Mrs. Misemer’s Fantastic First Grade

Thanks to all of you for making your child’s first Spelling Test experience of First Grade a good one!  I could tell a few of them were a little anxious, but they really did a fabulous job!  Remember to keep up the hard work as our lists continue to get more challenging! 

At this point, we are really into the swing of things as far as homework goes.  Here’s a quick run-down:

1. Addition flashcards should be practiced nightly and remain in the left pocket of the homework folder.

2. You should initial the addition checklist to show your child studied, and keep this form in the left pocket, too.

3. Your child should be reading either independently or with you nightly for 15 minutes.  The reading log in the left pocket of the homework folder should also be initialed to show they read each night there is a space to sign.  All of the students have selected an Accelerated Reader (AR) book from my shelf with my assistance.  This book will come home each day in their homework folder to read for their 15 minutes.  It should come back to school the next day so they may read it for their silent reading time in class.  I find that if they are reading more than one title at a time, their comprehension of the book suffers.

4. In addition to these standing assignments, you will also see other random homework that will come home throughout the week.  Unless otherwise noted, these assignments should be completed and turned in the next day. 

Each of these things is considered a homework assignment and is required to be completed nightly.  If for some reason your child’s homework is not completed, I do allow one “freebie” each quarter.  Subsequent occurrences however require the student to pull a red slip.  If there is some sort of emergency or instance that did not allow your child to complete his or her assignments on time, please just send me a note to let me know.  Although I do require assignments to be turned in on time, I also understand that life just gets in the way sometimes! J

We have also been very busy in First Grade remembering the proper way to form our letters.  Each week, we will focus on a set of letters, with detailed instruction on the proper formation.  The following day, students will be tested on that group of letters.  I assimilate our letter formation to a clock.  So you will notice my dots and comments focusing around the points 2, 4, 8 and 10.  We discuss how if there were a clock sitting below the dotted line, many of our letters would start at 2:00.  It’s a great visual strategy!  Please take the time to check the way your child is making his or her letters while doing homework.  If you feel that your child might be rushing through homework and not doing their neatest work, please ask them to try again with their neatest handwriting!    

I hope you all had a great looooong weekend, and that you have an even better short week!