* Note- anything underlined in the table above or highlighted below is a link *
Key to Abbreviations:
GP- The Gospel Project- Home Edition
HIG- Singapore Math Home Instructor's Guide
TB- Singapore Math Textbook
WB- Singapore Math Workbook
MM- Mental Math (see appendix in HIG)
CCC- Complete, check, correct
AAS- All About Spelling
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
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...
Friday - Sunday, October 22-24 Fortis Fall Campout @ Cedar Breaks Park, Georgetown
Thursday, October 28- DOGS/Spirit Day/Pizza Day AND Historic Dress Up- students may dress in costume as a historical figure from their grade level history study. Details below.
Friday, October 29 @ 4:00-6:30 pm Fortis Trunk or Treat!
Thursday, November 4- Picture retakes
Historic Dress Up- October 28th: Costumes must be in the theme of our historic 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!
***Dear Parents***
I have enjoyed speaking with you at Co-Teacher conferences. What a blessing it is to look *forward* to meeting with parents! It's easy to see why your children are such an incredible bunch: they have dedicated, involved, amazing role models.
Serving alongside you,
Mrs. Kuhn
Math:
Our students are being equipped with multiple strategies to add and subtract within 20. These are probably very different from how we learned as children! Nevertheless, they are powerful strategies that empahsize flexibility with numbers and operations. We want the students to be very comfortable with manipulating numbers, not just repeating a process.
Some students may find the first approach of subtracting from the 10 (HIG pg 72-73) confusing or uncomfortable. If your child prefers the second approach of subtracting down to a "friendly" 10 (pg 74), that is also a great approach. The ultimate objective of this lesson is to develop a strategy, outside of memorization, to subtract numbers that are not so friendly to subtract. Just be cognizant of the fact that even though a particular approach may seem confusing to you as an adult who learned a different way, your student very well may catch onto it and be able to use that strategy effectively. If you need any clarification on the different approaches, please reach out to me!
A note of explanation for MM 17:
Keep in mind that this exercise is more about showing understanding of the strategy and less about finding the numerical answer to 12-10 (for example). Use manipulatives liberally!
Reference the first paragraph on HIG pg 72, especially the 10-frame diagram, for these problems. If the example of 15-7 on HIG pg 72 was on MM 17, it would read: 15-7=____ + 5, and your student would fill in 3 for the blank.
Here's why: since we're starting with 15, we show that on a 10-frame as 10 and 5. We want to take away 7, but looking at the ones, we only have 5 of them, so we cannot take 7 from there. However, we CAN take 7 from the tens. We remove 7 from the full 10-frame, which leaves 3 there. In addition to those 3, we still have the 5 ones. So 15-7 is the same as 3 + 5.
Stated another way, build 15 on 10-frames as 10 and 5. "10 and 5" minus 7 is the same as "3 and 5."
Again, we are not trying to do algebra here. The idea is not for the student to figure out 15-7 by counting up and getting 8, then go to the other side of the equation and ask "___+5 =8? Oh, the blank is 3."
For those of you who are visual, this might help. These are the first two problems on MM17:
Reading:
Please administer Phonogram Assessments 2 & 3 on Monday of this week. You'll want to erase the previous markings on Assessment 2 before you do it again for this round. I'll look for both Assessments behind the Language Arts tab on Tuesday, 10/26.
The Sounds First phonemic awareness curriculum generally gives detailed explanations of new exercises on Day 1 of the week they are introduced. Since your home assignments begin on Day 2, if you ever need more information on an exercise, flip back to Day 1 to see if they addressed it at the beginning of the week.
Note for OPG L101: This week at home, you will be teaching OPG Lesson 101. Similar to OPG Lesson 96, Lesson 101 says that O alone is "disobedient." Disregard that! Instead, we teach the concept found in Key Card 8 (AAS Lesson 14- we aren't there yet!), which is known as the "Find Gold" rule: I and O often say their long sound when followed by two consonants. We taught the students this rule for I, so they have heard it before, and will now add O along with I to the rule.
Keep practicing all of those phonograms! A good practice is to make the connection between the phonogram cards/flashcard practice and actual text your child can read. In "Frog and Toad," for example, take time to preview the upcoming paragraph and let your child point out the phonograms they know. Have them practice what sound they will make when they get to that word.
Words from "The Surprise" that students should be able to decode, plus sight words (in parenthesis): It, (was), the, had, off, trees, they, on, will, go, to, Toad's, Frog, rake, (of), that, (have), his, be, a, shed, these, run, ran, so, not, see, him, grass, came, is, he, who, got, home, pile, clean, up, leaf, wind, land, that, had, must, get, and, my, both, when, each, went, bed.
Spelling:
This week in Step 9, we'll continue some work with silent e, this time in relation to deciding when to use C or K to make the /k/ sound. In addition to the new teaching that "we always use K in Vowel-Consonant-E syllables," you might find this chart helpful for recalling rules that tell us when to use C vs K in other spelling situations.
This week in Step 9, we'll continue some work with silent e, this time in relation to deciding when to use C or K to make the /k/ sound. In addition to the new teaching that "we always use K in Vowel-Consonant-E syllables," you might find this chart helpful for recalling rules that tell us when to use C vs K in other spelling situations.
History:
Questions for discussion: Can you list the steps for making glass? Why do you think blown glass was the most expensive kind of glass? What shape would you like to make with blown glass? Why did Dido want to live close to the water? What was her clever trick for buying lots of land?
Journal sentence: The Phoenicians were famous for blown glass and purple dye.
Science:
Science:
We are full swing into our butterfly study! The children are going to continue observing, collecting data, and journalling about what they're seeing with our caterpillars. This week our main focus is the life cycle, how God designed each part, and how He provides just what the butterfly needs through each stage of its life. What a great reminder that God is in the details! If He cares about the intricacies of each individual insect species, imagine how great a love He has for us who are called to an intimate relationship with Him!
Please skip the bolded "Science Journal" paragraph in the right column on page 42 (newer version)/pg 38 (older version). We will come back to it soon.
Geography:
Horn of Africa and East Africa Due 11/16
We are very excited to welcome a special guest on October 26th! Mr. Williams is going to share with us about his missionary trip to Uganda, which is, of course, one of the countries in East Africa.
Memory Work:
Quarter 2 poem: Count Your Blessings. Due 11/30.
Quarter 2 poem: Count Your Blessings. Due 11/30.
Books of the New Testament, due 12/2. Here is the song we practice with in class.
