News You Can Use!

We had a short, but full week here in 1-1. Read all about it below.

Literacy

Treasures: 

This week, in Treasures the children continued to work with short /a/ words. They enjoyed reading stories about different movements. Their favorite story of the week was, From Head to Toe. The children acted out this story as I read and mirrored the movements that the animals made in the book. What a great kinesthetic learning experience! 

I Can raise my shoulders.

I can swing my arms.

I can bend my knees.

I can kick my legs.

The children also listened to the story, Stellaluna. After, they discussed what happened at the beginning, middle, and end of the story. Then they wrote their own sequencing cards, including a sentence and picture. One for the beginning, middle, and end of the story. They glued their cards to their very own Stellaluna bat. They look great hanging from our ceiling!

Grammar Packets:

The children continued to work with sentence structure in our grammar packets this week. They payed close attention to beginning capitals and periods at the end of sentences. They are becoming experts at recognizing complete and incomplete sentences.  

Writing

This week, we started our second writing unit. The children will work on Narrative writing, zooming in on a small moment in their lives to write about. To start, they chose something that they did over the weekend and used lots of detail to describe the event. 

Later, in the week we read the book, A Chair For My Mother. The children listened to the story and then met with a partner to discuss what they thought the two small moments were from the story. When we came back together as a group the children discussed how the author described her two small moments using lots of detail. 

Next week, the children will begin the process of writing their very own small moment story. You can help your child at home by talking about an event in their life that was really exciting for them: a trip, a big game, a birthday. Help them recall their favorite event in lots of detail, they will use this to write their narrative.

Math 

In Math, the children worked with analog clocks. They learned that the little hand is the hour hand and the big hand is the minute hand. Using their own clocks they showed times to the hour and used approximations to say what time their clocks read, for example, just after 7, a little before 11, in between 1 and 2. 

On Wednesday, the children enjoyed explorations in math. They rotated through three stations: domino sorting ( learning that the dot patterns on dominoes represent numbers), straight line dot to dot (using rulers), and estimating relative lengths of objects (sorting objects into two groups, smaller and larger than a six inch ruler).  

Today, the children explored pennies. They identified the characteristics of a penny and learned how to write values of different groups of pennies. They enjoyed learning a poem about a penny: 

Penny, penny 

Easily spent

Copper brown

And worth one cent!

Science

This week, we started our first science unit, Collecting and Examining Life. To kick off the unit we read the book, What is a Scientist? The children learned that they are all scientists. Each child wrote about what scientists do. Then they made their very own scientists to hang up in the classroom. Their writing is hidden inside their scientist’s lab coat. 

On Wednesday, the children did their first experiment. They had to look at three different substances, mystery substance A, mystery substance B, and salt. Using a magnifying glass they observed the substances and decided which one they thought was alive. After creating their hypothesis, the children added the salt to water creating a salt water solution. In one jar they placed substance A and the salt water. In another jar they placed substance B and salt water. The children observed the solutions in the jars and recorded what they saw in their science notebooks. They conferred with other scientists at their table and decided that they thought jar A held the live contents. We will return to the jars next week and test our hypothesis. Will it be jar A or jar B that holds the live contents? 

Columbus Day

Today, we learned about Columbus Day in our classroom. The children watched a short video on BrainPopjr about Christopher Columbus and had a great discussion on who Christopher Columbus was. They also learned a Columbus Day song. Enjoy a video of the children singing the song below! 

Ryan had a busy week!

Ryan was our first star student. Thank you Ryan for sharing all about you!

We celebrated Ryan's birthday on October 2nd. Happy Birthday Ryan!

On Tuesday, the children enjoyed a visit from Ryan's mom. Thank you to Mrs. Shao for being a fantastic royal reader. The children loved listening to the story, The Honey Cake Mix-Up. 

Notes:

• In backpack mail, your child brought home a paper titled, October 2012 R.E.A.D. Have your child set a reading goal for the month. If they meet the goal, sign the paper and return the it to school. Your child has a chance to earn a ticket to Six Flags if they meet their reading goal every month from October - April. 
• Don’t forget to read and return your purple poetry folder!
• There is no school on Monday, October 8th because of Columbus Day.
• Friday, October 12th is a School Spirit day, wear your spirit wear or Dryden colors.

Progressive Dinner Project

Calling all parents!!! Premiering at a Progressive Dinner near you, our class tub: Cuddle up with Mom or Dad, a mug of hot cocoa, tea, or apple cider and a good book or maybe write your own story! You get a hand painted galvanized tub by Mrs. Johnson's 1st graders containing, 2 clear glass mugs, hot cocoa, chamomile tea, apple cider, 5 early reader Halloween themed books, a white board, other writing materials, and a book of personal suggestions for using the tub by each child in our class.

Get your hands on it before it's gone!

A special thank you to Mrs. Topps and Mrs. Rabe for organizing this wonderful project! The children had a lot of fun participating.

Have a great long weekend!