IMPORTANT INFORMATION
School starts at 8:40. We will always enter and leave the building at the first grade doors! Bring your folder daily to school! Show-and-Tell has officially starting! Each THURSDAY, we will have show and tell. The students are welcome to bring pictures of an item if it is breakable, or of sentimental or monetary value instead of the actual item. Tiger Pride is on Friday! Let’s show our tiger pride by wearing one of our Ridgecrest shirts or a shirt that is orange or blue! Volunteering: Ms. Terry added more slots to her sign up! Here is the link if you want to sign up! :) http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f094ba9ac2ba7fd0-volunteer *** REMINDER: As of January 15th, students are no longer allowed to speak English in the Chinese classroom! Please reinforce this at home and encourage your child to speak as much Chinese as possible. You can look on Dojo to monitor your child's progress. It is amazing to hear them speaking so much Chinese! LUNCH CHOICES Monday: Baked Potato, Hamburger, or Grilled Cheese Sandwich Tuesday: Cheesy Chicken Quesadilla, Mini Corn Dogs, or Chef Salad Wednesday: Hot Ham & Cheese Sandwich, Cheesy Nachos, Wow Butter and Jelly Sandwich Thursday: Dutch Waffle, Chicken Nuggets or Taco Salad Friday: Pizza Rippers, Bean and Cheese Burrito, or Turkey Sandwich Chinese New Year: We are excited to invite you and your families to attend the Ridgecrest Elementary Chinese New Year celebration on TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5TH. The event will be held at the school that evening from 6:00-8:00 pm. Families are encouraged to attend and participate in fun Chinese crafts and activities, eat Chinese food, and best of all: watch your students perform! Each grade level will be performing different songs, demonstrations, or skits. Please join us in celebrating the most important holiday in Chinese culture! If your child already owns traditional Chinese clothing, they are welcome to wear it to the event. If not, we are asking dual immersion students to wear yellow and red, which are auspicious colors in Chinese culture. If your student does not already own either traditional Chinese clothing OR yellow or red clothes, THAT IS PERFECTLY FINE! We are NOT requiring anyone to purchase special clothing for this event. If your child would like to practice the songs they are performing that night, there are two links posted under “Chinese Information” on our blog. Scroll to the top of the page and click the “Chinese Information” tab and then click on the “Chinese Videos” tab, or hover over it until the “Chinese Videos” tab appears and click on it. The two songs students are performing are at the top of this page under the heading “Chinese New Year.” Purple and green class will sing the “Happy New Year” song and "Seasons Song--Dong Dong Qiang" together. Formal invitations will be sent home soon. ☺ 100 Days: We are going to be celebrating the 100th Day of school next week! It’s a fun celebration! Valentine's Day: Valentine’s Day is coming up! Students are allowed to bring valentines and a valentine’s box if they desire—if not, we will provide a “valentines” bag/envelop for them. We are combining purple class and green class to exchange valentines! We have 48 students between the two classes. Please do not worry about having your student write the 47 other students’ names on the valentines, just make sure their own names are on the valentines they will hand out. We do not have detailed information about the party quite yet, but as soon as we do we will send out an email. No School on February 15th (teacher preparation day for Parent Teacher Conferences), and no school on February 19th. It is President’s day! Enjoy your 4-day weekend! Parent Teacher Conferences: Dual immersion conferences will be held at the end of February! WHAT WE ARE LEARNING: ELA: Our story this week will be “What do we learn as we grow and change?” The story is an animal fantasy story titled “Ruby in Her Own Time.” We will be working on comparing and contrasting two things. Our phonics focus this week will be consonant patterns –ng and -nk. Here is a link for additional practice words. We will be using this to help us practice. We will also be working on compound words. The conventions focus will be all about verbs that add –s. We will also be working on writing informative paragraphs this week. The students will be gathering information, forming complete and detailed sentences as well as providing a sense of closure to the paragraph. We have been working diligently on improving our sentence structure. CHINESE: We are continuing to work on unit 7 in Mandarin Matrix this week which focuses on the characters: 日sun/day, 月moon/month, 天 sky/day, and 生 life/to be born. MATH: We are finishing up unit 8 and jumping into unit 9 in math this week. Students will compare two-digit numbers. We have been practicing 1 more, 1 less; and 10 more, 10 less. The rest of this week will focus on comparing numbers with symbols, and comparing numbers on a number line. SCIENCE AND SOCIAL STUDIES: In science and social studies, students will continue to learn about Chinese New Year traditions, activities, and symbolism. Purple and green class will be getting together to practice the group song for our Chinese New Year performance. Students will also review previous science and social studies topics.
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IMPORTANT INFORMATION School starts at 8:40. We will always enter and leave the building at the first grade doors! During our professional development meeting on Friday, we reviewed data from the school-wide parent survey that was sent out several weeks ago. We noticed there were some specific comments regarding the rigor of first grade dual immersion, and that some parents feel their students are not being challenged. We would like to address those concerns and comments. One concern mentioned the spelling words that are sent home weekly. These spelling words are the recommended words for the week. Ms. Terry also adds challenge words every week. Many of our students who need more of a challenge have the option to practice those words. In addition, depending on time, we do a challenge dictation sentence in which Ms. Terry looks at the proper use of capitals, spacing between words, punctuation, as well as correct spelling of words. If you are still concerned about your student’s spelling words and feel they are too easy, PLEASE feel free to adapt and enrich your student’s understanding of those word patterns. We have mentioned this concept since the beginning of the year, and love it when students come in and share their home connections that they have made with what we are learning at school. Another concern was in regards to school work not being at the level of gifted learners. We would first like to iterate that each and every student is gifted and smart in their own way. That is our philosophy in both classrooms. In every lesson, we work to plan for students who tend to grasp concepts easily, and those who may need extra additional practice. The work you see coming home from English class is station work. These exercises provide the students an opportunity to practice and refine their skills. The work that is not sent home from English class is the work that is enriched. The reason this work is not sent home is because students usually use whiteboards for those exercises and activities, allowing students to have ten times the amount of practice in comparison to traditional worksheets. Students also participate in class discussions throughout the week which according to education researcher John Hattie has the largest effect size for student’s learning and growth. All students have the opportunity to be challenged when they engage themselves in daily class discussions using our academic language as well as our academic vocabulary for the week. Thank you for sharing your concerns. We value your input. Please feel free to contact us if you have any additional concerns. MARK YOUR CALENDARS: The annual Chinese New Year Celebration will be on Tuesday February 5th from 6:00-8:00 PM at Ridgecrest. Students have started talking about Chinese New Year traditions and symbols in class, and have started to prepare for the celebration by practicing for their performance and creating decorations for the school! The student performances will begin at 7:00 the evening of the 5th, and we are expecting a large crowd, so please come with enough time to find a good seat! There will be more information to come as we get closer to the event! We are so excited and hope to see you and your family there! Parent teacher conference will be held on February 27th and 28th. As of right now, we do not the sign up information but wanted you to be aware of the dates. We will send out more information as it comes. Ms. Terry added more slots to her sign up! Here is the link if you want to sign up! :) http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f094ba9ac2ba7fd0-volunteer *** REMINDER: As of last week, students are no longer allowed to speak English in the Chinese classroom....! Please reinforce this at home and encourage your child to speak as much Chinese as possible. We are so impressed by the positive attitudes and how diligent your kiddos are about speaking in the target language 100% of the time! You can track your students' progress on Dojo to see when they have earned points for speaking Chinese, and also when they have needed reminders not to speak English. Thank you so much for your continued support of their language development! LUNCH CHOICES: Tuesday: Orange Chicken, Mini Corn Dogs, or Chef Salad Wednesday: Canyons Chicken Bowl, Cheesy Nachos, Wow Butter and Jelly Sandwich Thursday: Chili, Chicken Sandwich (spicy or regular), or Taco Salad Friday: Pizza, Bean and Cheese Burrito, or Turkey Sandwich Monday: Baked Potato, Hamburger, or Grilled Cheese Sandwich Tuesday: Cheesy Chicken Quesadilla, Mini Corn Dogs, or Chef Salad WHAT WE ARE LEARNING ELA: We are starting a new unit this week. The big question is “What is changing in our world?” Our story this week will be “How do places change?” The story is a realistic fiction story. We will be working on the sequence of a story as well as summarizing it. Our phonics pattern is vowel sounds of y. We will also be working on the syllable pattern of cv. The conventions focus will be all about action verbs. We will also be working on writing an informative paragraph this week about penguins. The students will be gathering information, forming complete and detailed sentences as well as providing a sense of closure to the paragraph. CHINESE: We have finished unit 6 of Mandarin Matrix and will be starting unit 7! Students were able to bring their workbooks home that we have been using since August--can you believe how far they have come? It's amazing to think that just a few months ago, they were learning to count to ten, and now they are writing and speaking in full, complete sentences! What incredible students they are! In unit 7 we will read a new story called "Whose Birthday Cake?". Students will practice reading and writing the following two new characters: day/date, month. We will be practicing the following language features: "Today is/Tomorrow is/Yesterday was. . . ," “Whose is this?,”Who wants. . .?,” “. . . wants/does not want . . . “, “give me... .” MATH: We are continuing to work on Unit 8. The theme of unit 8 is “Understand Place Value.” Students are practicing identifying how many tens and ones are in numbers 1-120 in both Chinese and English. Reinforce these skills at home by asking your student questions such as “How many 10s are in 101? How many ones are there?”They can practice telling you in English and Chinese! SOCIAL STUDIES: We are focusing on features of Chinese New Year traditions, including the Chinese zodiac! We are also practicing songs that the students will be performing at our Chinese New Year party coming up on February 5th! IMPORTANT INFORMATION
School starts at 8:40. We will always enter and leave the building at the first grade doors! Bring your folder daily to school! Please contact Ms. Terry if Lexia is still not working for you. We have another option for logging on if the "clever badges" continue to have problems! Thank you to all those who are having their students do Lexia at home! Sign up to volunteer in Ms. Terry's room :) http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f094ba9ac2ba7fd0-volunteer *** REMINDER: STARTING MONDAY JANUARY 14th, students are only allowed to speak Chinese when they are in Chinese class (yay)! Students will celebrate this amazing step with a little Chinese party (featuring unique snacks, fun music, and perhaps a little art project...). We have been preparing for this day for several months now, and many students are struggling to make the transition. Ms. Mack and Ms. Terry have explained the policy to the students, including the positive consequences of adhering to this policy, and the negative consequences of choosing not to speak Chinese. Choosing to speak Chinese in class will result in positive Dojo points (helping the class move towards our next big incentive!), Tiger Pride cards, trips to the prize box, treats, having a stuffed animal or an emoji pillow at their desks, etc. When students choose not to speak Chinese, they will get two reminders, and will then lose some recess time or will lose time during a fun project. If they need two more reminders, they will lose a little bit more recess/fun project time, and will have a note or a phone call home to parents. Two additional reminders will result in a trip to the principal's office for reteaching of the policy. We realize this policy may seem strict for 6 and 7 year olds, but we are serious about helping students "buy in" to the Chinese-only rule to preserve and maintain the integrity of our program. Speaking 100% Chinese in the Chinese classroom is a rule students agree to when they enter the program, as this will be the expectation for the rest of their time in the Dual Immersion program. Learning a language is a challenging and exciting process. We do not expect perfection, but we expect students to work hard and do their best. Please review this policy with your child, keep track of what is happening on Dojo, and praise them for their valiant efforts! Classroom Donations We are in need of tissues and whiteboard markers! (Students have an easier time using the skinny whiteboard markers). Donations are appreciated and welcome! NO SCHOOL ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 18th! (Teacher work day) NO SCHOOL ON MONDAY, JANUARY 21st! (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!) LUNCH CHOICES Monday: Corn Dog, Hamburger, or Grilled Cheese Sandwich Tuesday: Chicken Noodle Soup, Mini Corn Dogs, or Chef Salad Wednesday: French Toast Sticks, Cheesy Nachos, or Tuna Sandwich Thursday: Macaroni and Cheese, Chicken Nuggets, or Taco Salad Friday: NO SCHOOL! Monday: NO SCHOOL! Tuesday: Orange Chicken, Mini Corn Dogs, or Chef Salad Wednesday: Hot Ham & Cheese Sandwich, Cheesy Nachos, or Tuna Sandwich Thursday: Chili, Crispy Chicken Sandwich (Spicy or Regular), or Taco Salad Friday: Cheese or Pepperoni Pizza, Bean & Cheese Burrito, or Turkey Sandwich WHAT WE ARE LEARNING ELA: This week, we are reading a story titled "Honey Bees." It is an informational text. We will be working on the long /e/ sound as well as two syllable word (cv/vc) patterns . We will continue talking about singular and plural nouns. After learning about the 3 sounds of -/ed/, we are going to continue practicing that phonics skill because it was a struggle and many of us wanted to spell the words with either a /t/, /id/ or /d/ instead of doing the -ed pattern. (example: wantid, workt). We are continuing to talk about author's purpose and using our inference skills to draw conclusions about why the author may say something. CHINESE: We are continuing our work with unit 6 of Mandarin Matrix, reinforcing the target characters for boy, girl, dirt, and rain. We will review the stories It's Raining, and Planting Flowers We will also read a new story called Washroom. MATH: We have made it through unit 7 and are now starting unit 8. The theme of unit 8 is “Understand Place Value.” Students are practicing identifying how many tens and ones are in numbers 1-120 in both Chinese and English. Reinforce these skills at home by asking your student questions such as “How many 10s are in 101? How many ones are there?”They can practice telling you in English and Chinese! SOCIAL STUDIES: We are continuing to talk about weather and seasons, as well as discussing families in our community. We will also start looking at some interesting features of Chinese New Year traditions, including the Chinese zodiac! Students will practice songs that they will perform at our Chinese New Year party coming up on February 5th! Happy New Year!
We hope you all had a fabulous winter break and wanted to take this opportunity to thank all who contributed to the class gift (and brought other additional gifts). We were so touched by your incredible generosity, kindness, and thoughtfulness; and we feel so loved and appreciated! Please enjoy the photo above displaying the students' spectacular winter penguins all dressed up for the chilly weather! IMPORTANT INFORMATION (grab a snack--we've got a lot going on!) School starts at 8:40 and gets out at 3:20. We will always enter and leave the building at the first grade doors! Bring your folder daily to school! *** REMINDER: Starting January 14th students will be required to speak Chinese only in Chinese class (no more English!!). Ms. Mack has noticed a major difference in students' efforts to speak Chinese only! Please continue to support your student by encouraging informal Chinese practice at home, and by practicing strategies they've learned in class. They can act something out, draw a picture, or point to something and say "How do you say this in Chinese?" Many students are already practicing these strategies and it is SO AWESOME! We know that family support goes a long way in helping these awesome first graders to develop the confidence and positive attitude necessary to be successful participants in the DLI program. We are immensely proud of their progress so far and are excited to see continued growth. We hope you will continue to be inspired by their efforts and take comfort in knowing that while this is a challenging goal, thousands of first graders across the state of Utah are embarking on the same journey! As an incentive to invest in the Chinese only policy of the program, we will be having a small Chinese party on Monday to celebrate this impressive and important step in their Chinese learning careers! (Yahoo!) Winter Clothing Hooray! We have had so many great, snowfalls this year! But with snowy storms come freezing and near-freezing temperatures. Brrrrrr. We're learning about weather, seasons, the water cycle, and our calendar in math and science right now and it's the PERFECT time to talk about dressing JUST RIGHT for the weather forecast. Please, please, please help your child choose appropriate clothes for school AND outdoor recess. It can get so cold for them when they only come with a hoodie on or a long sleeve t-shirt and no jacket. PLEASE make sure your child has these ON or PACKED in their backpack EVERY DAY until springtime: WARM, WINTER COAT (not just a hoodie or light jacket) MITTENS OR GLOVES HAT TIP: Please label each clothing item with your child's name so we can keep their clothing safely organized! You may also wear or send warm snow boots and snow pants, if you wish. Again, hoodies are just fine for IN school but we also need to wear a winter COAT on top when we are outside! Attendance Contest With winter weather here the amount of students tardy and absent have increased. Sometimes this is inevitable and out of our control, but oftentimes it can be alleviated by a little extra preparation. Our class Mr. Potato Head challenge is still going on. Purple class is almost done putting theirs together and will soon earn their first prize (yahoo!). Green class...let's just say we have a little way to go :) The bell rings at 8:40 but we will be taking attendance at 8:45. Please plan ahead to get your child here consistently on time everyday. When students are excessively absent and/or tardy, they do not receive the interventions, instruction, and practice they need to keep progressing. The result of poor attendance is oftentimes poor performance and lowered abilities in the classroom. Make a plan to be on time. While it takes longer to get on all our winter gear and we do need to be extra careful as we travel, we can still be prepared and arrive on time. This is also a courtesy to our classmates who do arrive on time as late arrivals interrupt the flow of instruction and distract from what we are learning. TIPS THAT MAY HELP: --Get clothing laid out and homework done the night before. --Try going to bed extra early (it gets darker earlier now anyway so we can wake up on time and not get too sick and sleepy at school). --Plan extra time into getting dressed for the outside and traveling to school. We have to be extra careful as we travel to be safe :) --Try providing a motivating tool to getting ready earlier and being on time. Charts, stickers, a family outing to the library after 5 on-time arrivals…whatever works! Please contact Ms. Terry if Lexia is still not working for you. We have another option for logging on if the "clever badges" continue to have problems! Thank you to all those who are having their students do Lexia at home! Homework packets were sent home yesterday, but will not be sent home next week because we have Friday off. Homework has always been optional, so please contact Ms. Mack if you would like to add your student or take them off the list. Homework should continue to be adapted to meet the needs of your student. No school on January 18th-- It is a Teacher Data Day! No school on January 21st--- It is MLK Day! LUNCH CHOICES Wednesday: Teriyaki Chicken, Cheesy Nachos, Wow Butter and Jelly Sandwich Thursday: Crunchy Fish Filet, Chicken Sandwich (spicy or regular), or Taco Salad Friday: Pizza, Bean and Cheese Burrito, or Turkey Sandwich Monday: Corn Dog, Hamburger, Grilled Cheese Tuesday: Chicken Noodle Soup, Mini Corn Dogs, or Chef Salad Wednesday: French Toast Sticks, Cheesy Nachos, Tuna Sandwich Thursday: Macaroni & Cheese, Chicken Nuggets, or Taco Salad Ms. Terry added more slots to her sign up! Here is the link if you want to sign up! :) http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f094ba9ac2ba7fd0-volunteer WHAT WE ARE LEARNING ELA: We will be reading a story titled “Life in the Forest.” It is an informational text. The question of the week is “What changes can be seen in nature?” The phonics focus is u_e, e_e and -ed. We have learned that -ed says /d/, /ed/ and /t/. We are working on identifying main idea and details of a text. We will be working on writing letters, stories as well as learning how to pull facts from an informational story. One thing we are working very hard at is making sure we are following directions first time and staying with the class. Often, we think we know what is happening next so we race ahead to only find out that the next step was different than what we thought. Our spelling words are huge, June (the capital is important!), rule, tube, use, cube, cute, flute, rude, mute, water and under. Water and under are our high frequency words. CHINESE: Students have finished reviewing units 1-5 of Mandarin Matrix and we are now moving on to unit 6! It is astonishing how much your amazing Chinese speakers have learned so far. This week we will read two new stories called "Gardening" and "It's Raining". Students will practice reading and writing the following new characters: boy, girl, rain, dirt. We will be practicing the following language features: " ...... needs .....", "What else does it need?" ".....also needs .....", "Mine/yours is very big/small.", "Why is mine....?", "Too many/too few....", "It's raining," "....isn't there/is on top/is underneath/is inside.", "On top/underneath inside ......" MATH: Students will be wrapping up unit 7 this week. Put their knowledge to the test by asking them to count by 10s in Chinese up to 120 (10, 20, 30, etc.). You can also challenge them by asking them to start counting from a random number (i.e. "Count by 1s from 67 to 79," "Count by 10s from 33 to 103", etc.). We will continue to practice extending the counting sequence and using strategies to count beyond 100. We will review counting by 10s, and counting on a number chart to 120, and will learn counting on an open number line. Encourage your child to share what they are learning in school, and especially to demonstrate that knowledge with as much Chinese as they can! SOCIAL STUDIES: This week we have talked about the difference between Chinese names and American names, held a very successful Chinese Name Ceremony, and practiced writing our Chinese names! We will continue discussing seasons and weather. |
TeachersMs. Terry and Ms. Mack are so excited for this year! In Ms. Terry's class, students will speak, read, and write in English. In Ms. Mack's class, students will be speak, listen, read, and write in Chinese. Archives
April 2020
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