Chinese Club

The first Chinese Club at Washington Township was held Thursday, January 29th at 6:00 PM with 70 students and parents in attendance.  There were also 8 staff members in attendance.  Students demonstrated their Chinese language skills to parents, watched a video, had a snack, and did a craft project all related to the Chinese New Year.  I hope you can join us for our next Chinese Club night, February 26th at 6:30 PM.

Tens and Ones Trading Game

A very important skill that the first graders have been working on is counting tens and ones and exchanging ones for tens.  One game that the children really like to play is the Tens and Ones Trading Game.  Players take turns putting base 10 blocks on the Tens-and-Ones Mat according to the roll of a die.  Whenever possible, they exchange 10 cubes for 1 long.  The first player to get 10 longs wins.  

January 23 Newsletter

We will be celebrating a very important day in the first grade at the beginning of February.  As of right now, Day 100 falls in the first week of February.  I will let you know the exact date later.  Since the first day of school we have been counting the days that school has been in session.  We will be doing all sorts of activities revolving around the number 100.  I would like your child to bring 100 of some object that we could count here at school on Day 100.  Some ideas might be Cheerios, M&M's, buttons, toothpicks, seeds, raisins, etc.  We will be doing several reading, writing, counting, and drawing activities on this day.  be sure and ask your child about this important day.  (If we would happen to have a snow day between now and then, the day would be postponed by however many snow days there were.

Come and join our first Chinese Club meeting next Thursday night at 6:00 PM.  We will be celebrating the Chinese New Year.  Hope to see you there.

Your child received a "Bully Free at WT" t-shirt today as part of the Olweus Bully Prevention kickoff.  I would like to thank the Washington Township student council for providing the funds for these shirts.

Olweus Kickoff Assembly

Four officers from the Iowa City Police force came to help Washington Township with it's Olweus Anti-Bullying Kickoff Assembly today.  They stressed the importance of not being a bully and what to do if you saw someone bullying someone else.  The children looked around the gym during the assembly to see all of the people that would be willing to help them in a bullying situation.

Each child and staff member at Washington Township received a "Bully Free at WT" t-shirt as part of the kick-off.  The funding for these shirts was provided by the Washington Township student council.  Here we are in are new shirts.

Chinese New Year

In Chinese this week the children have been learning about the Chinese New Year.  Here you see the children working on a craft with Yemin Yu, the chinese teacher.  The symbol that they embellished in gold means plenty or a lot and is a homophone in Chinese for fish.

Fact Power

Fact Power is very important in first grade.  We have been using dice to practice our math facts. We roll the dice and add the numbers that show on the dice.  the kids get a lot of math practice and don't even realize they are practicing their math facts.  This would be a great way to practice math facts with your children at home.

January 9 Newsletter

In reading this week we worked with the following phonics skills:

1.  Long I words (CVCe)

2.  Contractions

comprehension skill of cause and effect, and the grammar skill of using I or Me in a sentence.

We took  our Integrated Theme Test over the fifth theme....Home Sweet Home.  These tests combine the skills they have been learning as well as writing skills.  Our target score is that each child will score 80%. Your child's score will be in the Friday Folder this week.

I want to thank all of you for the wonderful Christmas presents, but more importantly, I want to thank you for sharing your child with me this year.