions below;

Journal sentence: Egypt became powerful during the Middle Kingdom.
ScienceG&B/A Lesson 5: Butterflies- Butterfly Facts Game only, pg 26-27 (instructions on pg 23);

Journal: Student copies their favorite fact into their journal.
Characteristics of Butterflies; Read aloud: "A Butterfly is Patient"

Assign Arthropod Project
Arthropod Project due 11/13

Presentation Guidelines- click here

Arthropod Observation form- click here
GeographyNorthern Central Africa and Northern Africa - Due 10/16
Memory WorkSCRIPTURE: John 15:1-17 ESV (ongoing)
New Testament books in order, due 12/4
MATH: Rainbow Fact cards (ongoing)
QUARTER 2 POEM: "Count Your Blessings," due 11/20
GEOGRAPHY: Northern Central Africa & Northern Africa, due 10/16
 
*Note anything underlined in the table above or in the notes below is a clickable link for your convenience *

Key to Abbreviations:
GP- The Gospel Project- Home Edition
HIG- Singapore Math Home Instructor's Guide (click to print addition or subtraction cards)
TB- Singapore Math Textbook
WB- Singapore Math Workbook
EP- Singapore Math Extra Practice
MM- Mental Math (see appendix in HIG)
AAS- All About Spelling teacher manual (click here to print any missing phonogram cards)
FLL- First Language Lessons
SF- Sounds First Phonemic Awareness Program (click here and scroll down to Grade 1)
OPG- The Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading (click here to print OPG sight words)
SotW- Story of the World
G&B/A- The Good and The Beautiful, Arthropods
G&B/MB- The Good and The Beautiful, Marine Biology 



Coming Soon:

Thursday, October 9- Spirit Day (no pizza)

Tuesday, October 14- Teacher/Co-Teacher conferences; no class for students

Tuesday, October 21- Picture retakes

Friday, October 24- Fortis Fall Fest (more info to come!)

Thursday, October 30- Historical Dress Up- students may dress in costume as a historical figure from their grade level history study. Details below.

Thursday, October 30- Spirit/Pizza/DOGS Day- Fortis spirit shirts and shorts or jeans may be worn

Historical Dress Up- October 30th: Costumes must be in the theme of our history studies this year, which will cover nomads through the beginning of Christianity (see SotW Chapters 1-37). Guidelines: No weapons, no gore, nothing scary, students need to be able to move and sit properly and use the restroom on their own. Have fun thinking of ideas. I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Math
For the upcoming strategy of "Making a 10" it is IMPERATIVE that the students be fluent with their math facts. Please spend extra time now with math facts, building the facts on a 10-frame and strenghthening number sense to make this important strategy easier for them to grasp. Also note that it is still necessary for your child to be progressively mastering all of the math facts within 10, even if they are not remembering to tell me they are ready for their next rainbow card. 

Reading
OPG L94 begins common spellings for the /ī/ sound with IE as /ī/ and Y alone as /ī/. We will focus dictation for that lesson on the words ending with Y as /ī/, as we have already studied in AAS. This is by far the most common way to spell /ī/ at the end of a word. OPG teaches /ī/ as one of the sounds for IE, even though there are only about 4-5 English words that are spelled with IE as /ī/ at the end. You may choose IE words to dictate in your student's OPG Dictation Pages if you wish.

We will start reading from "Frog and Toad All Year" this week! As with Little Bear, allow your child to read the words they know how to decode, while you fill in by reading words they haven't learned to decode yet. I know they will fall in love with Frog & Toad! 
Words from "Down the Hill" that students should be able to decode: the, hill, Frog, wake, up, he, and, see, is, I, will, not, am, in, my, bed, fun, came, things, top, hat, help, best, kill, me, went, they, we, ride, this, big, on, sled, be, with, it, fine, fast, sit, go, bump, fell, past, trees, rocks, glad, that, steer, can, than, but, bang, hit, thud, plop, well, by, did, that, home, may, much.   
Irregular/heart words in "Down the Hill": said, have, do, to, of, friend.

Spelling: 
In Lessons 7 and 8, we are continuing to work on spelling words with open and closed syllables, as well as learning how to divide those types of words into syllables. Syllable division rules are essential for decoding unknown multisyllable words. Refer to the page in your binder behind the Language Arts tab for a quick reminder of the syllable division rules. 
On Thursday, students will glue a worksheet called Code, Roll, and Read into their spelling journals. This game will be an optional assignment for the following week. 

Science: 
This week we begin a unit on butterflies! Even those among us who are not terribly fond of most insects can enjoy the beauty and grace of the lovely butterfly. As we know, they don't start out that way. Not only will we (hopefully!) witness an amazing physical transformation, we'll take the time to understand it as a picture of the amazing work God does in our own lives. He takes us from crawling around in our sinful state, and through his work on the cross, changes us into a completely new creation!

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" -2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV

This week, your child will be bringing home information for this semester's science project. You will receive hard copies of the presentation guidelines and the Arthropod Observation formThe Arthropod Project will be due November 13th. This is intended to be a fun and educational project for your student! 

History:
SotW Ch. 12 questions for disucssion: Why did Amenemhet want to conquer Nubia? What kind of weapons did the Hyksos use against the Egyptians? What was the turning point that lead to the Hyskos being defeated?
Journal sentence: Egypt became powerful during the Middle Kingdom.

Geography
Due 10/16

Memory Work:
It's time to start learning our Quarter 2 poem, "Count Your Blessings." Click here for a version of the melody you can use to practice at home (our poem only contains the first and fourth verses and the chorus). Due 11/20

We're also beginning to learn the books of the Bible in order, beginning with the New Testament (we will go back and do the Old Testament after Christmas). Here is the song we practice with in class. Your child is free to learn the books with that song or another song they may perhaps already know. Due 12/4

First quarter complete! We officially completed the first quarter last week. I've listed some objectives for each subject below to give you a fuller picture of the goals we're striving for with the students. 

Math Objectives: Your child should be: 
1. fluently and quickly adding and subtracting with "Friends of 10" (8+2=10 and 10-2=8, as examples) by now, approaching mastery of other bonds (addition and subtraction) within 10. If not, please make this a focus!
2. able to write appropriate subtraction/addition equations for a given "story problem," knowing which numbers in the story are parts or whole.

Reading Objectives:  
1. By the end of every week your child should have practiced reading aloud to you for at least a total of 1 hour from OPG.  Their reading fluency should be continually improving.
2. Use phonograms to decode the OPG lessons from each week.  
3. Say phonogram sounds from assessments 1-2; be working on sounds from assessment 3.
4. Know how to identify open and closed syllables and their corresponding vowel sounds.

Handwriting Objectives: Your child should be:
1. leaving appropriate spaces between letters and words.
2. forming letters properly- top to bottom, left to right
3. beginning sentences with a capital letter and remembering the end punctuation. 
4. using uppercase and lowercase letters appropriately (not writing uppercase letters in the middle of words).

Grammar Objectives: Your child should be:
1. able to define a noun and the difference between common & proper nouns
2. capitalizing all proper nouns.
3. able to give you examples of nouns.

Spelling Objectives: Your child should be able to:
1. recite AAS rule cards correctly.
2. write words from Lessons 1-6 correctly from dictation.  

History/Geography Objectives: 
1. Practice oral narration skills that will translate to written narration skills.
2. Become comfortable and successful presenting information to a group.

Science Objectives: Your child should be:
1. lead to worship the Creator in response to the awe inspired by a deeper understanding of our world.
2. able to identify the major characteristics of an insect: six legs, three body parts, two antennae.
3. able to name several insects and describe their special qualities.

1st Grade T/Th- Week 8- September 30 - October 6

1st Grade Week 8Tue, Sep 30Wed, Oct 1Thu, Oct 2Fri, Oct 3Mon, Oct 6Co-Teacher Notes
VirtuePrudence- "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age." Titus 2:11
BibleGP Week 8, pg 118-121GP Week 8, pg 118 & 122-124GP Week 8, pg 125-127GP Week 8, pg 128-130GP Week 8, Optional Fun Day, pg 131-132Big Picture Question: What can stop God's plan? Nothing can stop God's perfect plan.
MathHIG pg 52-54, TB pg 52-53 (#1), WB Ex 32 pg 66-67, Ex 33 pg 68Parent read HIG pg 52; HIG pg 53-54 (Review from Monday),TB pg 53 #2, WB Ex 34 pg 69-70, MM 10 (all problems): have your student discuss which strategy they used for each problem as a review for assessment tomorrowReview 2 / 3 (Assessment)Look over Review 2 / 3 and re-teach missed conceptsExtra Practice book pg 26-27;

Rainbow math facts: make sure your student knows addition and subtraction facts through 10 well, especially pairs that make 10!

Start thinking about next unit: Give your child a piece of paper and between 11-19 stickers. Ask them to arrange the stickers on the paper into a group of 10 and some ones left over. Have them put a box or circle around the group of 10. Ask them to write the total number of stickers on the page. I will let them share their sticker collection in class on Tuesday.
New unit ahead! Make sure your student knows addition and subtraction facts through 10 well, especially pairs that make 10.
SpellingLessons 4 & 5:
Review Sound Cards;

Review Rule Card 10, The Every Syllable Rule;

Practice spelling More Words;

Dictate first three sentences on pg 72
Review/correct dictation from Tuesday;

Lesson 5:
Review a selection of Sound, Rule, and Word Cards from your card box;

Use You've Got Rhythm activity (see Teacher's Manual pg 71) to review words with two closed syllables;

Dictate last three sentences on pg 72 in Spelling journal
Lessons 4 & 5 written assessmentLesson 6, Syllable Division Rule for Two Consonants:

Parent read pg 75-76;

Review a selection of Sound, Rule, and Word Cards from your card box;

Review previous concept, pg 76;

Use letter tiles for New Teaching, pg 77-78
Lesson 6:

Review a selection of Sound, Rule, and Word Cards from your card box;

Review pg 77-78;

Dictate first three sentences on pg 79 in journal
Check assessment from Thursday and add missed Word Cards to Review tab of card box; file Word Cards that your student has mastered in Mastered tab
GrammarFLL Lesson 23, pg 33: Common Nouns (Things)FLL Lesson 25, pg 37-38: Proper Nouns (Aunts and uncles), Introducing oral usage: Avoiding "ain't"FLL Lesson 24, pg 34-35: Picture narration: "The Family"FLL Lesson 26, pg 39: Proper Nouns (Cousins)
WritingLowercase alphabet- neatness and speedCopybook pg 37- Copying (step 4); Write neatly and accurately.Lowercase alphabet- neatness and speedCopybook pg 37 - Proof/Correct and Illustrate (steps 5 and 6)
ReadingReview Phonogram Cards;

SF Week 7, Day 1, pg 109-112;

Introduce The Vowel Pair EA as /ē/ (OPG L90)
Review Phonogram Cards;

SF Week 7, Day 2, pg 113-115;

OPG Lesson 90: The The Vowel Pair EA as /ē/, pg 166; Dictation: beat, each, dream (remind students to use EA for /ē/)
Review Phonogram Cards;

SF Week 7, Day 3, pg 116-118;

Review the Vowel Pair EA, Sight Words: do, who (OPG L91)
Review Phonogram Cards;

SF Week 7, Day 4, pg 119-121;

OPG Lesson 92: The Vowel Pair IE as /ē/, Sight Word: friend, pg 169; Dictation: field, chief, thief (remind students to use IE for /ē/)
Review Phonogram Cards (add IE);

SF Week 7, Day 5, pg 122-124;

OPG Lesson 93: Review of the Long-E Vowel Pairs;

Read decodable passage, "The Piglets" sent home in student's folder (see note in Reading section below)

Get "Frog and Toad All Year" ready for next week!
Add phonogram card IE (both sounds) to Review tab and include it in your regular phonogram review;

Add sight words "do," "who," and "friend" to Review box; All sight words that should be learned and reviewed thus far: the, I, a, of, have, give, to, two, too, was, said, do, who, friend
Read AloudRabbit Hill, pg 43-46Rabbit Hill, pg 47-50Rabbit Hill, pg 51-54Rabbit Hill, pg 55-58
HistoryReview SotW Ch 9 folktale "The Hunter and the Quail;" Read "Once a Mouse;" Compare/ contrast the two folk talesSotW Ch. 10- The Far East: Ancient China, pg 77-85; Discussion questions below;

Journal sentence: China became famous for its silk.
ScienceFinalize oral narration about most interesting insect to present in class tomorrow (see Science section below)Oral narration presentations
GeographyNorthern Central Africa and Northern Africa - Due 10/16
Memory WorkSCRIPTURE: John 15:1-17 ESV (ongoing)
MATH: Rainbow Fact cards (ongoing)
QUARTER 1 POEM: "Persevere," due 9/30
QUARTER 2 POEM: "Count Your Blessings," due 11/20
GEOGRAPHY: Northern Central Africa & Northern Africa, due 10/16

  *Note anything underlined in the table above or in the notes below is a clickable link for your convenience *

Key to Abbreviations:
GP- The Gospel Project- Home Edition
HIG- Singapore Math Home Instructor's Guide (click to print addition or subtraction cards)
TB- Singapore Math Textbook
WB- Singapore Math Workbook
EP- Singapore Math Extra Practice
MM- Mental Math (see appendix in HIG)
AAS- All About Spelling teacher manual (click here to print any missing phonogram cards)
FLL- First Language Lessons
SF- Sounds First Phonemic Awareness Program (click here and scroll down to Grade 1)
OPG- The Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading (click here to print OPG sight words)
SotW- Story of the World
G&B/A- The Good and The Beautiful, Arthropods
G&B/MB- The Good and The Beautiful, Marine Biology 



Coming Soon:

Thursday, October 9- Spirit Day (no pizza)

Tuesday, October 14- Teacher/Co-Teacher conferences; no class for students

Tuesday, October 21- Picture retakes

Friday, October 24- Fortis Fall Fest (more info to come!)


 **Dear, Loving Parents**
It’s officially fall, y’all...or so they say! As we enjoy these longed-for cooler days, consider putting your child's boundless youthful energy to good use on those change-of-season jobs that must be tackled. They may not complete the job perfectly, but the lessons they will learn working alongside you are invaluable!


Math:
This week we will finish up Units 4-5 and complete a cumulative assessment. As with our prior math assessment, I will send home the students' ungraded tests for you to review with them the next day, and I will have a copy for myself to grade. Grades will be in Alma by the end of the week. 

Heads up: Math will really ramp up soon when we introduce the addition strategy of making a 10. Your child will struggle if they are not already firm and quick in parts of 10. Prepare your child now for success! Practice parts of 10 for as long as it takes for them to gain automaticity. Ten frames and rekenreks are great tools for practice!

Spelling:
This week in Lesson 6, students will work on understanding how to divide multisyllabic words that have two consonants between the vowels. Though it is presented in our spelling curriculum, this skill is actually even more applicable to reading. When students understand how to divide a word into syllables and then identify what types those syllables are, they will know which vowel sound to use when they read the syllable. We will continue to work on syllable division rules in the weeks to come. 

Lesson 6 does not introduce any new word cards. The assessment for this lesson will consist of sentences covering concepts students have already been taught. 


Handwriting:
I'm noticing some students are forming their letters incorrectly and inefficiently. Please observe closely when they write to make sure students are making the correct strokes in the correct sequence rather than recreating the letter their own way. Here is a video of uppercase letter formation and one for lowercase letter formation if you need a visual. You can also reference the letter formation guidelines in your binder. I'm working on correcting errors when I see them made in class as well. 


Reading:
This week we'll work on the vowel pairs EA and IE. We already know EA can say the /ā/ sound, but now we'll discover its more common sound, /ē/. Add both of the sounds for IE to your phonogram practice, even though we will only cover /ē/ at first.  

A reminder for teaching "sight words"- First, identify the letters in the word that are making their expected sounds. For the word friend, those would be almost all of the letters... f, r, n, and d. Then identify the part of the word that is making an unexpected sound. This part may be a true rule breaker/exception, or it may follow a rule we haven't taught yet. Regardless, it is making a sound we would not expect and therefore needs to be memorized. In our example of friend, this would be the letters "ie." We know they can make the /ē/ or /ī/ sounds, but they don't make the sound of /ĕ/ that we hear in friend. So we can sound out most of this word, but we will have to remember that the IE is a rule breaker, and that this word says "friend." Continue to reference the Routine for Teaching Irregular Words/Heart Words handout in your child's binder. 

Speaking of friends, it's almost Frog and Toad time! Get "Frog and Toad All Year," by Arnold Lobel ready as we'll begin this delightful book next week.

In Spelling we're working on compound words and words with two closed syllables. However, OPG does not touch on any multisyllablic words until the 2nd grade lessons, so for practice reading compound words, I'm sending home a passage called "The Piglets." Before your child reads this passage, please have them highlight the compound words and help them draw a vertical line in each word to show the two smaller words that make up each syllable. Big words don't have to be scary when we know how to divide and read each syllable! Note that you will have to tell your student the word "are," as it is a heart/irregular word we haven't covered yet. 

Remember to keep reviewing old phonograms as you focus on learning newly introduced ones!

History:
This week we venture into ancient China and revisit the silkworm, which we covered recently in Science as well. Students will discover something very interesting about the conditions in which rice grows! 
Questions for discussion: Compare what you know about butterfly cocoons to silkworm cocoons. Why do you think no one has made fabric out of butterfly cocoons? Can you think of a way to help Chin and his father plant rice seedlings without getting their feet so cold?
 
Journal sentence: China became famous for its silk.

Science: 
Look over the insects we've studied so far this quarter: termites, fireflies, mosquitoes, silkworms, bees, and wasps. Help your child prepare a short oral narration to share with us in class answering 3 questions: which insect they found most interesting, what about that insect intrigued them, and why they think God chose to make that insect that way. This can be as short as two sentences! For example: "I think the firefly is the most interesting insect because it makes cold light. God made them light up so they can send messages to each other." Students should memorize their presentation and speak in complete sentences when presenting. Reading the presentation is not allowed. 
Oral presentation due date: Thursday, October 2

Geography:
Northern Central Africa & Northern Africa, due 10/16

Memory Work: 
"Persevere" memorization is due this Tuesday, 9/30.