Weekly News!

This week brought much excitement in first grade, as we celebrated our 100th day of school! We are all 100 days smarter!

This week, Mykolas was our class photographer, and he did a fantastic job of taking his photographs independently and capturing a wide variety of activities. Here are his favorite photos and captions from the week:


Lily is a great cutter when she cut the band-aids.


Jesse is doing his greatest work on the contraction surgery.


Mick is doing a good job doing doodle buddy for fact families.


Everyone is wearing great suits. (Mrs. Glaser took this photo, but Mykolas really wanted to include it!)


Jesse is really helpful for others at spending his 100 dollars.


Reading

This week was our review and assessment week for Treasures, so we did not have a regular spelling pattern or Treasures theme for the week. We took our Unit 3 assessment using the Mimio Vote system, and performed surgery on word parts to make them contractions! This was a fantastic review of contractions for our first grade doctors, and they did a stellar job of piecing those little guys back together! We also took the OLSAT test in three parts this week, and the students did their very best work! In the few spare minutes that we had, we completed another week of Text Talk, as we do on these review and assessment weeks for a short focus on vocabulary words. Next week, our Treasures theme will be “Birds”. Our spelling and word work focus will be on long /o/ words. As we read the selections for the week, we will practice making inferences, or using what we know along with what clues the author gives us to take meaning from the selection. Our grammar lessons will focus on when to use “was” and when to use “were” when speaking and writing.

Writing

This week in writing, we focused on a few special writing projects revolving around the 100th day of school! The students wrote a class book about what they would buy for someone else if they had 100 dollars. Their responses were very sweet (and some were funny!), and the class book will be in our class book basket at conferences, so be sure to check that out. Next, the students used the iPads to create a book about what they would be like or do when they are 100 years old. First, they used the camera on their iPad to take a photograph of themselves. Next, they made their picture the background in the Doodle Buddy app so that they were able to add mustaches, beards, gray hair, wrinkles, glasses, and things of that nature to age themselves ! Then, they imported their photo to the Explain Everything app to add a sentence about what they will be like when they are 100 years old. Finally, they emailed their project to me so that I could compile them in an iMovie. Can you believe what these first graders are capable of? They amaze me!!

Math

This week in math, we learned about equivalent names, or finding other ways to show numbers. Last week I shared this example, but it’s worth sharing again as we will continue using these name collection boxes throughout the year. For instance, if you selected the number 10, you might write the word “ten”, make 10 tallies, draw a long to show 10 in base ten blocks, draw a domino with 6 dots on one side and 4 on the other to show a total of 10, draw a dime to represent 10 cents, write the addition fact 5+5, or write the word 10 in another language. Next, we introduced fact families by using dominoes. For example, if a domino has 3 dots on one side and 4 dots on the other, the fact family would be:
3,4,7
3+4=7
4+3=7
7-4=3
7-3=4
Once we learned about fact families, we moved on to fact triangles. The students have a set at school and they will be developing a set at home. This was mentioned on the home link that came home with the fact triangles, so whenever you receive a home link with a set of fact triangles to cut out and practice, do not worry about sending those back to school. You can just keep them in a bag at home so you can add to them as more fact triangle home links come home. We will be practicing with our school sets here at school. Finally, on Thursday we celebrated our 100th day of school! We had many cute little 100 year olds in our class, and they were so excited throughout the day! After we did our writing activities about 100, we played a game where we rolled a die 100 times and flipped a coin 100 times and tallied our results to determine the winner (the number shown on the die the most times and heads or tails on the coin), did an odd/even numbers coloring that resulted in a secret message, raced to 100 by rolling a die and counting hops on the number grid, and writing about what we could buy if we had 100 pennies (much to their disappointment, some had to be reminded that 100 pennies is VERY different from 100 dollars)!

Science & Social Studies

This week, we wrapped up our living things unit during Science time with our final observation of our celery that had been sitting in colored water. We discovered that the xylem turned red from the red water, and so did the leaves! We were then able to conclude that these little tubes inside the stem are what carries the water and nutrients from the roots to the leaves of a plant. Next, we cut the celery in half to examine a cross section and see how the inside of the celery had changed after being in the red water. We concluded our unit with a special QR code scavenger hunt along with the students in Mrs. Coyle and Miss Bandur’s classes! We split up into groups with a few students from each class and an adult for each group. We had some great adult helpers in Dr. Jares, Mr. Robinson, Mrs. Breaux, Mrs. Tanny, and Mrs. Kenney. The groups then traveled around the building looking for clues and answering questions to review what we have learned about plants and animals. After students answered a question correctly, they used the iPad to scan the QR code, and the next clue popped up on the screen to give them a hint about where they might find their next science question. They absolutely loved this scavenger hunt, and did a fantastic job of answering the questions! When we returned to our room, the students earned their prize for completing the hunt, a few seeds they could plant to observe at home. I can’t wait to hear how the seeds do with these first grade plant experts growing them at home!





During Social Studies time this week, we learned about American Symbols, such as the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, Liberty Bell, the American Flag, Bald Eagle, and several more! We used the iPads to research these symbols on the facts4me.com website, and each student chose their favorite to use for their project. Next week, we will begin discussing citizenship and what it means to be a good citizen.

On Tuesday, we will celebrate Valentine’s Day with a party after the last recess of the day. Don’t forget to bring your Valentine collection box to hold all of your Valentines! And if you need another class list with all of the students’ names, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Mrs. Glaser