Weekly News!

We’ve had another successful week in Room 157!

This week, Luke was our class photographer, and he jumped right in and was taking photos before I even realized he had gone to the hook where our camera hangs and taken it down! What a quiet photographer! Here are his favorite photos and captions from the week:

Luca is working on his grammar packet.


Matthew is writing the answer to a problem.


Matthew had the right answer!


Peter was writing the rule for the What's My Rule problem.


Joe and Emily are playing Coin Top-It.

Reading

This week, our Treasures theme was “Recycling”, and we drew conclusions based upon the inferences we made as we read. Our spelling and word work focused on long /u/ words. During grammar instruction, we learned about when to use “has” (when we are talking about one noun), and when to use “have” (when talking about more than one noun). Next week, our Treasures theme will be “What’s the Weather?” and we will focus on using venn diagrams to compare and contrast as we read the selections for the week. Our spelling and word work words will all contain the long /a/ sound, using the –ay or –ai vowel blends. Our focus for grammar will be on when to use the word “go” and when to use “went”, and when to use “do” versus when to use “did”.

Writing/Social Studies

This week in writing, we will continue to work on our President reports. Each student will choose to write about Abraham Lincoln or George Washington. Then they will organize their facts to put them in a logical order, write an opening and closing sentence, and publish their writing in their neatest handwriting.

Math

This week in math, we practiced completing Frames and Arrows and What’s My Rule function boxes. We then learned about quarters, and began counting them in combination with dimes, nickels, and pennies. We also learned to play the game, Tric Trac, which helps us practice our math facts. This game can also be accessed on everydaymathonline.com, along with other games we’ve played recently, like Coin Top-It and Coin Exchange! I can see that many of you have been logging in at home to practice these games (and more!) and build your math skills, so hats off to you for your hard work at home! If you’ve misplaced your login card, just let me know and I can send another one home with your child. Click HERE to visit the Everyday Math games site:





Finally, this week we learned about digital clocks, as well as telling time to the minute on analog clocks. Counting by fives automatically helped us to count the minutes as we followed the minute hand around the clock. Keep practicing counting by fives at home until it is completely automatic! Next week, we will have no math on Monday due to our musical practice on Monday afternoon. Beginning on Tuesday, we will explore our math reference books, practice collecting data and making bar graphs, and take our Unit 6 math test on Thursday. I know I mentioned this last week, but it is certainly worth repeating, as it is so important. Please don’t forget that each week, a new set of math flashcards will be sent home. Have your child cut them out, write the answer on the back, and keep them in a bag to practice frequently until those addition facts are mastered up to the +9 facts! These should be automatic, or “snappy quick”, and students should be able to give the answer as soon as the card is shown. Keep practicing!!

Announcements

**Tuesday is our First Grade Musical! The musical begins at 7:00 pm, and doors to the school open at 6:30. At 6:40, students will be lead to our classrooms, and are to arrive no later than 6:45. Mr. Deptula has asked that the dress code be "nice clothes." Dresses (No mini skirts above the knees or spaghetti straps please!), Dockers, (non-holey) jeans, collared shirts and ties are encouraged. The kids have been working so hard in preparation for the musical, and I cannot wait to see them perform!

**On Friday morning, we will have a bit of a different schedule, as we will have our “JA in a Day” taking place for the entire morning. Our Junior Achievement representative will complete the entire Junior Achievement program in this half day, rather than coming in for multiple sessions to complete the program. I will also be out of the building this day to attend the ICE (Illinois Computing Educators) conference to learn about various ways to enhance learning with technology. Please make sure that if you have any changes for end of day transportation, you call the office instead of emailing me just to make sure the substitute receives your message!

**Please remember to send in your purple confirmation slips for your conference times if you have not done so already so I can lock in our conference times and finalize the conference schedule.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday evening for the musical!

Mrs. Glaser ☺