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Mrs. Brecht's Classroom News
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Mrs. Brecht's First Grade Classroom Fall/September 2011 Welcome to First Grade. This year 1B has 13 students. We are very busy already! We have begun our study of Butterflies/Caterpillars and Moths. We have two monarch caterpillars that we hope will make a chrysalis and emerge a Monarch Butterfly. In 27 years of teaching I have never had a failure with these caterpillars, so I hope this won't be the first! We are also studying the author, Kevin Henkes. Our next units of study will be Curious George and the author H.A. Rey, fish, frogs, ponds and apples. This fall we will have our Homecoming celebration. We will go to Van Horne for the Homecoming parade and Pep Rally. We will begin our reading centers and guided reading time. Students will be reading at their level every day. During this reading time students will meet with me and also work at reading centers. We will work on reading strategies, phonemic awareness skills, fluency, comprehension and expression. We will also begin our Writer's Workshop time in the mornings. We will work on sentence writing, sentence structure, punctuation, story writing, beginning- middle- end- of a story, editing and storytelling. Jolly Grammar Spelling and Dictation will begin on Tuesday, September 6th. The spelling words are listed on this web site. We are not sending home the list and we are not asking for any formal spelling word studying at home. We want you to be informed of the words and what your child is working on during the week. We work on strategies in words through this program. There are 10 words and 3 sentences the students will work on for a week. We will do all the work here during our Jolly Grammar time. We are asking that you read with your child every night. Your child will be bringing home a book they can read at their reading level. The ELL books will be sent home every night for you and your child to enjoy. Please sign the paper indicating it has been read and a different book will be sent home the next night. Thank you so much for your involvement. October/November 2011 Our October will be busy. We are investigating many Autumn things. The visit to the fire station is a lot of fun. We always squirt water into the street. We will use a microscope in the science center. We will have a bat skeleton hanging in the science center. Many investigations will happen while the bat hangs upside down. The favorite units have been spiders and bats. Your children will know what color spider blood is and they would love to share what they know about spiders. Karen Phelps Benton County Naturalist will come to visit us this month. She will tell us about Wild Cats and also Bats. We will end the first quarter this month. Testing and reporting home will occur this month. Parent teacher conferences will be at the end of the month. Halloween is here! Trick or Treat safely! NOVEMBER 2010 This month will be spent on learning and investigating about Native American tribes. We will study many different tribes. We will be reading a lot of nonfiction books, legends and fiction stories this month. We will also have a week of Cowboys and learn about their jobs and what life is like on a ranch. There will be a surprise in the room for the 1B children during that week! We will also be studying turkeys. We will be reading nonfiction books about turkeys. Karen Phelps, Benton County Naturalist will be visiting us during the month of November. We will be singing at the Veterans Day Program on Tuesday, November 10th. December 2011 We have begun our work this month on Traditions Around the World. We are studying many countries and their Christmas/Holiday Traditions. We will have 2 students from the University of Iowa International Student Department visiting us and sharing their experiences with us. Anne is from Kenya and Dominik is from Germany. We are enjoying the gingerbread people that came back to school. Thank you so much for all the work. We have seen a lot of creative ideas! Our Christmas program is Tuesday, December 13th at 6:30. Our class party will be December 22nd. Girls bring a gift for a girl and Boys will bring a gift for a boy. Please don't spend more than $5.00. We will have a grab bag for the boys and there will be a grab bag for the girls. January 2012 Welcome back to School! We are very busy finishing our 2nd quarter of first grade. Report cards will be sent home The week of January 17th. Karen Phelps will be visiting us this month and talking about habitats. We are busy learning about penguins, winter, snow and ice, animals in the winter and temperature. February 2012 In the month of February we will have to make our predictions about the Ground Hog seeing his shadow or not. We are hoping for an early spring! We will be continuing to work on our 0-20 math facts. Students will be taking a math facts test every Friday. Those students that receive 90% or better will be given an extra recess supervised by our principal, Mrs. Strempke. We will continue to work on the Fact Families through 20. Karen Phelps will be visiting us this month and talking to us about Prairies, Meadows etc. March 2011 March starts off with our prediction of whether we are going to see March coming in like a lamb or a lion. We then will start learning about all the kinds of rocks and minerals we have in our area. The children really enjoy becoming aware of all the "old" rocks that are around and what rocks are used for in our daily lives. The sun, moon and stars will be studied next in the month of March. We will also be busy learning about careers and spring as the month closes. During the months of March, April and May we will be working on map skills. We will be reading, designing and recording information on maps. The children love the maps unit. It will be an extensive unit taking us to the end of the year. We are continuing our work on our addition and subtraction facts and fact families through 20. Karen Phelps will visit this month and talk to us about Geology and will have experiments for us to perform in the room. Be sure to call the office and get signed up for your spring conference. April 2012 Those of you that didn't have your conference in March have an opportunity to sign up for an April date. Call Cathy in the office, 227-7142. During the month of April we will be studying about Baseball, Softball, Track and Field, Summer Olympics, Farm Animals and Bugs. We will continue our work on maps. It will take us to the end of the year. The children are really enjoying the maps unit. We are continuing to work on our basic facts through 20. Karen Phelps will be visiting us this month and talking about animal hygiene. We will have Spring Break from April 2nd-5th. We will resume classes on April 6th. V.I.P. Day is in May. More information will be updated here as we receive it from the V.I.P. Committee. May 2012 The end of first grade is near. We will be assessing children and reporting their progress. We will be wrapping up our maps unit this month. The children are so excited about maps and all they've learned. We will have our V.I.P. Day this month. More information will be sent home about this day. It is Thursday May 5th. Each student may invite 1(one) V.I.P. for the afternoon. Please return the goldenrod permission slip so we know who has permission to leave with their V.I.P. Our final testing will take place. Report cards will go home at the end of the month. All library books need to be back. We are asking that all ELL books be back to us by Friday, May 6th. If an ELL book is lost we ask that $4.50 be sent to school to replace the book. Thank you.
Mrs. Brecht's First Grade Norway Elementary
Benton Community
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