* 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...
Thursday, October 7- Co-Teacher training @ 9am (optional)
Tuesday, October 12- Teacher Training- No School for students
Thursday, October 14- Spirit day
Friday - Sunday, October 22-24 Fortis Fall Campout @ Cedar Breaks Park, Georgetown
Thursday, October 28- Historic Dress Up- students may dress in costume as a historical figure from their grade level history study. Details below.
Friday, October 29 @ 3:30-6:30 pm Fortis Trunk or Treat!
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!
Math:
For the upcoming strategy of "Making a 10" it is IMPERATIVE that the students be quick with their math facts. Please spend extra time with flashcards and fun games now to solidify those facts to make this tricky- yet important- strategy easier for them to grasp.
Reading:
OPG L94 begins common spellings for the /ī/ sound with IE as /ī/ and Y alone as /ī/. We will focus dictation with 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. Here's a little more information if you're interested.
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.
Sight words in "Down the Hill": have, do, to, of, friend.
Science: We'll continue our study of bees and wasps this week by comparing and contrasting the two and making a Venn diagram in class. Would anyone like to make the Honey Candy recipe on G&B/A (pg 28 old version, pg 30 new version) to bring in on Thursday? It sounds delicious!
Journal sentence: Bees and wasps both pollinate plants.
I'm excited to see the projects you all have chosen! Let me know of any questions you have. The projects will be due and presented on November 11th.
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 October 14
First Quarter complete! We've officially completed the first quarter, so several assessments have been completed for report cards. I've listed some objectives for each subject below to give you a fuller picture of the growth we want to see happening with the students. As always, please feel free to ask if you need any help making your home days work for you and your child. This is just one of the beautiful things about our model!
Math Objectives: Your child should be:
1. FIRM and QUICK 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, put in some flashcard overtime!!**
2. able to write appropriate subtraction/addition equations for a given "story problem," knowing which numbers in the story are parts or whole.
**Note- (yes, I'm repeating this again!) If you've looked ahead to upcoming chapters in math, you'll have noticed that for the strategy of "Making a 10" it is IMPERATIVE that the students be quick with their math facts mentioned in objective 1 above. Please spend extra time with flashcards and fun games to solidify those facts to make this tricky- yet important- strategy easier for them to grasp.
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
Handwriting Objectives: Your child should be:
1. leaving appropriate spaces between letters and words.
2. forming letters properly- generally top-down, counter-clockwise.
3. beginning sentences with a capital letter and remembering the end punctuation.
Grammar Objectives: Your child should be:
1. able to define a noun and the difference between common & proper nouns
2. capitalizing all proper nouns.
2. capitalizing all proper nouns.
3. able to give you examples of nouns.
Spelling Objectives: Your child should be able to:
1. answer AAS key cards #1-6 of Level 2 (for card 6, they only need to answer "i" at this point) and all of Level 1 found here.
2. write all 30 words from Steps 2-4 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.
