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!
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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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