IMPORTANT INFORMATION
We are on the downhill slope of first grade with only 8 weeks! It seems like time is flying by! Spring fever is in full force! We are noticing that behavior is “off” and we have implemented behavior charts in each class. Students can add "jelly beans" to the jar in Ms. Mack's room when they are on-task, respectful, responsible, and speaking Chinese. Once they add 20 jelly beans, they may draw out an incentive from a folder of incentives we brainstormed together. The behavior reward can range from tiger prides, a game, 2 minutes extra of recess, a small treat, etc. In the 3 days that we have been doing this, we have noticed a big change in the behavior already! The students are enjoying the new incentive and their teachers are thankful for the hard work they are doing to improve their behavior! Toys at school: Many students have started bringing toys to school. The toys are a distraction during class, and are causing some problems at recess. Please remind your student that toys need to stay at home! Missing book buddies: Several stuffed animal "book buddies" have gone missing from Ms. Mack's room. The following Ty Beanie Babies are missing: a giraffe, a ladybug, a kiwi bird, and a green bear with a soccer ball on its chest. Please check in with your student to see if they accidentally brought one home. There will be no consequence if students return the animals. We want to keep them in the classroom, so that everyone has the opportunity to enjoy them. Thank you! LUNCH CHOICES Thursday: Crunchy Fish Filet, Crispy Chicken Sandwich (spicy or regular), or Taco Salad Friday: Pizza, Burrito, or Turkey Sandwich Monday: Corn Dog, Hamburger, or Grilled Cheese Sandwich Tuesday: Hawaiian Haystack, Mini Corn Dogs, or Chef Salad Wednesday: French Toast Sticks, Cheesy Nachos, or Tuna Sandwich Thursday: Macaroni & Cheese, Chicken Nuggets, or Taco Salad Friday: Pizza, Burrito, or Turkey Sandwich WHAT WE ARE LEARNING: ELA: This week, our story is titled "Peter's Chair." The story is about a little boy who struggles with his "items" being used for the new baby. This story is a realistic fiction story. We, as a class, will be talking about the items we treasure at home and how we can share them. We will be working on identifying the character, setting and plot of the story. This week, our phonics focus is on compound words. We have learned about compound words in the past but we will be working on recognizing, spelling, and reading these words. We will also be working on the vowel pattern: ew, ue and ui. We are just diving right in! :) Our Spelling Words: backpack, outside, baseball, herself, flashlight, bluebird, lunchbox, suitcase, inside, brainstorm, picture ** and remember ** Challenge words: snowflakes, sunrise, spaceship, and skateboard Next week (week of April 15th) , our story is titled "Henry and Mudge and Mrs. Hopper's House." The story is about a boy and his dog who go to their neighbor's house. The neighbor's house is "scary" looking and the boy and his dog find out what Mrs. Hopper is REALLY like. This story is a realistic fiction story. We, as a class, will be talking about the items we treasure at home and how we can share them with our neighbors. We will be working on cause and effect. This week, our phonics focus is on suffixes as will as the vowel sound oo (like MOON). We are just diving right in! :) Our Spelling Words: slowly, careful, quickly, useful, painful, sadly, gladly, nicely, wonderful, playful, across** and because** Challenge words: happily, hopefully, perfectly, thoughtful, ungrateful Chinese: We are continuing to review the characters and stories we studied in units 5-10 of Mandarin Matrix. Once we finish our review, we will have completed the curriculum for first grade Chinese and will move into the second grade curriculum. At the beginning of their second grade year, Chinese DLI students will review these characters and concepts again. Next week we will dive into unit one and starting to read and recognize the following characters: 我 (I/my), 你 (you), 们 (plural noun marker), 可以 (can/able to), 好 (good/excellent). Math: This week, students are working on unit 12 (Measure Lengths). Students bring home math work from class almost daily. You can see how well they have mastered the information if they are able to explain the processes to you! Next week we will start unit 13 which focuses on telling time. Science and Social Studies: On Monday, students drew a map of our school. On Thursday, they will partner up and draw larger maps combining elements from the maps they drew independently. Students are continuing to practice writing their own Chinese names and learning the Chinese names of their peers! We are also starting to talk about searching for signs of spring (amidst all the snow and rain!). RECYCLED ROBOT PROJECT On Monday April 22nd, students will create recycled robots. We will be talking about recycling, and other practices to protect and show respect for the earth. Students should bring materials to build their own robots such as cardboard boxes, empty containers or bottles, magazines, or other recycled materials. Students may also bring markers to decorate their robots, if they wish. Please make sure that all materials are clean and dry. Ms. Mack will provide some materials for students to share (cardboard boxes, glue, tape), but the materials will be shared between the two classes. Start collecting now! Chinese Summer Camp: The University of Utah’s Confucius Institute is hosting an intensive, week-long Chinese summer camp in July at several locations, including Ridgecrest! Students will participate in a two hour language class in the morning, and receive a cultural lesson in the afternoon with guest teachers from China. Dual immersion students who will be in 2nd through 6th grade this coming school year are welcome to enroll! Please visit the following link for more information: https://continue.utah.edu/youth/chinese-immersion
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IMPORTANT INFORMATION School starts at 8:40. We will always enter and leave the building at the first grade doors!
Spring Break is next week! School will resume on April 8th. We hope you all have a wonderful break! Spring fever is in full force! We are noticing that behavior is “off” in both classrooms, so we have reset student Dojo points to try to incentive positive behaviors from students. Every time the class reaches their Dojo point goal, they earn a behavior reward. The behavior reward can range from tiger prides, a game, 2 minutes extra of recess, a small treat, etc. Since we reset the points on Dojo, we have noticed that students are more excited to earn points and are trying to think more about their behavior. As we increase the desired behaviors, we will increase our goal! The students are enjoying the new incentive and their teachers are thankful for the hard work they are doing to improve their behavior! Volunteering: If you would like to come staple and sort math pages in Ms. Mack's room, please send her an email or a message on Dojo! LUNCH CHOICES Monday: Breakfast Burrito, Mini Corn Dogs, or Chef Salad Tuesday: Mini Pepperoni Calzones, Hamburger, or Grilled Cheese Sandwich Wednesday: Crispy Chicken Drumstick, Cheesy Nachos, or Tuna Sandwich Thursday: Orange Chicken, Chicken Nuggets, or Taco Salad Friday: Pizza, Bean and Cheese Burrito, or Turkey Sandwich Monday (April 8th): Walking Taco, Hamburger, or Grilled Cheese Sandwich Tuesday: Pork Chop Mini Corn Dogs, Chef Salad *** We have seen GREAT IMPROVEMENT in both the green and purple classes with speaking Chinese only when in Ms. Mack's room, but some students are still needing multiple reminders each day to stay in the target language. In addition to our Dojo points goal, both classes have charts they are trying to fill to earn incentives that we brainstormed together (pajama party, pizza party, extra recess, etc.). The class can earn stickers for the chart when everyone uses Chinese to communicate. At the beginning of this year, students could earn stickers for smaller chunks of time where they spoke only Chinese. Now that we are at the end of March, we are stepping it up! At this point in the year, students should not be using any English whatsoever to communicate with each other or Ms. Mack when in Chinese class. This is not only great preparation for second grade and beyond in the dual immersion program, but the only way we can achieve the ideal language learning environment at school. Thank you for reinforcing the "Chinese only" policy at home and encouraging your child to speak as much Chinese as possible when they are in Ms. Mack's class. You can look on Dojo to monitor your child's progress. Students are continuing to excel and expand their language skills--it is incredible to witness! WHAT WE ARE LEARNING: ELA: We are reading a story called "A Southern Ranch." Our phonics focus is /ie/ and /igh/. We will also be learning about /kn/ and /wr/. Students are continuing to learn and practice their adjectives! We will be working on recognizing facts and details of a story! We are making great strides in Lexia and both classes are doing extremely well on meeting their minutes! Great job, First Graders! :) Our goal is to have each first grader on or above level 9 by the end of first grade. Thank you for all your support in helping your student make their lexia minutes. Our Spelling Words: lie, tie, high, might, right, night, bright, light, pie, tight, above** and laugh** Challenge Words: brighten, daylight, delight, highlight, tonight and untied. Only 5 of the words are listed but as we continue to expand and make connections regarding our spelling patterns, it's always a great idea to incorporate other words that follow that pattern. Dictation Sentences: Once again, I made a mistake. So here are both sentences: The moon was full last night. The second sentence is "The bus turned right at the corner." Please keep having your student read aloud to you each night. The goal is to have them read at least 10 minutes a night! They will be asked to read 20 minutes a night starting 2nd grade so you can help them start increasing their stamina now so that adjustment isn't as difficult! Chinese: Students are continuing to practice the new characters from unit 10 (几 how many, 年 year, 星期 week), and are also reviewing of units 5-9 in Mandarin Matrix. We will practice reading, writing, and utilizing the following characters that we have been working on for several months:来 come, 去 go, 走 walk, 田 field, 今 today, 昨 yesterday, 明 tomorrow, 是 is (to be), 日 day/sun, 月 month/moon, 天 day/sky, 生 life, 男 boy, 女 girl, 土 dirt, 雨 rain, 马 horse, 牛 cow, 羊 sheep, 鸟 bird, 虫 insect. Math: This week, students will continue to learn strategies to subtract tens. Science and Social Studies: This week students will be learning about locations in our school. We will be creating maps of school our school and will even be taking a tour of our own building. Chinese Summer Camp: The University of Utah’s Confucius Institute is hosting an intensive, week-long Chinese summer camp in July at several locations, including Ridgecrest! Students will participate in a two hour language class in the morning, and receive a cultural lesson in the afternoon with guest teachers from China. (Please excuse this random insert! This week's secret word is: spring! Students may tell Ms. Mack or Ms. Terry the secret word to earn a prize--thank you for reading our blog!) Dual immersion students who will be in 2nd through 6th grade this coming school year are welcome to enroll! Please visit the following link for more information: https://continue.utah.edu/youth/chinese-immersion 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 is always on Thursday, unless stated otherwise. If your student is in Ms. Mack’s room on show and tell day, please remind them that they need to only speak Chinese about their item. Tiger Pride on Friday’s! Wearing a tiger pride shirt, a solid blue or orange shirt are the colors of what we look for and what we count! Ms. Terry is piloting a gradebook for our school district. There will be more information to come towards the end of March/after spring break but she has been adding grades to the program already! The district will be seeking your feedback regarding the program. Spring Break is the first week of April. Many students are letting us know that they are going to be leaving for a trip before spring break, please make sure that vacation forms and the office is notified! On a separate note: We are having many students who are missing multiple days of school or are late each day. Please to the best of your ability help your student be to school each day and on time. We know that fevers, needing to be on antibiotics for 24 hours and throwing up are causes to stay home (and we appreciate you for keeping sick kids home). As we have been watching our students and their development, we have learned of some statistics that reinforce how important it is to be at school each day. Absenteeism in the first month of school can predict poor attendance throughout the school year. Half the students who miss 2-4 days in September go on to miss nearly a month of school.. Research shows that missing 10 percent of the school, or about 18 days in most school districts, negatively affects a student’s academic performance. That’s just two days a month and that’s known as chronic absence. This week's secret word is: rainbow (kids should know how to say this one in Chinese!). Students may tell the secret word to a teacher to earn a prize! LUNCH CHOICES Monday: Soft Pretzel, Hamburger, Grilled Cheese Sandwich Tuesday: Personal BBQ Chicken Pizza, Mini Corn Dogs, Chef Salad Wednesday: Country Fried Steak, Cheesy Nachos, or WowButter and Jelly Sandwich Thursday: Spaghetti, Crispy Chicken Sandwich (spicy and regular), or Taco Salad Friday: Pizza Rippers, Burrito, Turkey Sandwich Monday: Baked Potato, Hamburger, Grilled Cheese Sandwich Tuesday: Breakfast Burrito, Mini Corn Dogs, Chef Salad *** REMINDER: As of January 15th, students are no longer allowed to speak English in the Chinese classroom! We have seen GREAT IMPROVEMENT in both the green and purple classes, but some students still need many reminders to only speak Chinese. Please reinforce the "Chinese only" policy at home and encourage your child to speak as much Chinese as possible when they are in Ms. Mack's class. You can look on Dojo to monitor your child's progress. Students are continuing to excel and expand their language skills--it is incredible to witness! Thank you for your continued support! WHAT WE ARE LEARNING: ELA: We are reading a story called "A Trip to Washington, D.C." It is an expository text and we are going to be learning about our nation’s capital. Our phonics focus is /oa/ and /ou/. Students are also continuing to work on three letter consonant blends and adjectives. We are making great strides in Lexia and both classes are doing extremely well on meeting their minutes! Great job, First Graders! :) PLEASE NOTE: There is a spelling error on this week's dictation sentence. The sentence should read: "Please don't cut the loaf of bread." CHINESE: We are starting unit 10 this week and will be reading, writing, and using the following characters in oral language practice: 几 how many, 年 year, 星期 week. We will continue to review the following characters from previous units: 来 come, 去 go, 走 walk, 田 field, 今today, 昨 yesterday, 明 tomorrow, 是 is (to be), 日 sun/day, 月 moon/month, 天 sky, 生 life/to be born, 男 boy, 女 girl, 土 dirt, 雨 rain, 马 horse, 牛 cow, 鸟 bird, 羊 sheep, 虫 insect. MATH: Students have finished unit 10 and started unit 11! In unit 11 we will practice using models and strategies to subtract tens. SCIENCE AND SOCIAL STUDIES: Students have been reviewing people in our school and community, weather/water, and we are starting to learn about a map of our school! IMPORTANT INFORMATION School starts at 8:40. We will always enter and leave the building at the first grade doors!
Chinese Book Orders: Ms. Mack handed out bright green fliers at parent teacher conferences with information about how to order Chinese books for your students to read and practice with at home. Placing any order by Friday, March 15th using the code RIG01 will earn FREE BOOKS for our Chinese classroom! Purchases of $30 or more will receive free shipping. Please see the attachments in the email for book recommendations by Ms. Mack for first graders, as well as some information about different types of books and readers from Phoenix Tree. Some of the books that have been translated from English have the English text printed in the book along with the Chinese characters. This could be helpful for your student as we only learn about 66 characters in first grade. Another good activity to help students practice oral language fluency is for them to look at the pictures in the book and describe what they see, what they think will happen next, who the characters are, etc. Visit the following website to check out the Chinese books available to your family: www.phoenixtree.com/mylittlephoenixtree . The secret word from now until next Wednesday is: lucky. Students may tell either teacher the secret word to get a prize, but should not share the secret word with other students! :) LUNCH CHOICES Monday: Quesadilla, Hamburger, Grilled Cheese Sandwich Tuesday: Chicken Alfredo, Mini Corn Dogs, Chef Salad Wednesday: Hot Ham and Cheese Sandwich, Cheesy Nachos, Tuna Sandwich Thursday: Dutch Waffle, Chicken Nuggets, or Taco Salad Friday: Pizza Rippers, Burrito, Turkey Sandwich Monday: Soft Grain Pretzel, Hamburger, Grilled Cheese Sandwich Tuesday: Chicken Enchiladas, Mini Corn Dogs, Chef Salad Thank you for continuing to encourage your student to speak 100% Chinese in Ms. Mack's class. We hope to continue to see students strive towards this goal! WHAT WE ARE LEARNING: ELA: This week, we are starting unit 4! Unit 4 is all about treasures. This week, in particular, we are talking about how a surprise can be a treasure. We have been talking about how we cherish certain things—Ms. Terry has mentioned how she cherishes a model car because it reminds her working on corvettes with her dad. Our story is a realistic fiction story titled “Mama’s Birthday Present.” We are learning about the digraphs ai and ay. We’ve learned that ai comes in between consonants t-r-AI-n and ay comes at the end of the word- r-AY! We are also diving in and working on learning about adjectives and what adjectives to use when describing a noun. Next week, we are on Unit 4 Week 2. The story will be Cinderella! We are focusing on recognizing the theme of the story as well as learning about fairy tales. We will be focusing on the diagraph /ea/ in words like beach and ease. We will also be talking about how a story can be a treasure. This weekly question is going to be a fun one as we are working on our class books! We will continue to talk about adjectives. We are making great strides in Lexia and both classes are doing extremely well on meeting their minutes! Great job, First Graders! :) CHINESE: For the next two weeks, we will be focusing on unit 10 in Mandarin Matrix, studying the stories: "On the Way Home," "Scarecrow," and "Naughty Hamster." Our focus characters for this unit are: field/田, come/来, go/去, walk/走. We will also be practicing the following language features: "...likes to be in/at....", "...comes....", "...goes...", "walking here and there", "searching here and there." MATH: We are continuing to work on unit 10 this week which focuses on "Using Models and Strategies to Add Tens and Ones". Next week we will move on to unit 11: "Use Models and Strategies to Subtract Tens." You can support and challenge your students by asking them to explain their thinking, or to tell you how to solve problems in Chinese on the homework packet, or on the math worksheets students bring home from practicing at school. SCIENCE AND SOCIAL STUDIES: The topics for science and social studies the next two weeks are “People at Work in My Neighborhood”, and “Making Choices with Money”, and "Earth's Water". 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! Parent Teacher Conferences: Dual immersion conferences will be held Monday February 25th during school hours, Wednesday February 27th from 3:30-7:30, and Thursday February 28th 8:20 am-12:00 pm, and 2:00-7:30. Please note that Thursday is an early out day and students will finish school at 1:40! Homework: There will be no homework assigned this week! 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 LUNCH CHOICES Wednesday: French Toast Sticks, Cheesy Nachos, or Tuna Sandwich Thursday: Macaroni & Cheese, Chicken Nuggets, or Taco Salad Friday: NO SCHOOL!!! Monday: Green Eggs & Ham, Hamburger, or Grilled Cheese Sandwich Tuesday: Orange Chicken, Mini Corn Dogs, or Chef Salad *** REMINDER: Please continue to check Class Dojo to monitor your student's progress in not speaking English. Ms. Mack will usually give two reminders before taking away a Dojo point, so if you see a mark on there, you know that they have already been reminded three times. We know through research and experience that students will make the greatest advances in their Chinese language development if they are speaking as much Chinese as possible! The secret word this week is: firecracker. Students can tell Ms. Terry or Ms. Mack the secret word in English ;) WHAT WE ARE LEARNING: ELA: Welcome to Unit 3 Week 6! We are reading a story titled “Where Are My Animal Friends?” We are working on drawing conclusions. Our phonics focus is comparative endings (er and est) and dge as /j/. We will be learning about adjectives. We are working diligently on writing complete sentences and paragraphs. These kiddos are doing an amazing job! They constantly amaze Ms. Terry with the depth of the discussions we have! CHINESE: Students will spend time reviewing some of our previous units in Mandarin Matrix, and will start learning the new characters for unit 9. Students will read a new story called "On the Way Home." This story will introduce the following target characters for unit 9: walk 走, go 去, come/arrive 来, field/farm 田. We will be reinforcing the following key language features: “Don’t…”, “Let’s go behind/back…”, “Let’s go look for…”, “Where did…go?”, “….come and….go”, “can’t find…”, “go up/down”, “Here or not?”, “In the…or not?”. MATH: We are continuing to work on unit 10 this week which focuses on "Using models and strategies to add tens and ones". SCIENCE AND SOCIAL STUDIES: The topics for science and social studies this week are the Chinese Lantern Festival, and “People at Work in My Neighborhood." 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! Parent Teacher Conferences: Dual immersion conferences will be held Monday February 25th during school hours, Wednesday February 27th from 3:30-7:30, and Thursday February 28th from 8:20 am-12:00 pm, and 2:00-7:30. We will be meeting in the media center, same location as last time! The Book Fair will take place the week of February 25th, and will be open various times in connection with Parent Teacher Conferences and Grandparent's Lunch days. Please see the flyer for important details about Grandparent's Lunch and the Book Fair schedule. Homework: There will be no homework assigned this week! 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 Ms. Mack needs some help with stapling math packets and cutting out math flashcards. If you are available to come help Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon from 2:00-3:00, or Thursday between 12:45 and 3:00, please email or Dojo Ms. Mack! LUNCH CHOICES Tuesday: Pork Chop, Mini Corn Dogs, Chef Salad Wednesday: Teriyaki Chicken, Cheesy Nachos, Wow Butter and Jelly Sandwich Thursday: Crunchy Fish Filet, Crispy Chicken Sandwich (spicy or regular), or Taco Salad Friday: Pizza, Bean & Cheese Burrito, or Turkey Sandwich WHAT WE ARE LEARNING: ELA: This week, our story is titled "I'm a Caterpillar." It is a literary nonfiction story. We will be working on a tricky pattern this week. It's the er, ur, ir pattern. Last we we learned the "ar" pattern and then the week before, we learned the "or" and "ore" pattern. Due to the short week and the complexity of practicing and mastering this phonics pattern, we are not doing challenge words or dictation sentences. Please feel free to challenge your student and work on applying this pattern to other words. We will be working on recognizing fact verses an opinion also! :) CHINESE: We are continuing unit 8 in Mandarin Matrix this week. Students will review the story, "I Don't Want to Go to School," and read two new stories called "Staying At Home" and "Where Is Little Mountain Goat?" These two stories will reinforce the characters students learned last week: today 今, is/are/am 是, yesterday 昨, tomorrow 明. We will be reinforcing the following key language features: “Don’t want to….”, “Today is…”, “Yesterday was…”, “Tomorrow is…”, “….and….draw together/watch a movie together”, “…will or will not…”, “…can go…”, “Do you want to…or not?”, “Where is …?”, “Is…at…?”. The secret word this week is: lantern. Students may only share the secret word with their teachers (and not with other students) to get a treat for their family having read the blog! Woohoo! MATH: Students are finishing unit 9 in math this week! We have been working on comparing numbers using symbols (greater than, less than, or equal to). We will probably start unit 10 this week, which focuses on "Using models and strategies to add tens and ones". SCIENCE AND SOCIAL STUDIES: In science and social studies, students will continue to learn about Chinese New Year traditions, activities, and symbolism. We will also be talking about what is in the sky, as well as rocks and soil! 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! 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. The party will be on Thursday from 2:00-3:00. Here is the volunteer sign up link again in case you missed it! www.signupgenius.com/go/70a0f4aafaf2ca3fd0-1stgrade1 Thank you to everyone who has signed up so far to help make the party a success! Parent Teacher Conferences: Dual immersion conferences will be held Monday February 25th during school hours, Wednesday February 27th from 3:30-7:30, and Thursday February 28th from 9:00 am-12:00 pm, and 2:00-7:30. The online scheduler is now open! Please see the Ridgecrest Roar from Mrs. Winfree for more details about how to sign up. We will be meeting in the media center--same location as last time! No School on February 18th. It is President’s day! Enjoy your 3-day weekend! Preventing the Spread of Viruses and Germs: We have had lots of students coming to school sick and have lots of germs going around. While we encourage students to wash or sanitize their hands throughout the day, it would be beneficial for you to help your student remember to keep their hands, food and germs to themselves so that we can all stay healthy. If you think your student may be contagious or too sick to come to school and actively participate and engage in learning, it is better for them to stay home and rest than to push themselves when they are not well and possibly expose others to the same germs or virus. Thank you for your support!! Homework: If you would like your student to have Chinese and math homework, please contact Ms. Mack! Homework has always been optional. Please remember that if it is too much or too little, you are able to adapt it for your student! 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 LUNCH CHOICES Monday: Mini Pepperoni Calzones, Hamburger, or Grilled Cheese Sandwich Tuesday: Breakfast Burrito, Mini Corn Dogs, or Chef Salad Wednesday: Crispy Chicken Drumstick, Cheesy Nachos, Tuna Sandwich Thursday: Orange Chicken, Chicken Nuggets, or Taco Salad Friday: Cheese or Pepperoni Pizza, Bean & Cheese Burrito, or Turkey Sandwich Monday: No School Tuesday: Pork Chop, Mini Corn Dogs, Chef Salad *** REMINDER: As of January 14th, students are no longer allowed to speak English in the Chinese classroom! In both the green and purple classes, this is still a struggle. Please reinforce the "Chinese only" policy at home and encourage your child to speak as much Chinese as possible when they are in Chinese class. You can look on Dojo to monitor your child's progress. We know the students are capable of so much and are eager to help them continue progress in their Chinese language development! Chinese New Year: Thank you so much for your amazing support at our Chinese New Year party last week! It was such an immense success, and we hope that you had a wonderful time and enjoyed your student's performance. WHAT WE ARE LEARNING: ELA: This week, our story is titled "Frog and Toad Together" It is an animal fantasy story. We will be working on two tricky patterns this week. One is going to be learning about adding endings (-ed and -ing) to a word, sometimes we have to get permission to add the ending by doubling the letter if needs be. The other pattern is the "ar" pattern. Ms. Terry has us become pirates to practice this. Please feel free to challenge your student and work on applying this pattern to other words. We will be working on fact and opinion also! :) Ms. Terry will be at a district training on Tuesday. The secret word this week is: president. If your student tells Ms. Terry or Ms. Mack the secret word by Wednesday, they will get a treat! Students should only share the secret word with their teacher!! :) CHINESE: We are beginning unit 8 in Mandarin Matrix this week. Students will read two new stories called "Staying At Home" and "Where Is Little Mountain Goat?" These two stories will reinforce the characters students learned last week: today 今, is/are/am 是, yesterday 昨, tomorrow 明. We will be reinforcing the following key language features: “Don’t want to….”, “Today is…”, “Yesterday was…”, “Tomorrow is…”, “….and….draw together/watch a movie together”, “…will or will not…”, “…can go…”, “Do you want to…or not?”, “Where is …?”, “Is…at…?”. MATH: Students are finishing unit 9 in math this week! We have been working on comparing numbers using symbols (greater than, less than, or equal to). We will probably start unit 10 this week, which focuses on "Using models and strategies to add tens and ones". SCIENCE AND SOCIAL STUDIES: In science and social studies, students will continue to learn about Chinese New Year traditions, activities, and symbolism. Students will also be talking about what's in the sky! 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! Lexia: 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! 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 Chinese Incentive Party: Starting in November, students started to work on filling up a chart by speaking Chinese, and even brainstormed incentives they would like to receive once they met their goal. Both green and purple classes have earned their first incentive for speaking Chinese only while in Chinese class! Although the incentives were drawn randomly from the envelopes for each class, they have both earned the incentive to watch a short movie in Chinese and to wear pajamas to school! Yay! LUNCH CHOICES Monday: Whole Grain Soft Pretzel, Hamburger, or Grilled Cheese Sandwich Tuesday: Chicken Tortilla Soup, Mini Corn Dogs, or Chef Salad Wednesday: Country Fried Steak, Cheesy Nachos, or Wow Butter and Jelly Sandwich Thursday: Spaghetti, Chicken Sandwich (spicy or regular), or Taco Salad Friday: Pizza, 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 today. ☺ 100 Days: Can you believe it?? This week we will have been in school for 100 days! Students will be commemorating this day with some fun activities in school. Career Day: We are excited to have some of you join us this Friday for Career Day and hope that the students enjoy these awesome presentations! 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 Monday February 25th during school hours, Wednesday February 27th from 3:30-7:30, and Thursday February 28th 9:00 am-12:00 pm, and 2:00-7:30. The online scheduler will open soon. Please see the Ridgecrest Roar from Mrs. Winfree for more details about how to sign up. WHAT WE ARE LEARNING: ELA: This week, we are reading “The Class Pet!” It is an expository text. Our weekly question is “What can we learn about animals as they grow and change?” We will be discussing how babies go through many changes and that babies learn as they grow. We will be able to recognize that it is fun to learn something new! Our reading comprehension skill is learning to recognize fact verses opinion. Our phonics focus is words ending with -es as well as plurals with -es. We also will be learning about the r-controlled -or and -ore. It will be a busy week learning about these two phonics patterns as well as learning about verbs that don’t add -s. We have been working on writing more narrative and informational paragraphs. Our tool that we have been using is a 4-square. We always start our paragraph with a topic sentence and we end with a conclusion. Last week, you saw 2-3 of these come home but it is amazing to see how far the students are coming with just increasing our writing practice. CHINESE: We are wrapping up unit 7 in Mandarin Matrix this week and will be starting unit 8! The first story we will focus on from unit 8 is “Unwilling To Go To School.” The focus characters in this unit will be: today 今, is/are/am 是, yesterday 昨, tomorrow 明. We will be reinforcing the following key language features: “Don’t want to….”, “Today is…”, “Yesterday was…”, “Tomorrow is…”, “….and….draw together/watch a movie together”, “…will or will not…”, “…can go…”, “Do you want to…or not?”, “Where is …?”, “Is…at…?”. MATH: Continuing with 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. Students will also review previous science and social studies topics SECRET WORD: Congratulations! You made it to the end of the blog post. If your student tells either Ms. Mack or Ms. Terry the secret word by TUESDAY, they will receive a prize! Please note that the secret word is not to be revealed to anyone except the teachers! :) This week's secret word is: Cheerios! 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. 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! |
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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