Two Weeks

 I hope all of you had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend.  I sure did.  I also want to give a big THANK YOU for all the gifts I received last week.  You sure know how to show appreciation to the teacher.  It was a great week for me.

So here we are, a place I could only imagine last year at this time!  We are celebrating doing our regular routine homework items for the last time.   We will finish the math series this week.  The children are so happy for me to tell you there is math homework this week on Monday and that's it.  No more math homework for the rest of the school year! However, I would suggest keeping the math flashcards we have used in the classroom this year.  I  will be sending home a ziplock baggie filled with these flashcards at the end of this week.  The children will be expected to know the addition and subtraction facts on those cards at the beginning of second grade. Reviewing them over the summer would be of great benefit.

 We also are celebrating Lesson 30 and the last High-Frequency Wordlist.  The last list is due back signed on Thursday, 5-13.  The words in this notebook come from the Journeys Reading series we use in kindergarten, first, and second grade. It would be a good idea to go through this notebook and have your child read the last 10 lessons of words periodically through the summer to be prepared to flow into the second grade part of this reading series.

We will continue with the nightly reading for now.  Please, please, please have your child read to you this summer a few times every week.  They have made so much progress and it would be so sad to see them regress over the summer.

So many parents tell me they let their child take the summer off from academics.  Summer is definitely a break time.  But, a complete and total break can cause their skill level to regress.  Then they start second grade struggling to make up the difference they lost over the summer. Remember, your child may take an academic break but most children don't. That can put them at a disadvantage.  So, practicing math facts, reading, and writing a journal entry in a notebook a couple of times a week will keep your student on track and ready for a successful start to second grade.