Weekly News!

We rang in the New Year with excitement in first grade this week! It was so nice to see all of my spunky first graders again after such a long break without them. I was blown away by the number of lost teeth and haircuts we had over the break- I almost didn’t recognize my class! As always, we jumped right in and got down to business- see what we have been focusing on below!

Reading

This week our Treasures theme was “Being Friends”. Our spelling and word work lessons focused on the long /a/ sound that is formed with a bossy –e at the end. During grammar instruction, we learned that a verb is an action word, and practiced identifying those in sentences. As we read this week, we made predictions about what might happen next in the story. We are starting to realize that it’s not important that our predictions are actually correct, but that we are thinking about what’s happened in the story, along with what we already know to make a thoughtful prediction. Even if our predictions do not come true, we are still successful predictors if we have thought about the story and made a prediction that makes sense with the story. This week we also met with our Guided Reading groups for the last time before assessments begin next week. After I finish assessing all of the students, then our new groups will be formed. Your child may be reading at a different reading level, and/or with different students, but the routine stays the same! I am looking forward to seeing how much growth the students have made since our last assessment period before fall conferences! In Treasures instruction next week, our theme will be “Kids Around the World”. As we read the selections for the week, we will practice comparing and contrasting various aspects of the text. Our spelling and word work lessons will focus on /s/ blends (sl-, sn-, sp-). Our grammar lessons will continue to focus on verbs, this time specifically on present-tense verbs. As I mentioned earlier, during small group time, I will be assessing the children individually to determine their new reading levels, so you will not see Guided Reading books coming home.

Writing

First graders kicked off their writing in 2012 by making a few resolutions for the new year, and reflecting on what they accomplished in 2011. Next week, we will compare two versions of the story, “The Mitten”. One version is a popular one that many of them are familiar with, written by Jan Brett. The other version is an older one that many have not seen, by Alvin Tresselt. The students will choose which version is their favorite and explain why they made that choice. Next week we will also begin working on “How-to” writing during our Writing Workshop time.

Math

We began Unit 5 in math this week with a heavy focus on place value. This is a tricky concept, but one that the first graders do pick up on and enjoy after some practice! We have been working diligently with our base ten blocks, first practicing with the tens and ones places, then moving on to hundreds, tens, and ones. Finally, we learned about using the greater than, less than, and equals signs to compare numbers. We played a game called Base 10 exchange, which helped us practice trading in 10 cubes for 1 long, or grouping our ones and moving them to the tens place. Next week, we will start with an Explorations lesson, where we will get hands on practice to reinforce these concepts. Then, we will continue our practice with comparing numbers using animal weights, and work with more than and less than number stories. We will conclude the week by tying all of these concepts together with comparison number stories.


Science


Our study of living things continued this week, picking up where we left off from before winter break. Before break, we focused on plants, and this week, we began our animal focus. We investigated two mystery substances early in the week (which we later discovered were sand and brine shrimp eggs). We then used rock salt that we had examined as well, and made salt water. We knew that one of the substances would be a living thing and that they needed the salt water as a suitable environment to live. We then transferred both substances to the salt water and later in the week, observed them to see if any changes had taken place. How excited were we to find that one of the substances had hatched several tiny brine shrimp! We used a proscope to take a really close look at them and were so thrilled to be able to watch them swim by. Many of the students mentioned that they looked like little tadpoles. Next, we used our magnifying lenses to examine both substances and record what we saw in our science journals. We ended the week with another close up examination of crickets. This time we focused on the crickets’ body parts and how the way their bodies are made help them to survive. We again used the proscope, our magnifying lenses, and special bug boxes that have magnifiers built in to the lids so we could get a good look at our crickets! We recorded our observations in our science journals, and I must say, our group of first grade scientists are becoming very skilled observers, analyzers, and wonderers! Next week, we will do more observations of animals as we take a look at fish. We will also switch gears for a bit to include a few Social Studies lessons on the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. before our holiday next Monday.

Enjoy the unseasonably warm weather this weekend!

Mrs. Glaser ☺