Homework

Homework:  Your child will have math and phonics homework most nights except 
Friday.  This homework will help to reinforce what has been taught in school 
each day.  It is so important to establish a homework routine for your child 
that includes a specific time and appropriate place that is free from 
distractions.  Please be sure and check over your child's work each night.  
Working together, I know that your child will greatly benefit.

IXL Assignment (for the week of Jan. 23):  
Under First Grade Skills:  A.3, B.19, N.1
For the week of Jan. 30:  A.6, B.11, N.2
For the week of Feb. 6:  A.10, B.12, N.3
For the week of Feb. 13:  A.11, B.15, L.1

Our spelling test will be every Thursday; our reading (vocabulary) test every 
Friday.

These are the spelling words for the next three tests:

List 22                   List 23                 List 24

great                     teacher                 jackpot
gummy                  Wednesday           ankle
fly                          end                      gift
Monday                  Sunday                  shy
Saturday                shatter                 restless
room                      soccer                  helpless
seen                      match                   night
cliff                        herd                    softly
topple                    Friday                  verb
took                      backpack                lunch
floppy                    tight                   Tuesday
sky                       freckle                 Thursday
yesterday              supper                  chair
jug                        name                    day
sandy                   clerk                   badly
friend                    most                    toothbrush
hood                      high                    money
large                     fireman                 color
silly                      home                    hammer
spoon                   more                    guess

We will have a timed math facts test every Wednesday. We will test on the 
mixed subtraction facts next.  Flash cards are an excellent way to prepare 
for this test.  The children will have 5 minutes to complete 36 
problems.  Examples are 9-9, 8-6, etc.  Each week we will proceed to the 
next test. 

Remember to read aloud with your child every night.  Record each book on the 
Millionaire sheet (250 books for first grade). 

Your child's AR book will come home nightly.  The book should be kept in the 
book bag and should be read at least 3 times before a test is taken.  You may 
send an e-mail or a note when your child is ready to take a test.  If you are 
comfortable, the child may just tell me when you both think he/she is ready.  
We will try to get a new book at least twice a week.  
For now, the children must be accompanied by an adult to check out a book.  
Eventually they will be independent.  There is no limit to the number of 
tests that may be taken in a week (as long as the score average stays above 
85%).   


AR:
*Our library day is Tuesday.
*Read your book every night and return it to your back pack.  Read your book 
three times before testing.
*Keep an 85% average on your tests.
*Read at least 2 non-fiction books every 9 weeks.  
*Enjoy reading your book!

Reading Stories and Vocabulary Tests:
We will read a new story each week and, each Friday, have a vocabulary test 
on words from the story.  The test will be "fill in the blanks".  

There are no new words this week.  Our vocabulary tests will continue the 
week of Feb. 20.  The children should understand the meaning of the words and 
be able to use them in context.

These are some of the concepts that we will be studying at school.

Reading:  author, illustrator, characters (who's in the story), main 
idea (what the story's mostly about) and details, plot, comprehension, 
retelling the story, setting, and good expression when reading aloud. Also, 
help your child read with the proper fluency (at a pleasant speed).   We need 
to know  what's on the title page (author, illustrator, title).

Math:  Counting (by twos, fives, tens, forward and backward), 
adding-vertical addition, subtraction, word problems, patterns, 
adding on and number lines, greater than, less than and equal to, 
graphs, finding numbers that are one more than, one less than another 
number, telling time, counting money and reading a thermometer, fractions 
(1/2, 1/4), place value (to 100), recognizing plane and solid shapes.  Know 
how many sides and vertices (corners) are on each shape.  Know if the solid 
shapes will stack, roll or slide.

Grammar:  Sentence structure, using a capital letter at the beginning of 
a sentence and a period, question mark or exclamation mark at the 
end, nouns and verbs, contractions, compound words, subject-verb 
agreement (he sees/we see), adjectives, pronouns, compound sentences. 
 You may want to practice irregular plural nouns; for example, children is 
the plural of child, men for man, women for woman, feet for foot etc.  
Also, words that end in x, sh, s and ch must have -es added to the end 
to make them plural.  We need to know the subject and predicate parts of a 
sentence, synonyms (tall, high; fat, wide).