Weekly News!

Although it was a short week, the first graders worked so hard that it seemed like we were able to get a week’s worth of work in!

This week, Joe was our class photographer, and he captured some great photo opportunities! Unfortunately, this afternoon was so busy with our science experiment that we weren't able to get his favorite photos or captions from him. (Completely Mrs. Glaser's fault- it slipped my mind!) On Monday, I will update with his captions and possibly a few other photos if he isn't happy with the ones I've selected. But in the mean time, I've selected a few of my favorites from the photos he took!

Peter records his observations after dissecting his flower during Science.


Mick is carefully dissecting his flower to discover what is inside!


Luke and Lily examine roots and draw what they see.


Luca is thoughtfully working on his grammar page for the day, determining which verb he should be using in the sentence, "is" or "are".


Leilani uses the iPad during our phonics lessons to move letters around to make new words.

Reading

This week our Treasures theme was “Our Families”. Our spelling and word work lessons focused on long /i/ words. During grammar instruction, we learned about the verbs “is” and “are” and that we use “is” when talking about one noun and “are” when talking about more than one noun. As we read this week, we made predictions and asked questions about the selection throughout the reading. This helps us to really stay engaged in the story and keep our minds active and thinking, which aids our comprehension of what we have read. We were also able to jump back in to Guided Reading groups, where students practiced their fluency by using the iPad to record themselves reading, then listening to their reading. Next, they re-recorded themselves reading the same book and listened to both in a row to see how much their reading of the selection improved after our work in the Guided Reading group. Hopefully this helps them to see why it is important to read a book several times to practice being a fluent, or smooth reader, using expression and pausing at appropriate places! Looking ahead to next week, our Treasures theme will be “Family Time”. As we read the selections for the week, we will continue to practice generating questions, and we will also identify the characters and setting of each of our selections. Our spelling and word work lessons will focus on triple consonant blends (spl-, str-, scr-). Our grammar lessons will focus on contractions with the word “not”.

Writing

This week in writing, we began publishing our How-to writing using the Story Kit app on the iPads. The students did a nice job adding the pages necessary to type their directions. Next week, as some students finish up their writing, those who are finished typing their sentences will go back and use the cameras on the iPads to take pictures of each step being demonstrated.

Math

Our math lessons this week began with a study of the facts table, and a review of +0, +1, and doubles strategies. We then learned how our doubles facts can assist us even more when solving doubles +1 or doubles +2 problems. For instance, if you know that 5+5=10, then you know that 5+7 would just be two more than 10. These shortcuts are helpful for some, but confusing for others, and that’s okay! It’s important for students to find what strategies work for them and use those strategies, and not to try and use each strategy we introduce one hundred percent of the time. Next, we learned how to complete “What’s My Rule?” function boxes, and these first graders are starting to get very good at determining the rule! We also played a game called “Beat the Calculator”, where students discovered that many times, our brains are much faster at recalling math facts than calculators are at solving them! I think this really empowered them, and hopefully made them realize how important it is to commit those addition facts to memory! After our regular math work was completed, we continued to use the iPad apps I mentioned last week for fact practice, and we also explored coin counting apps. The coin counting apps that we used this week were Coin Crazy, Coin Math, and Coins Genius. Next week, we will begin the week with a review of Unit 5 using the Mimio Vote system. On Tuesday, we will take our Unit 5 test, followed by our mid year assessment on Wednesday to see just how far we have come since the beginning of the year! On Thursday, we will begin Unit 6!

Science & Social Studies

Focusing again this week on living things, the first grade scientists examined roots and learned that roots are important to a plant not only to collect water and nutrients from the soil, but also to hold them upright and in place. We also dissected flowers to observe the various parts of a flower and what purposes they serve in keeping the flower alive. Next week, we will dissect celery and learn about mold to wrap up our study of living things!

As you’ve probably noticed in my two most recent posts, (but are worth mentioning again!), don’t forget to send gym shoes on Wednesdays and Fridays for P.E. class. Also, if you happen to have any books to contribute to the student council book drive, we would be happy to collect those! See below for details.

Have a fantastic weekend!

Mrs. Glaser ☺