Learning To Go Mr. Avery's Class on the Web 

NEW THIS WEEK! First and fourth grades will be taking part in the Get Fit Adventure. This is a program where students keep track of steps taken using a pedometer for one week, and set goals for 3 separate weeks later this year. Coming home Monday will be: your child’s pedometer; a purple recording sheet; and a white information sheet. I’m still learning it too (!) but will try to answer your questions as they arise. Please see this note from the first grade team:

“Pedometer Distribution
In connection to our PEP and our district goal of promoting healthy living,
first graders across the district are being asked to wear a pedometer during
their waking hours for a week at a time, four times during our school year.
Our first week will begin on Monday, October 21st.  Parents are being asked
to help by recording the number of steps that your child takes each day as
well as some basic nutritional information.  Recording sheets are purple and
can be found in your child¹s green folder.  You will see that your child¹s
name is already on top of the paper and that there are directions on the
form as well.  Although we do understand that keeping track of the pedometer
can be a challenge, it also presents our class with some real life
opportunities to look at data.

Pedometers should be taken off at night and
kept in a strategic spot so they can be put back on in the morning as your
child gets dressed for school.  If our classes are able to have 100%
participation students receive t-shirts and we earn classroom rewards.
Needless to say, our class wants to earn these rewards!  Please do help us
to stay on track to meet this goal by doing the following:
1. Pick a strategic spot for the purple recording sheet.
2. Help your child to record their steps and complete the fruit and
vegetable survey each night.
3. Pick a strategic spot to keep his/her pedometer each night.
4. Send the completed purple form back in your child¹s folder and Friday,
October 26th.

Thank you for your support with this wonderful learning opportunity!  The
children are all very excited to use these tools!”

Our reading strategy focus this week is on learning to “Back Up and Re-read.” An important step for young kids as readers is the ability to monitor their reading for both accuracy and comprehension. They should be stopping themselves when things don’t sound right, look right, or make sense. Often the most successful young readers are those who recognize that what they have read does or doesn’t sound like “people talk”; that is, like spoken language. You can help him or her monitor reading at home by checking occasionally and asking your child to re-read a sentence or phrase when words are read incorrectly.

We will be reviewing key concepts taught in Unit 2 math lessons, especially reading a tally chart and interpreting the data, and counting nickels and pennies. You can help at home (in the car at red lights, during a muted commercial on TV) by asking your child to count by 5s to some number (between 10 and 30, for example), then stopping and counting on by 1s. Example: Count by 5s to 15…STOP. Count on by 1s: 16, 17, 18, etc. Counting on is a skill that can help count money and add numbers with large addends! We’ll take the test on Tuesday; look for SEPARATE MATH HOMEWORK PAPERS Monday and Tuesday nights, and math homework 3.1 in the homework packets will begin on Wednesday. I’ve discovered this site for creating tally charts. You can use it to make some at home based on your child’s interests, and ask questions related to the data (e.g. How many kids have 3 teddy bears? or How many friends like the color blue best?): http://www.softschools.com/math/data_analysis/tally_chart/tally_chart_maker/

Other learning focus lessons this week:

• Short vowel review and practice: reading, writing, and learning games.
• Learning to write opinions on a subject and substantiate them with reasons and explanations; learning how informational writing looks and writing a short piece based on facts.
• Introduction to cardinal directions on maps (N, S, E, W) including their purpose and developing spatial awareness with directionality around the room.
• Hands-on science lessons sorting rock mixtures using screens that help us identify sand, small & large gravel, and small & large pebbles by their properties.