Summer Reading and Learning Fun!

Parents, the summer slide is not a fun playground activity!  It is the very common summertime loss of several months' worth of progress.  Please make sure your child is not a victim of this slide and can keep making progress even over the summer months.  You can find my summer iPad tips and activities here as well as links to Cannon and GCISD reading activities and fun challenges.

Link to Summer iPad Tips on my district webpage.

Have your child use iStation reading and RAZ-Kids on their iPads this summer.  iStation will present lessons, practice older skills, and give them an assessment the first time they log in each month.  Their login is usually first name last initial (iPads are set to remember this) and their password is the same as the login.  RAZ-Kids passwords are the standard district password (located in their contacts folder).  In RAZ-Kids students can listen to and read books on their level and then take a short comprehension quiz.  They can also make a recording for me and I will give them feedback.  

If your child ended the year reading at a level 18 or above, they are prepared now for 2nd grade.  To be sure they stay prepared, they need to read daily all summer for at least 15-20 minutes.  You can go to the public library and use books in RAZ-Kids on their iPads.  Students at these levels need to work on their fluency and deeper comprehension.  Talk about what they are reading.  Can they tell you the main events of a story?  Can they explain what a character feels or why they do something? Can they make inferences about things the author doesn't state directly? Have them read aloud to you.  They should be reading smoothly so the words are grouped into phrases (not word-by-word) and using expression so it sounds more like talking.  Working on iStation weekly will give them some lessons in new concepts and a variety of kinds of reading.  

If your child ended the year reading below a level 18, they need to continue reading and make progress over the summer.  They need to read daily all summer for at least 15-20 minutes.  They need to continue to work on iStation at least 3 times a week for at least 20 minutes!  (This is the expectation during school in class.)  You can also go to the public library and use books in RAZ-Kids on their iPads.  Students at these levels need to build their automatic knowledge of sight words.  They can use flash cards with you or one of our sight word apps.  They also need to improve their fluency (reading smoothly and in phrases instead of word-by-word).  Rereading books more than once helps practice their fluency.  They can also get on RAZ-Kids and read aloud while they listen to a book.  Talk about what they are reading.  Can they tell the main events of a story in order?   Can they tell how a character feels and why?  Can they predict what might happen next?

In addition to reading, students need to keep up their writing and math skills.  There are many great ideas on my iPad list.  Continuing to post on our class blog is a great way to write and keep in touch with school friends!  Starting a 2-way journal between parent and child is another way to make writing meaningful for young children.  Write to your child and have them write back to you.  

Play games with your family that involve words or numbers.  Dominoes builds counting by 5 and addition skills.  Hangman, Scrabble, and many other games are built on spelling concepts.  

If you have any trouble logging in or using iPad apps for learning this summer, you can reach me at my email and I will try to troubleshoot!  I hope you have a wonderful summer of fun and learning and that all our kids are ready for a new year in August!

You've Heard of Bedtime Stories, Now Try Bedtime Math!

Students have a new app on their iPads called Bedtime Math.  Every day there is a short article and picture about a topic kids are interested in (animals, weird things, cool things someone made, sports, and more!). You just read the paragraph with your kids and then click a button for a math question.  There are 3 levels of questions and after you talk with your child and they try to solve it, just click the answer button.

Here's an article about prairie dogs.

This is a question at the middle level from a different article.

This is not something you need to do every night (but you could since there is a new article every day!) But if you are looking for a way to talk about math at home, this is a nice tool.  I hope you find it useful, educational, and fun!

Summer Learning on the iPad!

Here is the information I sent home with students about learning activities on the iPad they can use this summer!  I hope you find it useful.  Don't hesitate to send me an email this summer if you have questions or need iPad help.  I will be checking my email and keeping up with the kids on our class blog!

Summer Learning with iPads

Let's have a great summer of learning!

Geometry + Coding = Fun Learning

Friday afternoon, during our Create Time, we had a short introduction to the coding app Hopscotch.  This app uses a "drag and drop" format for kids to create their own projects.  We made our cartoon character draw a square together and then I challenged the kids to make another program to draw a different geometric shape.  I gave them some examples of the number of degrees to use for different angles since we don't study that in 1st grade.  The kids had to think about how many sides their shape has so they could program the repeat command to draw that many sides.  They also experimented with different lengths of sides and some fun extras for their character at the end of the shape.  Everyone had a complete project to share at the end of our work time!  Students can share their creations with you on their iPads.  In addition to applying what we are learning about shapes and their attributes, coding gives students practice in logical thinking, sequencing commands, and the STEM design process of testing and improving.

In our 2 dimensional geometry, we have learned several shapes and their most important attributes.  You can help your child practice this vocabulary at home.  Look for examples of these shapes in everyday objects!

Triangles have 3 sides and 3 corners (vertices).  

Rectangles are 4 sided shapes with all square corners.  (We have talked about the terms right angles and 90° angles, but students don't need to know those yet.  We have compared a square corner to the corner on a normal piece of paper.)  Notice that squares belong in the group rectangles because they have 4 square corners.  All squares are rectangles.  And some rectangles are also squares...

A rhombus is a 4 sided shape with 4 equal sides.  Notice that squares are also rhombuses because their sides are the same length.  All squares are rhombuses.  And some rhombuses are also squares...  (We have also talked about the word quadrilateral for any shape with 4 sides and 4 corners, but it isn't something 1st graders have to know yet.)

Students don't need to know that a pentagon is a 5 sided shape yet, but they do need to know that hexagons are shapes with 6 sides and 6 corners.

It is really important that students know the most specific name for a shape, but they also need to know that many shapes can be called more than one name - just like your dog might also be a beagle and it is also your pet and a mammal and an animal...  So a square is also a rectangle and a rhombus and a quadrilateral and 2 dimensional and a closed shape...

Other important vocabulary for 2D geometry in 1st grade includes circle, straight sides, curves, and open or closed shapes.  All the shapes drawn above are closed shapes.  Circles, ovals, and the letter D are also closed.  Open shapes have lines that don't go all the way around like C, L, or S.  You couldn't color in an open shape because you wouldn't know where to stop coloring.

Next week we will also learn about 3D shapes!  

Building the Number Chart to 50

Today students worked to put together a number chart from 1 to 100.  Each student had about 3 numbers to put in place.  The tricky part was that we didn't start with 1 this time!  I put the number 28 down as a starting point and the kids had to use what they know about number patterns to get the other numbers into place!  Here is what that looked like:

Right now in math we are working on number concepts to 50.  (We will go higher later in the year.)  Students are reading and writing numbers, counting, building numbers, working on patterns, finding combinations that make a number and building their understanding of numbers.  At home you can have your child help count out things (spoons, game pieces, socks, books, etc.) and practice reading numbers that come up in your day.  Some kids can count quite high by rote, but don't match each number to each object when they say it.  They need to practice pointing to each object as they count and moving the objects as they count them.  We are also laying some groundwork for solving problems later in the year, by making combinations. For example, students can use objects to find out that 4 and 2 make 6, and 3 and 3 make 6.  You can easily practice this at home by making up your own "math stories" about things you do.  Just talk about things you are doing:  We are getting 2 carrots and 3 tomatoes.  That is 5 vegetables in all. Or: We had 6 yogurts.  Then we ate 2 at breakfast.  Now there are 4 yogurts left.  Or:  There are 4 red cars and 3 blue cars.  There is 1 more red car than blue.  Or: We have 2 blue socks and 2 red socks and 2 white socks.  That makes 6 socks in all.  We are not asking the questions yet...  Just talking about numbers when we combine things or separate things or compare how much more or less.