Happy Monday! Happy Safety Week!

Monday= B Tuesday= C Wednesday= D Thursday= A Friday= C Hi families! Happy Monday to you. I hope this post finds you doing great after a beautiful fall weekend together. We had great Monday and have lots of good things to fill you in on. We have kicked off Safety Week here at Sunflower! First, did your child tell you about our visit from Happy Bear today? A note when home several weeks ago letting you know about Happy Bear's visit today. The kids did a WONDERFUL job during the program learning about welcome and unwelcome touches. Be sure to follow up with your child and invite them to tell you what they learned about Happy Bear's message. We practiced our first tornado drill this afternoon. This week we will practice other safety drills (fire and code red), learn about safety tips in all areas of first grade life, among other things! Be sure to have your child update you on each day's safety tips! In reading today, we started learning about our tricky new sound this week. Ask your child if they can tell you when the /ck/ gets their playdate in a word. We learned today that when the /ck/ sound comes after a SHORT vowel sound, the c and the k get to have their playdate together. Our spelling words this week help us to practice this skill. Help your child strengthen their understanding of this tricky rule by looking for words in their library books, books from home, signs on the road, etc. Our stories this week (Pick a Sack and Get Up, Rick!) are both jam-packed full of these /ck/ date words. Help your child hunt them out on Thinkcentral! Did your child show you their RED folder today? This was an exciting day in first grade, as the kids got their first taste of daily homework! Your child is bringing home a red folder in their backpack, called their "RED" folder ("read-every-day"). Inside the folder you will find a letter explaining the expectations, a book log and a list of questions designed to help your child develop and strengthen their comprehension skills. Please look through it carefully and let me know if you have any questions. When your child feels they are ready to fluently read their book, return the folder to school and an adult with read it and book talk it with them. If they can read it fluently, I will replace their book with a new book and the pattern starts again! Our goal is to try and read 25 books during the school year on each child's level. Please remember the importance of reading each day. Your child should not be reading more than 10-15 minutes each night (unless they are on a roll and loving it!) and they should not struggle too much through the book that has been sent home. If you feel the book is too difficult for your child please return it with a note letting me know. The letter in the RED folder will explain in more detail. Holler if you have any questions. Has your child told you about the "Grab and Go" strategy we've been working on in math? Ask them to teach you this strategy. (Here is a Cliff's Notes version for you: If a problem is 5+6= ?, your child is learning to grab the first number and say it ("5")then make dots for the second number. It would look like this: 5+......=? They grab the five and say "5", then count on from the dots ("6,7, 8, 9, 10, 11"). Have your child practice this strategy tonight with several other addition problems. Mark your calendars that this FRIDAY September 20 is our annual Sunflower LEARNING CELEBRATION! As Constitution Day approaches, we spend the day celebrating our great nation and learning all sorts of things that make our country so amazing. Please plan on sending a SACK LUNCH to school with your child this Friday or let me know if you would like me to have the kitchen prepare a sack lunch for your child. As part of this annual celebration, all of Sunflower will eat lunch together in an all-school picnic on Friday. Finally, thank you to the families who have already returned their field trip permission slips. Please try to have them back as soon as possible.