Southside Elementary School

 

 

Wampler’s Weekly

August 7, 2015

 

Dear Parents,

     

We’ve had a fantastic first week of school! The children are all adjusting nicely to a full day of school after a long vacation and so am I. We must have been having some fun because the week just flew by. We are working a little harder and accomplishing a little more as each day passes.

     

     We have 22 wonderful students in our room - 10 boys and 12 girls. These are the boys and girls in our room:

 

Piper Ammerman

Madison Beagle

Suyog Deo

Lillian Donica

Kyliegh Dover

Isabella Grimes

Abygail Hall

Aiden Harper

Mason Hopkins

Rio Ikeda

William Jamerson

Saachi Likhite

Analia Lopez

Kavya Mujumdar

Kavish Narang

Rori Pollert

Haya Sabri

Asher Stidam

Sihan Wu

Anmol Kumar

Daniel Gaspar

Aarav Thomas

 

 

     I would like to thank all the parents who attended Open House. It was a pleasure meeting all of you. I would also like to thank everyone for filling out and returning the emergency forms, and other papers that I had included in your child’s yellow VIP folder. Please remember that I will be sending these folders home every day and need them returned each day.

 

      I’d like to send a special thank you to those who have expressed an interest in volunteering either at school or at home. A teacher’s job is never finished. It’s nice for the students to have that extra help and attention in our classroom. If you filled out a form to volunteer either in the classroom or at home I will be contacting you soon. 

 

      The children are learning our classroom and school rules and procedures. Please remind your child of our rules and especially to listen to Ms. Wampler when she is speaking and giving directions.

 

      This week the children and I completed some formal and informal diagnostic tests of each child’s reading and math ability levels. I will be sharing the results with you at conference time or sooner if there is a problem.

 

MATH

     We have been working on recognizing, counting and writing numbers to twenty.  We have also been comparing numbers that are “greater than,” “less than,” or the same. We will begin math homework next week beginning Wednesday. Starting the following week, your child will have a math homework page every Monday through Thursday evening. Please help your child to be responsible and return his/her homework on time. Please look over and sign your child’s homework each evening. Please have your child make any corrections if mistakes are made. Thanks in advance for helping your child to return homework on time. 

 

READING

      We will begin formal reading next week. The children need to work on learning vocabulary words to be successful at reading the stories and completing the workbook pages. We have several books to complete in first grade along with worksheets that accompany each book. For homework, I expect my students to read for at least 20 minutes each night. The children may read aloud to themselves, to a parent, a sister or brother, a favorite stuffed animal or even a pet I will be sending home a “Reading Log” as homework for you and your child to keep track of his/her reading time.  

 

WRITING

      The children have been writing and illustrating stories about themselves. We will also be generating a long list of writing topics to give us good ideas of interesting things to write about.

CLASS SCHEDULE

     I’m still working on scheduling our daily and weekly activities so the following information may change somewhat. Just to let you know, we will be having reading, math, language arts, word study, story time, writing, and Sustained Silent reading daily.   All first grade teachers have been testing students this week in order to group them by ability. Some children may be having a different first grade teacher for Math starting this Monday.     

 

8:00 - 8:30 Home room – Arrival/Morning Work

 

8:30 – 10:00 – Reading/Language Arts

 

10:00 – 10:20 – Calendar/Journals 

 

10:20 - 11:20 – Math

 

 

11:25 - 11:45 – Recess

 

11:50 – 12:20 – Lunch

 

12:30 – 1:00 - SSR – Self-Selective Sustained Silent Reading/AR Tests

 

1:00 – 1:40 Calendar/Story Time/Journal/Check Morning Work, Writing/English/Science/Social Studies/Health

 

1:40 – 2:30 Special Classes – Mondays – P. E., Tuesdays – Music, Wednesdays – Art, Thursdays – Library

LIBRARY – Thursday afternoons – we hope to visit Southside’s library next week.

SUPPLIES

      Please make sure your child has all the necessary school supplies. Check with your child periodically throughout the year to see if items, especially pencils, need to be replaced.

 

      A special thanks to everyone for sending lunch money in envelopes with names on the outside!!! I appreciate it very much.

                       

CLASSROOM LIBRARY BOOKS

      The children will begin checking out books from our classroom library next week. Please enjoy the book for a few days and have your child return it in the Ziploc bag. 

 

LIFESKILLS

      Next week we will read about The Little Engine That Could and talk about perseverance.

 

      From time to time I will be sending home important papers. It’s a good idea for parents to obtain a folder to place these papers in so that you will know exactly where they are. It’s also a good idea for your child to find a special and safe place to put his or her library and classroom books.

 

I want to thank you all in advance for your support and encouragement as your child learns in first grade. It is a pleasure to work with such well-behaved children. I know it is going to be an exciting year!!! I hope that with both of us working together, we’ll have a successful year for your child. If you have any problems, concerns, or questions please call me at 376-4423 ext. 114 or email me at wamplerd@bcsc.k12.in.us. Have a great weekend! My letters will get shorter – I promise!

 

I hope everyone has an enjoyable, relaxing weekend!

 

                                    Fondly,

 

                              Ms. Wampler

 

NEXT WEEK

Monday – Return VIP folders

            Lunch money?

P. E. – wear tennis shoes