Things to work on with your child while we are on vacation

It is important that your child does not forget all of the important skills he or she has learned in first grade so far. Please spend some time each day (20 minutes) working on the following skills:

1. High Frequency Words Please practice the words listed on the back of your child's folder. The words can also be found on my website. If your child already knows all the words he/she should now learn to spell them correctly!

2. Phonemic Awareness – Work on segmenting words. Give your child a word and ask them to break it apart (ex: play- /p/l/a/, shell- /sh/e/l/, etc.) Try to give them words containing blends.

3. Reading Your child should read every day. Use the Raz Kids website or any other books you may have. Ask your child to try 3 strategies before you tell them an unknown word. Reading strategies are as follows:

• Stretching the word out
• Looking at the pictures
• Looking for smaller words inside the word
• Chunking (breaking the word down into smaller pieces)
• Reading on to the end of the sentence and then going back to figure out the word (skipping)
• Asking Does it make sense?
• Successful readers use two or more strategies together.

After reading, ask your child to retell the story to you. If it is a fictional (fantasy) book your child should tell you the characters, setting, beginning, middle, end, and favorite part. If it is a non-fiction (real) book, you child should tell you the topic and then 3+ details about the topic, and favorite part.

4. Writing - Use the Step Up to Writing format to write 5 sentence paragraphs on topic. The writing should begin with a green topic sentence, include 3 yellow detail sentences starting with a transition word (first, next last), and end with a green conclusion sentence. Try to use 3-4 adjectives (describing words) to make the writing more interesting and a connecting word (because, and, so, but, or). Write “7 Up” sentences (sentences should have a minimum of 7 words not including the transition word.) Write informative or opinion paragraphs. Check my website for more information if needed.

5. Math Facts - Practice math facts, both addition and subtraction to sums of 10. Make flash cards or quiz your child in the car. First graders need to memorize their math facts by the end of first grade.

6.  Addition Strategies - Practice using addition strategies such as doubles, making 10, and adding 3 numbers together to sums of 20. We want students to move from the counting stage to strategies and then to memorization of facts.

7. Word Problems – Give your child simple real life math word problems (addition and subtraction) to sums of 20 to solve.

8. Parts of Numbers – Give your child a number (20 or less) and let them come up with all the ways to make that number using addition. There will always be 1 more way than the number. Ex. There are 12 ways to make the number 11. (A circle map works well for this.)