Our Ice Cream Party Countdown has officially begun! Keep up the good work!
(*30 SCHOOL Days)

Looking Ahead:

• Wed., September 25: Fundraiser Money Due. Only a few more days to sell Cookie Dough and Beef Jerky. Remember to add all orders into the Scoreboard FR app (code QUE832). Thank you for helping to support our school (and our class)!
• Friday, September 27: Dollar Dress Down Day
• Friday, September 27: Scholastic Book Orders Due: Scholastic Reading Club (use class activation code: Y8WGR)
• October 1: Picture Retakes
• Monday-Tuesday, October 14-15: EARLY OUT and Parent Teacher Conferences
• Wednesday-Friday, October 16-18: NO SCHOOL Fall Break

Here’s a quick overview of what we learned this week:

Comprehension strategy/skill: “Ask and Answer Questions” and “Characters”. We read a fable, a fantasy and a non-fiction selection to go along with our theme “How do baby animals move?”

New High Frequency Word: “we” (please continue to practice “I”, “can”, “the”, “a”)

Phonics: Sound and Spelling of Aa.

Phonemic Awareness: We continue to learn sounds from our sounds wall. We learn how our mouth forms these sounds including what our tongue, teeth and lips are all doing. We work all year on rhyming words, chunking words into syllables, first, middle and last sounds we hear in words, adding and taking away and replacing words in compound words, and blending 3 sounds to make a word (consonant-vowel-consonant or CVC words).

Math: Lesson 5 “Compare Numbers to 5” and we continue to practice writing our numbers. Reversals are still very common and we praise when students write the correct number, even if it’s backwards, and then have them fix it because we’ve learned that fixing our mistakes helps us learn and grow.

Science: This week our class observed an interesting experiment that uses the heat of the sun. We discovered that a car in the sun gets hot enough to melt marshmallows and chocolate to make a sticky treat called a s’more!

If anyone is interested in covering our door with paper and taping on door decorations, please let me know: lteichert@questac.org.

• All supplies are provided and the decorations are already created and ready to go.
• We have monthly and seasonal decor, so you’re welcome to commit to as few or as many months as you’re interested in.
• You’re welcome to stay after pickup and your child can remain in the classroom with you while you decorate, or we can arrange another time that works best for you!

Thank you!

We are selling Cookie Dough & Beef Jerky to help fund student activities (ie field trips) and school improvements. 

Here are some things to know:

• The fundraiser sale begins NOW
• Money is due by Sept 25 before school begins
• Checks payable to: Quest Academy
• All orders need to be entered into the Scoreboard FR app (code QUE832)
• Teacher name is: Ms. Lisa
• Cookie Dough is delivered to the school Tues., Oct. 22

Watch this short, instructional video to get started (there are also instructions in the student packet).  The code you’ll need to enter in the app for Quest is QUE832.

Thank you for your support!

Looking Ahead:

• September 16-25: Cookie Dough School Fundraiser
• Friday, September 27: Dollar Dress Down Day
• Friday, September 27: Scholastic Book Orders Due: Scholastic Reading Club (use class activation code: Y8WGR)
• October 1: Picture Retakes

Here’s a quick overview of new things we learned this week:

Comprehension strategy/skill: “Ask and Answer Questions” and “Characters”. We read a fable, a fantasy, and an informational text to go along with our theme “How can we get along with friends?”

Power Words: “I“, “can” “a” and “the” (please practice these)

Phonics: Sound and Spelling of Mm.

Phonemic Awareness: We work all year on rhyming words, chunking words into syllables, first and last sounds we hear in words, adding and taking away and replacing words in compound words, and blending 3 sounds to make a word (consonant-vowel-consonant or CVC words).

Math: Lesson 4 “Count, Show, and Write Numbers to 5”. We are also working in our individual math lessons in iReady, counting to 20 and reading and writing our numbers 0-10. In addition, we are identifying which number comes next when we hear any number 1-99. You can help us at home by saying a random number 1-99 and asking us which number comes next.

Science: This week, we investigated how to bring light and warmth to a cold mountain town that doesn’t see the sun throughout winter. (This lesson is actually based on the story of a real town in Norway!) Students experimented with different materials and discovered that sunlight can be redirected using reflective materials. You can encourage your child’s curiosity at home! For example, is the sidewalk hotter in the sun or in the shade? Why is it helpful to park a car in the shade during the hot summer? Encourage your child to notice the heating effects of the sun all around them!

We are sending a “Practice At Home” paper today that can be returned next Friday (Sept. 20) as an incentive for students to practice new skills at home. They can earn “super stars” when returned with a parent’s signatures which helps them earn a trip to the treasure chest!

(I just discovered a typo on the page. It says Friday, Sept. 19 but it should say Friday, Sept. 20)

We are also sending your child home with two decodable texts. We are reading decodable texts several times throughout the day: together as a class, whisper reading to ourselves, in small groups, and with a partner. I can’t stress enough the importance of decodable texts. Students feel like readers and can be successful because all the words can either be sounded out or are high frequency words (“power words”) that we’ll be learning and reviewing in class. They’ll be exposed to the power words and letter sounds many times. If they are unable to read the decodable texts, please practice the power words and letter sounds consistently. Most kids need 4-40 repetitions to learn something new, but struggling readers may need to see it 40-200 times before it becomes automatic. Please continue to read to them at home and have them start reading the decodable texts to you. I hope they’ll soon be excited to show off their new reading skills to you, grandparents, siblings, or anyone that will listen! 🙂

We are excited to begin Unit 1 in Language Arts. Here are the high frequency words, oral vocabulary words, and letters we will be mastering in the next 3 weeks. We’ve learned two additional sight words (or “power words”) to be added to this list: “I” and “can”. We will also be working on syllables, and identifying the beginning and ending sounds of words.

Dear Parents,

It’s very important that students know all their letter names and sounds by the end of October and we’d like to help motivate their efforts in doing so!  We are practicing hard at school, but for many students, they need extra practice with flashcards, etc. at home as well.  We’d like to have an ice cream party on Nov. 8 and celebrate everyone’s hard work at reaching this goal.  Here’s the plan: 

• mastery of 13 letters* and sounds = ice cream
• mastery of 18 letters* and sounds = ice cream + caramel or chocolate syrup
• mastery of all 26 letters* and sounds = ice cream + caramel or chocolate syrup + sprinkles!

*Includes both uppercase and lowercase letters

And for students who have already mastered all their letter names and sounds, we’d like to challenge them in their fluency: (Note: the goal for the middle of the year in letter naming fluency is 55 letter names per minute). I will send parents a separate email this coming week if your child is ready for the fluency challenge.

• 30-35 letter names per minute = ice cream
• 35-40 letter names per minute = ice cream + caramel or chocolate syrup
• 40+ letter names per minute = ice cream + caramel or chocolate syrup + sprinkles

Be watching for a permission form a couple weeks before our party.

(If you’ve lost your flashcards or want to make an extra set, see the printable set on our previous blog post)

If you can’t find your flashcards or want an extra set, here’s an easy set to print two-sided (the target goal is to go through BOTH sides of the flashcards in random order in a minute).