Week of March 2nd-6th

March 10th and March 12th: Parent teacher conferences (sign up will go out soon)

March 13th-23rd: Spring Break

March 27th: Dress of choice

Knowledge/Skills (Reading and Writing): Skills Unit 5

In this unit students will be learning spelling alternatives that make up the advanced code. Up to this point, students have mostly been learning the basic code. That is, they have learned one way to write each of the sounds in English, with the exception of /zh/. Thus far, they have learned only a handful of spelling alternatives:

• the ‘k’ spelling for /k/ as in kite (an alternative for ‘c’ as in cat)
• the double-letter spellings for consonant sounds (‘ff’ as in stuff, ‘ll’ as in bell, ‘ss’ as in dress, ‘ck’ as in black, etc.)
• the ‘s’ spelling for /z/ as in is and dogs
• the ‘ed’ spelling as a past-tense marker for /d/ as in filled and for /t/ as in asked

There are many more spelling alternatives to learn. In this unit and the next, the focus is on spelling alternatives for consonant sounds. These are less numerous and also less frequently used than the spelling alternatives for vowel sounds, which will be addressed later in the CKLA™ sequence of instruction.

Here are the sounds and spellings that are either reviewed or introduced in this unit:

• /p/ spelled ‘p’ and ‘pp’ (review)
• /b/ spelled ‘b’ and ‘bb’ (review)
• /k/ spelled ‘c,’ ‘k,’ ‘cc,’ and ‘ck’ (review)
• /g/ spelled ‘g’ and ‘gg’ (review)
• /ch/ spelled ‘ch’ (review) and ‘tch’ (new)
• /j/ spelled ‘j’ (review), ‘g,’ and ‘ge’ (new)
• /t/ spelled ‘t,’ ‘tt,’ and ‘ed’ (review)
• /d/ spelled ‘d,’ ‘dd,’ and ‘ed’ (review)
• /f/ spelled ‘f’ and ‘ff’ (review)
• /v/ spelled ‘v’ (review) and ‘ve’ (new)
• /r/ spelled ‘r’ (review) and ‘wr’ (new)
• /l/ spelled ‘l’ and ‘ll’ (review)

The majority of the spellings covered in this unit are review items. For example, consonant sounds that can be written with single- or double-letter spellings are review. The hope is that this unit and the next one will give students a chance to ease into the world of spelling alternatives while they consolidate their knowledge of the basic code and have an opportunity to practice reading two-syllable words.

Spelling Words

1. trucker    2. add

3. kitten      4. planned

5. parked    6. offer

7. duck        8. was

Students will identify simple machines: the ramp (inclined plane), wheel and axle, pulley, lever, wedge, screw, and gears. Students will explore where these devices are found and experience how they can make a given task easier. Students will also learn that simple machines are combined to make compound machines, which themselves can be familiar and be operated simply.

_{First Grade Daily Schedule}