“Fun”damentals of First Grade ~ November, 2019

Mrs. Desrochers’ Class Newsletter for 2019-2020 school year: Vol. 3

Dear Room 3 Parents/Guardians and Students,

Can you believe it’s already November!? The students are settling into their routines now
that we have over two months of Gr. 1 under our belts. And look how far we’ve come! We
are continuing to build a strong sense of community and rapport in our classroom where
every classmate feels encouraged, supported, appreciated, and validated. We are
continuing to thoroughly enjoy the Morning Meeting routine that we’ve adopted most
mornings. We are also continuing to work on self-control, minimizing distractions to self
and/or peers, and minimizing chatter during academic times. These continue to be focuses
for growth as a whole for the class. We have movement breaks built into our schedule for
First grade wiggly bodies to help us regulate our mind, body, and soul and allow us to
regroup and get back into the Green Zone, which is the ideal zone for learning, according
to the Zones of Regulation model we are using.

Daily 5 Updates: They have had some really strong mornings here in Room 3 during Daily 5
block! We haven’t launched “Read to Someone” that is a classmate, too often yet, because
they’re still building their independent reading stamina minutes and focuses and attention,
but they are really improving their ability to choose just right texts that are in their
wheelhouse and love filling out their daily classroom reading log with their different
genres they are choosing. I am hoping to officially launch Read to Classmate in December
once they are developmentally ready for elbow to elbow, knee to knee (EEKK) partner
reading without distractions. I really enjoy meeting with small groups and/or 1:1 situations
to have the students practice reading aloud to me.

Students are also “Working on Writing” and they all seem to love Writing block and are
diligent works during this time. We’re working on using a framed sentence with proper
capitalization and punctuation and we’re starting to showcase sentence variety with
transition words. We’ve worked on Fictional Narratives as well as Informational Writing. I
am so impressed with the writing compositions they are producing and they are very proud
of their work. They enjoy using a variety of graphic organizers to help plan first.

Students are loving Word Work too! They enjoy manipulating words with the magnetic
letters for “build, mix fix” and are also working on each of the Fundations phonics units
accordingly. Students enjoyed learning the 5 digraphs, several glued/welded sounds, and
words containing bonus letters (adding an extra consonant to a one syllable word if its
preceded by a short vowel sound). Students enjoy completing Roll & Write and Rainbow
words too during word work. Student are also getting more accustomed to
Please continue to encourage your child to practice their weekly words at home as part of
their nightly HW. There are so many engaging ways to make Spelling and trick word
learning fun! I suggest magnetic letters on a baking sheet, or having the child spell out
words with their fingers using shaving cream- with parent support of course!  The extra
practice and spelling exploration at home ensures that they feel successful on their weekly
Spelling or Fundations unit Tests.

We are reviewing high frequency words from Kindergarten too. There are several trick
words that they are starting to internalize.

Students have had the opportunity to Listen to Reading too! They have explored titles on
both Tumblebooks and Storyline Online. We will continue to roll out Listen to Reading so
that they are hearing quality literature read to them aloud with accuracy and prosody, in
order for the students to follow along and begin to build deeper comprehension.

In Math we will work further with addition and subtraction, especially by using number
bonds, and part-part-whole. We will slowly move away from using concrete objects to using
digits. Our new fact fluency strategy will be plus 2, minus 2, and difference of two.
Students are also using www.xtramath.org here at school to practice their addition and
subtraction fact fluency. They are welcome to practice at home as well.

Science: We are continuing with our Plants & Animals unit. We will continue to meet
approximately twice a month as a grade level in the Cafeteria for STEM related
experiments and activities. I love the flexible thinking that I am seeing as I watch these
young scientists at work. We talk a lot about the Engineering Design Process in the
classroom and preview vocabulary before hosting STEM activities.

Social Studies: This month we will explore two major holidays: Veteran’s Day as well as
Thanksgiving. We are continuously building classroom community as well and talk about
members of our community that provide services, such as Fireman this month. There will
be some wonderful read alouds to teach Thanksgiving.

*Thank you for sending in beautiful Stars to honor a past or presently serving Veteran. I
was impressed to see all of the branches of the military represented & years served.

Homework: Please continue to send in HW promptly on Fridays in the Orange HW folder.

Thank you for working with your child. I appreciate all of the support and follow-through
on your end at home to also ensure your child is playing academic math games; such as the
two games that are sent home monthly on the colored card stock (front and back). Please
encourage your child to fill out their reading log and math HW section neatly & completely
and encourage them to read 10-15 min. nightly on a routine basis to really build their
fluency and sight word automaticity. A mathematical “I Can” section is required too. Please
assist your child if they need help in determining their books’ genres as well and use the
Genre code to determine the abbreviation.

Thank you to our Room Moms for donating their time, talents, and energy during our
Halloween Classroom party for our Fall celebration. The students’ costumes were
wonderful and it was a great time had by all. I appreciate all of the families who donated
an item for the celebration. The class created a Grateful Pumpkin which we proudly
displayed.

Classroom Donations: Thank you to those families who have contributed antibacterial
wipes, tissue boxes, and paper towel rolls. At this time we are still in need of several
Tissue Box and paper towel rolls donations. This is the start of the season where we
really start to go through those supplies. Thank you in advance for considering to make a
supplies donation to our room.

Parent-Teacher Conferences: I look forward to reviewing your son/daughter’s academic

and social/emotional progress thus far in First grade with you at November parent-
teacher conferences. I will send out a reminder memo about your scheduled date and time
shortly after the Veteran’s Day long weekend. The majority of Conferences are taking
place the Mon. and Tues. of Thanksgiving week, 11/25 and 11/26. As a friendly reminder
students have an early dismissal those days; getting released at 12:07 p.m. There is also a
half day of school on Wed. 11/27.

November Save the Dates:

11/11: No school~ Veteran’s Day

11/13 PTO mtg: 7:00 p.m.

11/14: BIT Title One Reading info night: Igo school~ 6:30-7:30 p.m.

11/21: MCM Pie Pick Up

11/22: BIT Silent Auction Event 7:00-11:00 p.m.

11/25 and 11/26: Parent-teacher Conference Days (half day of school those days)

11/27: Half day of school (12:07 p.m. dismissal)

11/28: No School~ Thanksgiving

11/29: No School~ Thanksgiving break

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. Enjoy the quality time together. It is such a
privilege to be your child’s educator and I love seeing their week to week and month-to-
month academic and social/emotional growth!

Respectfully Submitted,

Mrs. Brigid Desrochers

desrochersb@foxborough.k12.ma.us

Check out my classroom Weebly page: mrsdesrochersgradefour.weebly.com