Weekly News!

What an exciting week we’ve had in first grade! I’m sure the kids would tell you that the best part of this week was that they finally got to play in the snow! On that note, please make sure to send snowpants, boots, and extra socks with your child on days when there is snow on the ground. We do go outside unless temperatures prevent us from doing so, so they are often very snowy and/or wet when they come inside! Also, don’t forget to label those items with your child’s name, as we have many items (snowpants in particular) that are very similar looking, if not exactly the same! Thank you so much for your assistance with this!

This week, Luca was our class photographer, and he took some great pictures! Here are a few of his favorites, along with his captions:

"This is our word wall. We keep putting up more and more words!"



"When we observed the fish, Mick did this drawing. I thought it was really cool!"



"My friend Joe says hi."



"Luke likes world peace like Martin Luther King."



"Mick and Emily are observing the fish."

Reading

This week our Treasures theme was “Kids Around the World”. Our spelling and word work lessons focused on /s/ blends at the beginning of words. During grammar instruction, we learned about present tense verbs, and how many times, we must add an –s or an –es to a verb when using the present tense form. As we read this week, we compared and contrasted the different cultures and customs, as well as the activities of daily life for children around the world. It was so neat to have students in our class jump into the discussion and share what they knew about their own cultures, or about different countries that they have visited. What a wealth of worldly information we have right in our own classroom! This week I assessed each child’s reading level and have shifted their reading groups to match their levels. Next week, we will continue assessing each child’s reading progress as we begin AIMSweb testing. This is the testing that we do in the fall, winter, and spring where the children do timed reading passages. This data will be shared with you at spring conferences so you can see the growth between the fall score and the winter score. Looking ahead to next week, our Treasures theme will be “Me and My Shadow”. As we read the selections for the week, we will practice identifying the main idea and details. Our spelling and word work lessons will focus on consonant digraphs (ch-, wh-, -tch). Our grammar lessons will continue to focus on verbs, this time specifically on past-tense verbs.


Writing

This week in writing, we learned about How-To writing. The students each wrote a step by step account for building a snowman (what impeccable timing the weather had!), and their directions are on display in the hallway to share our expertise! Next week, we will begin brainstorming topics for other topics we could write a How-To article about. Each child will then pick one topic to write about, and we will be composing a How-To article using the iPads, which the first grade will be using for four weeks for classroom projects as well as day to day use.

Math

Our math lessons this week all revolved around one theme: comparing. We compared numbers using animal weights, we compared numbers in number stories, and we compared coin collections. The students are becoming more and more familiar with the more than, less than, and equal to signs. We continue to practice place value, which ties in nicely with this concept as well. At home, you can reinforce these concepts by playing the games sent home from school, or by using the online versions of first grade math games on Everydaymathonline.com. If you need your child’s login or password info again, please don’t hesitate to ask! Next week, we will use our addition and subtraction skills to solve number stories, practice addition facts with dice sums, and learn how doubles facts can help us to solve many types of addition problems.

Science & Social Studies

This week, our first grade scientists were at it again as we observed fish! The students identified the parts of a fish body, and were able to infer how these various body parts were helpful to a fish’s survival. Through our observations, we were able to see a fish’s gills in action, which helped us understand how they breathe, and how human beings are alike and how they are different from fish. Next week, our science focus will continue to be on living things, this time examining roots and celery to learn more about plants. We did work in some Social Studies time this week as well, learning about the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. in preparation for our holiday on Monday. The students came up with their own dreams after learning about Martin’s dream. I will close by sharing some of their dreams (I’m correcting their spelling as I type so they are easier to read, but you will see when their dreams come home that the invented spelling makes them that much more adorable!):

-I have a dream… that no one would go to fight but we shall go in peace.
-I have a dream… that no kids fighted, and treat others kindly.
-I have a dream… that I wish everybody was happy forever and ever.
-I have a dream… that everyone lived in a house.
-I have a dream… that people wouldn’t waste so much paper.
-I have a dream… that wars would be over.

Mrs. Glaser ☺