Ms. Vickie Fadness
First and Second Grade

Vickie Fadness earned her teaching credentials and completed her Masters at the University of Idaho in Moscow. She has served as the Director of a preschool and kindergarten school, taught preschool, kindergarten, summer enrichment classes for primary aged children and science with fifth/sixth graders. Vickie teaches first and second graders at Colton.

First and Second Grade Daily Schedule
8:10 – 8:25 – Early Morning Recess
8:25 – 8:45- Welcome, Attendance, Lunch Count, Calendar, and Schedule
8:45 – 9:50 -Language Arts
9:50 – 10:00 – Recess
10:00 – 11:15 – Math
11:20 – 12:02 – Lunch and Recess
12:02 – 2:15 – Language Arts, Math, Music, Computer Lab, PE, Social Studies, and Science depending on the day’s schedule.
2:15 – 2:50 – Language Arts
2:50 – 2:55 – Prepare for Home and Dismissal

Many supplies have been donated to Colton and Uniontown students. These supplies are available at the school in the Life Skills Room beginning August 19th. Please come in to select items before shopping.
School supplies marked with an asterisk (*) will be used by all class members and distributed as needed, they should not be labeled with your child’s name.

*4 packages of #2 plain yellow pencils
*6 glue sticks
*1 box of quart or gallon sized Ziploc type bags
*2 packages of hand wipes

*2 boxes of facial tissues

Please label the following items with your child’s name:

water container with a secure lid (When filled with water, it should be able to survive several three foot drops without breaking.)
washable markers
large box of crayons
scissors
2 pencil boxes or pencil pouches – large enough to hold all pencils, markers, crayons and scissors.
book bag or backpack
P.E. shoes with non-black soles (need not be new)
paint shirt
Your first/second grader will need the following supplies at home or child care to complete homework assignments:

number 2 pencils
school glue or glue sticks
scissors
markers, crayons, or color pencils
Please bring supplies during our Ice Cream Social, August 27th, 6:30-7:30.
*Courtney Hoyle is coordinating “Stuff the Bus” this year and will have school supplies available August 19th.

Families have very busy schedules and homework quickly becomes part of everyone’s schedule.  Therefore, all homework is sent home the first day of school each week.  Homework normally includes spelling words (tests on Fridays), math, and writing/listening/reading/drawing assignments.  You and your first/second grader set the schedule for completion and checking of homework assignments.

Completed and incomplete homework is returned to school daily. I will remove completed homework and leave incomplete homework.
Homework folders need to be returned daily so that notes from you or us, flyers, etc. can be put into folders.
All homework (both complete and incomplete) will be removed the last day of the week unless you send a note requesting extra time for your child to complete an assignment.

Books in a Bag” Procedures
Books for your child to read, listen to, or look at. Every week, children receive “Books in a Bag”.  The bag has your child’s name on it and the numbers of the books (for my recordkeeping).  Whenever he/she has read/listened to/looked at the books, the books are returned to school.  I’ll send a new supply home the first of the next week (normally Mondays or Tuesdays).  Please keep these books in the plastic bag to protect the books and ensure your child receives the next books in the series.

Other Books… 
Some children also like to take a book home from the class library.  Children may take one book home anytime they want.  It is their responsibility to return the book before taking another book home.  These are separate from “Books in a Bag”.

As you look over your child’s work, you will notice circles, stars, hearts, and/or “OK” written on the paper.  The following definitions explain the meaning of the notations.  None of the notations indicate whether a child is working below, at, or above grade level standards.  Direct those questions to me.

Enjoy sitting down with your child and looking over his/her masterpieces of learning!

Stars, Hearts, Circles, and OK’s

• Star(s) or Heart – work is complete and correct.
• Circle –answer is wrong
• Circle with a Star –answer was wrong and corrected.
• OK –work is complete, but it may be sloppy, meeting minimal requirements, etc.

First and Second Grades
Report Card Guide
Student performance is reported on a four point scale aligned to Common Core State Standards.  First and second graders are working throughout the year to meet or exceed end-of-year grade level standards.  These learners are typically building skills and/or content understanding and score 2 during the year.  A score of 3 indicates they have met the specific learning standard and occurs toward the end of the school year.

Score	Scoring Rubric
1 – Below Standard	Child responses indicate very beginning or little understanding of the fundamental skills and/or concepts. Child is unable to complete the task without teacher assistance. A child at this level is receiving additional instruction.
2 – Working Toward Standard	Child is building skills and/or content understanding and working towards meeting end-of-year standards. A score of 2 starts where a child is showing some understanding yet must work closely with a teacher to complete the task.  It extends towhere the child is able to revise/correct work without conversation or more teaching and demonstrates near proficient skill and/or contentunderstanding.
3 – Meets Standard	Child is meeting end-of -year performance standards. Child has a secure understanding of the content area or skill and demonstrates proficiency over challenging content.
4 – Above Standard	Child has met and now exceeds grade level standards for the skill and/or content area. Child demonstrates independent ability to meet the content, thinking processes, and demands of the task.  The responses reflect a broad range of knowledge and the ability to apply his/her knowledge in different contexts.
X – Not Evaluated
Report cards are mailed every quarter. Conferences are scheduled at the end of the first quarter, but may be requested at any time.

Parents of first and second graders are invited to:

• Accompany students on field trips
• Be guest readers
• Listen to children read
• Help with special projects
• Serve as a proofreader
• Direct holiday craft activities
• Plan holiday classroom parties
• Join holiday classroom parties
• Donate time and auction items at the art/book fair
• Participate in the end-of-the-year picnic
• Organize monthly book orders
• Serve on academic/activities committees

Contact Ms. Fadness, if you would like to volunteer for these activities, or if you have other ideas of ways to be involved.
Call: 509-229-3386
vfadness@colton.k12.wa.us

Links to Area Libraries

Lewiston Library
http://www.cityoflewiston.org/index.aspx?nid=91
Whitman County Library
http://www.whitco.lib.wa.us/
Colton Library –  A Brach of Whitman County Library
http://www.whitco.lib.wa.us/locationsandhours/colton.htm 
Uniontown Library – A Branch of Whitman County Library
http://www.whitco.lib.wa.us/locationsandhours/uniontown.htm
Neill Public Library, Pullman
http://www.neill-lib.org/Departments/Library/Default.aspx
Latah County Library, Moscow
http://www.latahlibrary.org

Process Writing Terms and Definitions
Prewriting 
Students use prewriting activities to discover topics they know and care about.  They talk about topics to develop a sense of purpose and the effect they want to have on their audience.  Talking helps children explore their topics before the writing begins.
Rough Draft
When students write a rough draft, they focus on getting ideas down on paper.  They think as they go, cross out, leave blanks, switch directions, use abbreviations, draw pictures, and write as much as they can.
*First and second graders’ homework is normally at the rough draft stage.  Children circle words they think are misspelled, add punctuation, and use capitalization with varying degrees of proficiency.
Revising
Students go back to what they have written.  They ask themselves:  “Do I make sense?”  “Have I said it in an interesting way?”  They add, cut, move words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs without tedious recopying.  They read aloud what they have written and discuss with the peers, teachers and/or volunteers.
Editing
Students check spelling, capitalization, punctuation, sentence structure, and word usage.  They do with peers, teachers and/or volunteers.
Publishing
Students or teachers make a clean, correct copy to share.  Students illustrate, make books, prepare presentations and/or read their pieces to an audience.

Reading Together
Before reading, take a few minutes to preview the piece.  This helps readers to tie this piece to personal experiences, interests, and/or similar books.  Continue a dialogue about the book during and after reading it.  If at any time it becomes apparent the book is too difficult for your child to read, read it to him/her instead.

Suggested Strategies to Decode Words
1.  Praise your child when he/she stops reading because he/she doesn’t know a word or the word didn’t make sense. This self-monitoring ability is an essential element of reading.
2.  Wait to see if your child can self-correct.
3.  Cue your child to use a decoding strategy.

• look at the pictures
• “stretch and shrink” the word
• reread beginning of sentence or phrase
• skip unknown word, read on, and return to the beginning of the sentence or phrase to try again
• think “What would make sense?” using word, picture, and context clues
• chunk it (look at the word in smaller parts

4.  Tell the unknown word.
Try saying “Would ________ make sense here?”
or
“Does ___________ sound right?”

Have fun reading!