Weekly News!

We had another short, but productive week in first grade! Thanks for checking in. Here's what we have been working on:

Reading
This week, our Treasures theme was "Pets". We did a fantastic job of identifying the characters and settings, as well as what happened First, Next, Then, and Last in the stories we read and heard throughout the week. We will continue to work on this skill both in whole group Treasures instruction, and small guided reading groups. Our spelling words and words we used during our making words lessons focused on words with /r/ blends. Next week, our Treasures theme will be "Teamwork". We will be discussing and identifying the author's purpose as we read. Our spelling pattern will be words with final blends. And speaking of spelling, today we went to the computer lab and practiced entering our spelling words on Spellingcity.com and playing games to practice! So now, your child should be able to show you how they can do this independently at home. Enjoy!

Writing
During Writing Workshop this week, we began our "Small Moments" writing. We selected one thing we did over our long weekend, and we stretched out that moment into what happened First, Next, Then, and Last. (Are you noticing a pattern here?) Once we had one sentence for each of these categories, we went back to add more to our writing to make it more descriptive and really stretch it out. We will also celebrate the conclusion of our Autobiography unit with a first grade author share tomorrow with the students in Mrs. Coyle and Miss Bandur’s classes! Next week, we will continue to work on our personal narrative writing skills with our Small Moment writing. We are also continuing to work on our October handwriting books to practice correct formation of our letters.

Math
This week in math, we practiced counting pennies and nickels in combination, and worked with writing addition and subtraction number models. A game we learned this week was Penny Nickel Exchange. Have your child show you how to play this game at home! It’s very simple, all you need are pennies, nickels, and dice. This hands on practice with real coins is very beneficial for them to work on not only counting coins and making exchanges, but also identifying coins. Next week, we will work with number stories on Monday, followed by our Unit 2 test on Tuesday, and then we will learn about visual patterns and even/odd patterns.

Science
This week we introduced our Matter unit by starting a flip book where we recorded what we think a solid, liquid, and a gas is. At the end of the unit, we will revisit these flip books and record what we discovered about solids, liquids, and gases. Next, we learned the first two stanzas of our Matter Chant. Today we experimented with solids with Play Doh explorations. We discovered that no matter how we shaped our Play Doh, it was always visible, and kept it’s size and shape once we shaped it. We learned that these are the properties of a solid. Tomorrow, we will explore with liquids in order to determine what the properties of a liquid are. Next week, we will continue our study of matter as we explore with gases, and how heat can affect matter.

In other news…
On Tuesday, we were visited by the Arlington Heights Fire Department for our extended fire drill. After the drill, the firefighters stuck around to give us a tour of the fire truck. Students were able to ask questions and even walk through the backseat of the fire truck to see how neat everything on the inside is!




Have a fabulous weekend, and don’t forget that tomorrow is Spirit Day! Wear your Dryden gear, or the school colors, red and white!

☺ Mrs. Glaser

Upcoming Events:
Friday, 10/14: Spirit Day
Sunday, 10/16: LUCA’S BIRTHDAY!
Friday, 10/21: Art Appreciation
Friday, 10/28: Pumpkin Carving Day, 2:00 p.m.