So Long, September!

Mrs. Wilaby
Sep 29, 2017
4 min read

Wow, I can't believe it is already almost October! These first few weeks of school have really flown by! We continue to learn and grow each day in our classroom! This week, we took the aReading and CBM-reading screeners to take a closer look at our strengths and areas of growth in reading. Be on the look out in the next week or so, for our midterm report which will include your student's scores on the screeners, as well as how they are doing in other subject areas in our classroom. We continued to work really hard on creating five star sentences in our journals, and learned more about being meteorologists during science. Our work during math included learning about numbers 0-120. Our goal is to be able to read, recognize and write all numbers to 120. Check out our "Need to Knows", and "Wilaby's Words of Wisdom" below, and as always, check out Facebook for daily updates.

First Grade Need to Knows

Upcoming Events/Reminders

October 2nd – No School October 6th - PTO Fundraiser Due

America Reads Day – Friday, October 20th

Sign up to read in our classroom. Be sure to sign-up by

October 5th

Sight Words

Please practice reading and writing these sight words each night with your child. Our goal is for students to be able to read the words quickly without having to sound them out. Students can also practice these sight words through fun games and activities at the following website:

https://www.spellingcity.com/1stgrade1516/ Be sure to click on the “Sight Words - Week 3” list.

Week #3 - Test: Friday, October 6th

are did find in one who his look play with

Next Week’s Specials Schedule

Tuesday: Music

Wednesday: PE

Thursday: Spanish

Friday: Art

Wilaby's Words of Wisdom

Each week my goal is to post something helpful to you here so that you can have tools to use at home with your first grader to help them be successful in first grade and beyond. If you have questions you would like me to cover, please let me know!

This week's topic is math fact practice. Knowing basic math facts (adding and subtracting numbers 0-10) is an important skill that we develop in first grade. We will be learning a lot about different strategies to help with addition and subtraction throughout the year, but there is still something to be said for simply knowing your basic math facts. This simple skill will help your first grader as we continue to learn more challenging math, like double digit addition and subtraction, and will carry over later in their learning in higher grades. This does not have to be something that takes a lot of time out of your day, but can have a huge impact if practiced for 5-10 minutes a few times a week. Read below for some tips on what you can do to help your first grader out!

Our Goal

The end goal is to have your first grader automatically know the answer to any addition or subtraction fact that uses numbers 0-10. Automatically is defined as knowing the answer in three seconds or less (one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi).

Strategies That Help

Not every student is able to memorize the basic math facts right away. It takes practice and time. In the mean time, you can encourage your first grader to use the "counting on" strategy. When solving a basic math fact, have your first grader identify the larger/greater number. Then, have them count on from there. For example, if they are trying to solve 4+7, the student would identify 7 as the larger number, then count on by saying "7, 8, 9, 10, 11". This helps them solve the problem much faster than counting all of the numbers and gets them thinking quicker to solve the problem.

Flash Cards

Apps and games are fun, but flashcards can be fun and helpful, too. Addition and subtraction flashcards were sent home a few weeks ago for you to use at home, but if those got lost, no worries! Flashcards are super easy to make with some extra paper and a marker! When using flashcards, start with addition and narrow them down to a few cards at a time. Try picking out the cards that add zero and have your first grader master those first. As they get faster, add the cards adding one, two, then three, and so on until all of the cards are added. Once addition has been mastered, start the same process with the subtraction cards.

Games You Can Play at Home

We have some great app that we use at school to help practice basic math facts, below are a few of them. You can find any necessary login information on the front of your child's orange home folder. All of them are free for you to use at home

XtraMath

This website does a variety of activities that helps students become automatic with answering basic math facts. They have a teacher within the website that guides them through the activities, and they get immediate feedback to let them know if they are correct, incorrect, and even get a "smile" if they answer the questions within three seconds. This is a very motivating website and helps students see their progress and set goals.

Moby Max: Fact Fluency

MobyMax is a great website that helps differentiate learning for each student. Progress is saved, and lessons are given on a variety of subjects. One of the "Modules" within Moby Max is "fact fluency". This walks students through how to answer basic math facts and gives them practice problems.

Apps for the iPad

Flash to Pass

Math Drills Lite

Math Fact Master