Weekly News!

Look at these first grade scientists hard at work!

Reading:

This week our theme in Treasures was “Animal Families”. We practiced spelling words with the short /o/ sound. As we read the selections for the week, we really focused on summarizing and identifying the main idea and details. During grammar instruction, we learned about nouns, and identified people, places, and things in sentences. During Guided Reading time, I assessed students’ current reading levels, and am pleased to report that they are making steady progress! We will continue to work on decoding and comprehension strategies as our Guided Reading groups resume next week. Speaking of next week, our Treasures theme will be “Helping Out”. Our word work and spelling words for the week will have the short /e/ sound. As we read the selections for the week, we will again focus on summarizing, and we will revisit retellings. This is when we tell what happened first, next, then, and last in a story, along with identifying the characters and setting when applicable. These are excellent ways to practice comprehension strategies at home, too, after your child reads a book to you, or after you read to them.

Writing:

This week, we finished up our personal narrative writing by writing an opening and closing sentence. We learned that an opening sentence should introduce your reader to your topic, and that the closing sentence should wrap everything up and tell how that event made you feel. After we wrote our opening and closing sentences, we began publishing our writing in a story board format. This will carry over into next week as we work on doing our very best work for our published piece!

Math:



In math this week, we learned about and practiced telling time to the half hour. This included learning how to use the term, “half past” when telling the time. Please encourage your child to practice telling time whenever possible, particularly when they present the opportunity by asking what time it is! The next math lessons brought an introduction to the “Frames and Arrows” routine, and spent quite some time practicing this routine. I was very proud of the children for picking this up rather easily! We will continue practice with these problems throughout the year, but they are off to a fantastic start with a tricky concept! Next week, we will begin by programming calculators to count with them. Then, we will introduce dimes to our coin counting combinations, and practice counting those in combination with pennies and nickels. Counting coins is another concept that lends itself nicely to practice at home or in the “real world”. First graders can always benefit from any authentic experiences with counting coins! We will not have regular math instruction next Thursday, so there will be no math homework over the long weekend.

Science:







Our first grade Matter unit came to a close this week, and the kids had a blast experimenting with Oobleck! They were asking questions, making great scientific guesses, and thoroughly enjoying the mysterious Oobleck. We also completed the second half of the flip book we started on the very first day of our unit. On the first day, we wrote or illustrated what we thought a solid was, a liquid, and a gas. We ended the unit by writing or illustrating what we now know a solid is, what a liquid is, and what a gas is. Our Matter Chant was performed for the last time at school, but hopefully it will be performed many more times at home ☺ Next week, we will make the switch to Social Studies, as we begin studying the history of Thanksgiving.

Have a beautiful weekend!

Mrs Glaser ☺

Upcoming Events:

11/9: School photo retakes

11/11: Veterans’ Day (No school for students)

11/17: Dads & Donuts 8:30 am in the gym

11/17: MICK’S BIRTHDAY!

11/18: High Touch High Tech in school field trip

11/18: Progress Reports sent home

11/21-11/22: Parent Teacher conferences (No school for students)

11/22: LILY’S BIRTHDAY!

11/23-11/25: Thanksgiving break (No school for students)