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the FIRST GRADE NEWS

MRS. MOHRS CLASS

REPORT CARDS
Enclosed in your childs BEE book on Friday you will nd their rst report card of the year. As you read through it, please let me know if you have any questions. As a rst grade team, we score report cards based on how we think they will perform for the end of the year, however, we also use a lot of the data we have recently acquired through the assessments to also look at where the kids are presently learning. Please know that as a teacher, I 14 Friendship Party (12:15-1:15) 17 Star of the Week: Gavin 18 Music Concert (10-10:30)
March:

As you read with your child, have them stop and make a movie in their head of what is happening in the story. Then, have them describe what they are seeing.

Our reading strategy of the month is: Visualizing

always error on the side of caution, during the mid-year report cards. Kids grow at different speeds, and if at midyear a child doesnt have a certain concept or skill mastered, I dont score it as procient yet. With that being said, the math portion of the report card is newly updated to match the Common Core Standards that we have adopted. The new terminology that is listed in (cont.)

February:

Upcoming Dates and Announcements

3 Star of the Week: Ethan 10 Star of the Week: Colin 14 100th Day of School

17-21 Spring Break

Report Cards Cont.

our report card is very specic. For example, it states that students are able to uently add up to 10. The word uently is used similarly to how we score our sight words in reading. The students should know these combinations automatically. When I assessed them these last few weeks, if they werent able to give an automatic response, I didnt feel comfortable marking them as being procient in this task. Another area that we will be spending a lot of time on is applies a variety of problem solving strategies with accuracy. Most of the class is very condent in solving math problems by counting on, however, by the end of the year, they will be expected to be able jump between decades and using combinations of ves and tens to solve larger numbers. Similar to the last skill, if the children didnt show knowledge of this when I assessed them, and solely relied on counting on, then I did not mark them as procient. Please dont be worried if your child hasnt achieved these skills yet. Use it as a guide for ways to help support them at home. We will continue to show these strategies and practice these concepts in the classroom. I hope this helps clear up any questions people may have regarding the report card, however after you have had a chance to look at it, please contact me with any questions. As always, I truly appreciate all of your help and support at home.

We did a major overhaul on our collaboration time this week. As a rst grade and multiage team, we decided to structure the time a little differently. We feel that all of the kids could use work in different areas of reading topics. So, this time, the teachers will all be working in pairs: Mohr/Rice, Miller/Penner, and Endres/Freidman (reading teacher). Each pair of teachers will be working on a specic skill or reading strategy. My room will be working on nonction v. ction text. We will have our groups of kids of two weeks, and then each group will rotate through. Ultimately, every child will work with each pair of teachers. At the end of the six weeks, we will once again reevaluate, and decide how the time will best be used. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding this.

Collaboration

Handwriting and Daily 5

Also beginning this week, we will be doing some additional teaming with the multiage teachers. On Tuesdays and Thursdays during our Reading Daily 5 time, I will take a group of students comprised from all three classes that could use some extra work on handwriting, and work closely with them on the Handwriting without Tears program. The remaining students will be in the multiage classrooms working on a reading assignment from me. After the 20-30 minute handwriting lesson, all children will return back to their rooms, and I will meet with my regular book groups. We are looking forward to this new teaming possibility. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Kaite Mohr at (608) 497-2176 or kaite.mohr@verona.k12.wi.us