News You Can Use!

Literacy 

Treasures:

This week, the children worked with long a (ai, ay). The children read stories about different types of weather. They worked with comparing and contrasting. The children took two types of weather and discussed how they are alike and how they are different. They recorded their responses on a Venn Diagram. 

Compound Words:

On Thursday, the children worked with compound words. We began the lesson by looking at two picture cards. The children guessed the compound word that the picture cards represented. After, each child took a word card. They walked around and found the partner who was holding a word card that completed their compound word. The children were excited during snack time to see all the compound word snacks. During Daily 5, they completed a Compound Word Sleuth activity. They sorted word cards into two categories, compound words and non-compound words.

Grammar Packets:

This week, the children learned that the verbs go and do have different forms for the present tense and the past tense. For present tense we use go, goes and do, does. For past tense we use went and did. 

Guided Reading Groups:

We will continue our short break from guided reading groups next week. I will meet with the rest of the children one on one to do another round of running records. Reassessing allows me to make sure that each child is receiving reading instruction that best fits their instructional reading level.

Math 

In Math, the children explored pattern blocks, practiced addition facts, and formed triangles during Explorations. Using pattern blocks, they determined how many smaller pattern blocks are needed to cover a larger block. The children formed different triangles on a geoboard.

On Wednesday, the children practiced finding the missing input and output numbers in “What’s My Rule?” problems. They also practiced addition facts by playing, Tric Trac.   

On Thursday, the children learned about quarters. They identified the different characteristics of a quarter and it’s value. Each child held up a quarter and we practiced counting by 25s. We found out the total for our class is, 475 cents or $4.75. We will complete the lesson next Monday. The children will work with counting combinations of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. Over the weekend you may wish to have your child practice. Hand them some coins and have them count to find the total.  

Social Studies

This week, we wrapped up our social studies unit on Patriotism. After, we finished researching Abraham Lincoln, the children chose their favorite president (George Washington or Abraham Lincoln). Using their graphic organizer, they wrote a paragraph about their president. They completed their paper by turning it into a replica of George or Abe. The children’s president projects will be on display in the hallway during conferences. 

Today, the children discussed all the facts they learned during the Patriotism unit. They also completed a Venn Diagram of George and Abe. It went along well with our Treasures theme of the week, comparing and contrasting.

Science

Today, we started our new science unit. The children were very excited to listen to a clue about the unit before we began. They listened to a sound from a cd and drew a picture of what they thought we were going to study. The children came up with lots of ideas: fire engine, bee, siren, dog, duck, walrus, etc. They were surprised when they learned that the sound they heard was actually a penguin. 

The children completed an I wonder penguin paper. They wrote down a question that they have about penguins. We will hang their I wonder penguin on our penguin bulletin board. 

As a class, we started a Penguin KWL. WE listed all the facts we know about penguins and what we want to learn. As we research penguins, we will add what we have learned.

Star Student

Christopher was our star student this week. Thanks Christopher for sharing all about you!

Royal Reader

A special thank you to Christopher’s dad, he joined us this week as our Royal Reader. The children enjoyed listening to the two stories that Mr. Davis read, the show-and-tell lion and The Kiss That Missed.

Notes:

• The children have been hard at work practicing for their First Grade Musical. They can’t wait to perform for you next week. The show is February 27th at 7pm. I hope to see you there!

Have a great weekend! 

News You Can Use!

Literacy 

Treasures:

This week, the children worked with long u (u_e). The children read stories about reusing and recycling. They continued working on making inferences. Using their schema (what they know) and text clues, the children made inferences about the stories they read. The children also used their inferences to draw conclusions. They made judgements about characters, actions, and events in the story. The children learned that making inferences and drawing conclusions helps them to better understand what they are reading.  

Love Splat:

Using the book, Love Splat, the children worked on their inferencing skills. As they listened to the story the children recorded their inferences on hearts. The children made inferences such as: I think Splat is worried because he thinks Kitten does not like him. I think Splat is hungry because his tummy rumbled. I think Splat is nervous because he does not give Kitten the valentine he made her. I think Splat is nervous because his tummy rumbled. I think Splat is sad because Spike is mean to him. We compiled all our inferences together to make an Inferring with Splat poster. 

After listening to the book, the children wrote about what love is. They came up with lots of wonderful heartfelt ideas. Then they made a Splat the cat to glue their writing to. They look very cute!

Grammar Packets:

This week, the children learned that the verbs has and have tell about the present. Has tells about one person, place, or thing. Have tells about more than one person, place, or thing. The children used has and have to complete sentences. They also worked with proofreading, making sure every sentence starts with a capital and ends with an end mark.


Guided Reading:
We will be taking a short break from guided reading groups next week. I will be meeting with the children one on one to do another round of running records. Reassessing allows me to make sure that each child is receiving reading instruction that best fits their instructional reading level. 

Math 

In Math, the children were introduced to Fact Triangles. Using their Fact Triangles, the children practiced their addition and subtraction facts with a partner. The children also wrote addition and subtraction number models to go along with their Fact Triangles.

On Tuesday, the children worked with different subtraction fact strategies to find the difference. They used: the Addition/Subtraction Facts Table, Subtracting using a Ten Frame, and -8 and -9 Shortcuts on the Number Grid. 

On Wednesday, the children worked with measuring. They were introduced to the centimeter. The children estimated different lengths to the nearest centimeter and then measured the actual length. They also measured and drew lines to the nearest centimeter.  

Social Studies

This week, we continued our social studies unit on Patriotism. The children researched George Washington. They listened to several books and watched a video about his life on BrainPop. As a class we wrote a list of important facts about George Washington’s life and filled out a graphic organizer. The children then chose five important facts to record on their facts sheet. Today, the children began the same process with Abraham Lincoln. We will finish learning about his life next week. 

Skype

On Thursday morning, the children were excited to Skype with Mrs. Sessler, who is in Japan. Mrs. Sessler stayed up late in order to Skype with us! She told us a little bit about her trip and answered our questions. If you would like to read about Mrs. Sessler’s adventures in Japan, go to her Blog.

Valentine’s Day!

On Thursday, the children celebrated Valentine’s Day. In the afternoon, they enjoyed different valentine math activities. They did a sweethearts graphing activity, practiced their addition math facts, and played Be My Valentine Doubles +1. After math, the children had their valentine’s party. They enjoyed all the delicious treats that were sent in, passed out their valentines, and heard the story, The Best Thing About Valentines.

A special thank you to our room reps, Mrs. Rabe and Mrs. Topps. Thank you for organizing the treats for our valentine’s party. Thank you to all the families who provided paper products and treats. You made our party a yummy success! Thank you!

I would like to thank all of you for making my Valentine’s Day so special. I loved the valentines and yummy treats. Thank you so much!

Art Appreciation

Today Mrs. Bartels came in and the children had their 2nd Art Appreciation presentation. They learned about two pieces of art by Pierre Auguste Renoir: Two Sisters and A Girl with a Watering Can. The children learned about Renoir’s life and his painting techniques. They discussed the two paintings in detail, noting color combinations and texture. Then three volunteer’s dressed up to mimic the two Renoir paintings. The children enjoyed making a sketch of our volunteers.  Thank you, Mrs Bartels!

Star Student

Liam was our star student this week. Thanks Liam for sharing all about you!

Royal Reader

A special thank you to Liam’s dad, he joined us this week as our Royal Reader. The children enjoyed listening to the three stories that Mr. Galka read, My Penguin Osbert, The Magic Hat, and The Biggest Best Snowman.

Notes:

• Thank you to everyone for sending in glue sticks!
• Make sure to mark your calendars, the First Grade Musical is quickly approaching. It is February 27th at 7pm. I hope to see you there!

Have a great long weekend! 

News You Can Use!

Literacy 

Treasures:

This week, the children worked with long o (o_e). The children read stories about birds. They worked with making inferences. Using their schema (what they know) and text clues the children made inferences about the story. 

Grammar Packets:

This week, the children learned that the verbs was and were tell about the past. Was tells about one person, place, or thing. Were tells about more than one person, place, or thing. The children worked to complete sentences using was and were. 

Math 

In Math, the children made a Dice-Throw Record of facts. Using their chart they answered questions about their rolls and which sum had the most facts (7). They were introduced to the Addition Facts Table. Using the Addition Facts Table, the children found the sums of several addition facts. The children enjoyed playing Addition Top-It to practice their math facts.

On Tuesday, the children were introduced to Name-Collection boxes. They used dominoes, drawings, tally marks, base-10 blocks, and addition/ subtraction facts to show equivalent names for numbers. 

On Wednesday, the children worked with fact families. They looked at a domino and identified the three numbers that went with it. Then they wrote two addition and two subtraction facts using the three numbers from their domino. They learned that the addition and subtraction facts make up a fact family. After learning about fact families, the children enjoyed mixing up some of their own. Rolling two dice, they came up with several different fact families. 

Social Studies

This week, we continued our social studies unit on Patriotism. The children learned about U.S. Symbols. Each child had the opportunity to research one U.S. Symbol. They used PebbleGo to research and then wrote two facts about their symbol. 

After researching, the children used the iPad app Explain Everything to create a slide about their symbol. We complied the slides into a slide show titled, U. S. Symbols. 

Today, each child presented their slide to the class. After viewing the slide show, the children completed the book, America the beautiful. The book allowed the children to revisit all the facts they learned about the different symbols this week. 

100th Day Fun!

On Thursday, the children celebrated the 100th day of school. They looked great dressed up like they were 100! The children enjoyed participating in an assortment of 100th day activities. They created a 100th day crown showing different ways to make 100. The children heard the story, 100th Day Worries. They wrote a story about what they would do if they had 1oo dollars. In the afternoon, the children had 100th day math stations. They ended the day by using the iPad to created a photo and writing about what they will do when they are 100. We had a wonderful 100th day of school! Enjoy our slide show below. 

Star Student

Ayva was our star student this week. Thanks Ayva for sharing all about you!

Royal Reader

A special thank you to Ayva’s Mom, she joined us this week as our Royal Reader. The children enjoyed listening to the two stories that Ms. Kraft read, There’s a Wocket in My Pocket! and The Giving Tree. 

Birthday

Today we celebrated Chloe’s birthday. Her birthday is in August but since we will not be in school, Chloe wanted to celebrate her half birthday. Happy 1/2 birthday Chloe!

Notes:

• We are in need of glue sticks. Please send in a couple when you can!
• The ingredients list for our valentine treats came home in your child’s red folder today, please let me know if you have any questions.
• If you would like, you can send in your child’s valentine box and valentines before Thursday.

Have a great rest of the weekend! 

News You Can Use!

Literacy 

Treasures:

This week, the children worked with beginning consonant blends (scr, spl, spr, and str). The children read different realistic fiction stories about families. Most of our stories this week were about Grandparents. The children worked with identifying setting and characters. They identified the different settings throughout the story and discussed what the characters did in each new setting. 

Grammar Packets:

This week, the children were introduced to contractions. They learned that a contraction is a short form of two words. The words are put together and letters are left out. An apostrophe shows where letters have been left out.

On Thursday, the children became doctors and performed Contraction Surgery. They took different two word combinations and turned them into their contraction form. After cutting the two words apart they put them back together with a band aid (apostrophe). What a great kinesthetic exercise to help them understand the process of turning two words into their short form (contraction). 

On Friday, each doctor was awarded their very own “World’s Best Doctor” badge and their My Contraction Surgery Book to bring home.  

Writing:

This week, the children completed their How-To publications. You can view their completed writing on the previous blog post titled, How-To Publications. Click on your child’s name to read their How-To. The children did an incredible job!

Math 

In Math, the children reviewed different fact strategies that they can use to help them solve their basic math facts. We went over different strategies for: +0, +1, doubles, sums of 10, and doubles +1 and +2. 

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the children were introduced to the function machine and What’s My Rule math problems. They worked on finding the rule and missing input and output numbers.  

On Thursday, the children enjoyed reviewing all they learned during Unit 5 by playing, “Math Review Mimio Vote, Unit 5.” Once again our classroom turned into the set of a game show and each contestant had their very own clicker to answer a set of math questions. The questions covered all of our topics from unit 5.

On Friday, the children took their unit 5 test. They did a great job, I am proud of how hard they worked! Look for your child’s test in their red folder this coming Monday. 

Social Studies

This week, we started our new social studies unit. The children listened to a book about citizens and rights and responsibilities. They learned about the qualities and responsibilities of a good citizen. The children then discussed how they are good citizens at school, home, and in their community. Each child wrote about what makes them a good citizen. Their writing is displayed in the hallway. 

On Friday, the children listened to the story, America the Beautiful Together We Stand. During the story, the children previewed some of the U. S. Symbols that we will begin researching next week.

Groundhog Day Fun
On Friday, the children listened to the book, Groundhog Day. They made a groundhog crown and learned a poem about groundhogs day. Here is a video of the children reciting the poem.

The children also made predictions on whether the groundhog would see his shadow or not. We graphed our predictions and it turned out that half of us think the groundhog will see his shadow and the other half think that he will not. What will it be, six more weeks of winter or an early spring? On Monday, we will look back at our graph and see which half of the class made the correct prediction. Your child can share what they learned this weekend about the groundhog and his shadow!

Star Student

Chloe was our star student this week. Thanks Chloe for sharing all about you!

Royal Reader

A special thank you to Chloe’s Mom, she joined us this week as our Royal Reader. The children enjoyed listening to the two stories that Mrs. Leung read, The Day It Rained Hearts and There Is a Bird on Your Head!

Notes:

-Thank you to all the first graders for the wonderful healthy treats this week. What a delicious surprise! 

-February 7th is 100th Day. I can’t believe we have almost been in school for 100 days! In your child’s red folder you should have found a note about dressing up for 100th day. The children are very excited to show us what they think they will look like when they are 100 years old. Be creative and have fun! I can’t wait to see what the children come up with!

Have a great rest of the weekend!