Holiday Greetings & Reading Comprehension Practice at Home!

The couple of weeks leading up to Christmas was a busy time for First Graders.  A HUGE thanks to our Homeroom Mom - Angela Hall - for organizing & implementing a fantastic Holiday Party for your children.  There will be a 2nd classroom party coming soon (February 14th) - so please lend a hand to help in some way when she contacts you all!  It will be here before we know it.  Here is a gathering of pictures & video made into a little iMovie for your enjoyment!  (Loving the iMovie app on iPads!)

Just a reminder that the first day back is January 7th for students (Tuesday) and please help them to return their Friday Folder (Red) signed by you!  Report Cards will come home Wednesday, January 8th.   There will be mid-year Reading & Writing assessments done during January during the regular school day (no early dismissal days for this testing session.)  Please understand that expectations and academics begin to increase rapidly for your child this 2nd semester of school.  Continue to work each night on reading and asking comprehension questions about what they are reading.  Your child can write out the answers or verbally tell them.  Some ideas are:
Fiction Comprehension Questions
l) Retell the beginning of the story.
2)Retell the middle.
3) Retell the end.
4) What was your favorite part - why?
5) Who was your favorite character - why?
6) If there was a problem in the story - what was it and how did it get solved?
7) Did you make any "connections" with this story?  (Connect to self, text or world?)

NonFiction Comprehension Questions/Activities
1) Ask your child to write/tell 3 new facts they learned from the book.
2) Ask your child to write down any words they did not know and to try and guess their meaning by using text clues or picture clues.
3) Ask your child to write their own nonfiction book about a topic that interests them.  Include "captions" for pictures.

Happy New Year and can't wait to see the kids again on January 7th!