Weekly News!

It was a short but busy week in room 157 this week! On Wednesday, Luca's mom joined us for an Art Appreciation lesson. The painting that was studied this week was by Renoir, and since he liked to paint outside, she thought it would be fitting to do the lesson in the courtyard on such a beautiful day! The kids loved it. They discussed the painting and observed the way the sunlight hitting different objects can change the color or shading of the object.



On Thursday, we used a set of laptops to research different kinds of penguins in the Facts4Me website. The students identified where the type of penguin they selected lives, what they eat, how tall they can be, what their predators are, and an interesting fact about them. They loved having the freedom to learn more about each kind of penguin once they finished their research on the penguin they chose!





Finally, on Friday, those of us who were left at school celebrated Penguin Day! We did all things penguin, from a visor that we made to wear to a penguin fact booklet (complete with a penguin wing to hold all of these facts in!) to a special screening of "The Adventures of Scamper the Penguin" to finish off our last day before Spring Break!

Have a wonderful break, and we will see you back on April 2nd!

Mrs. Glaser

Weekly News!

What a beautiful week we’ve had this week! As the sun was shining outside, these determined first graders were inside working away and learning so much!

Peter was our class photographer this week, and he had a great time taking pictures of all of our activities! Here are his favorite photos and captions of the week:


Here is us telling what the beginning, middle, and end of the story was.


Here is when we were reading Little Rabbit.


Here are our word wall words.


Here’s Jesse’s good citizen writing in the hallway.


Here is my good citizen writing in the hallway.


Here’s what we wonder about penguins.


Here are our Character Counts slips.


These penguins are hanging on our ceiling.

Reading

This week, our Treasures theme was “Favorite Stories”, and we practiced summarizing and analyzing the plot of the stories we read. We are really getting good at identifying the beginning, middle, and ending of a story! We also made some text-to-text connections this week, as we noticed that two of our selections were very similar tales! Our spelling and word work focused on words ending in the long /e/, using the –y at the end of the word to make the long /e/ sound. During grammar instruction, we learned about contractions using the word “not”. Next week, due to our shortened week, we will not have regular Treasures instruction, so this also means so spelling list for next week! We will take our unit assessment for Unit 4 using our Mimio Vote system on Wednesday.

Math

This week in math, we learned about three-dimensional shapes. We started with spheres, cylinders, and rectangular prisms. Then, we learned about pyramids, cones, and cubes. Later in the week, we learned about symmetry and created shapes that were symmetrical by cutting paper. On Thursday, we used the Mimio Vote system to review Unit 7, and we took our unit test on Friday. These tests will be coming home next Wednesday. Next week, we will spend time working on math fact practice and review to help solidify those skills. There will also be a letter coming home about a fun way that we will be approaching fact practice with timed tests starting after Spring Break, so be on the lookout for that tonight!

Science

This week during science instruction, we continued our study of penguins. We learned about ways in which penguins move, like waddling, diving, leaping, tobogganing, swimming, and porpoising. We also learned about what penguins eat, like fish, krill, and squid. Finally, we learned that the penguin has enemies, the leopard seal and killer whale in particular! We also worked on our penguin reports, in which we wrote about some of the things we have learned throughout our penguin unit! Next week, we will continue to learn about penguins, and will have a special celebratory day on Friday. We will celebrate Penguin Day in first grade! We encourage all students to dress in black and white like penguins, and we will have special penguin activities taking place all day at school!

I look forward to meeting with all of you next week during conferences and sharing your child’s progress! You have so much to be proud of!

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Glaser ☺

Weekly News!

We had our first taste of spring this week, and the kids (and Mrs. Glaser) are so ready for warm weather! What a treat!

This week, our class photographer was Katerina, and she had a very special helper on Friday! When it’s a child’s birthday, they get to choose any job for the day, and today, Kate chose photographer. So we have photos from TWO of our class photographers this week! Here are their favorite photos and captions from the week:

Katerina's photos:

This is Joe and Luca working together to help each other with their extra challenge math packets.


This is us doing Read to Self.


This is Ellie working on her Daily 5 writing.


This is Leilani doing her math work.


Joe is doing his math packet.


This is us doing math work with Miss Lange.

Kate's photos:

We are doing tiles!


Looks like someone is reading a poem!


We are doing a penguin experiment.


Looks like someone's writing!

Reading

This week, our Treasures theme was “What Scientists Do”, and we practiced summarizing and making inferences as we read the selections for the week. Our spelling and word work focused on long /e/ words containing the –ee or –ea vowel blends. During grammar instruction, we learned about the present and past tense forms of the verbs “see”. Next week, our Treasures theme will be “Favorite Stories” and we will again practice summarizing, as well as analyzing the plot of a story. Our spelling and word work words will again contain the long /e/ sound, this time using the e with a /y/ at the end of the word. Our focus for grammar will be on making contractions with the word “not”.

Math

This week in math, we began Unit 7 by talking about attribute rules and sorting blocks by shape, size, and color. Next, we had an Explorations day where we explored attribute blocks a bit more, made designs, and practiced math facts by making fact platters. Then, we used pattern blocks and pattern block templates to make shapes and compare and contrast the shapes. The students discovered that polygons have the same number of sides as they do corners, and that was exciting for them to realize on their own! Finally, we made polygons and learned that polygons have all straight sides, the lines do not cross over one another at any place in the polygon, and they must be “closed” shapes- meaning that all lines must meet at a corner. Next week, we will explore three-dimensional shapes. We will start the week by focusing on spheres, cylinders, and rectangular prisms. Next, we will introduce pyramids, cones, and cubes. Finally, we will explore symmetry and identify symmetrical shapes, and wrap up the week with our Unit 7 assessment. I know I sound like a broken record, but please keep practicing the sets of math fact flashcards and fact triangles at home! It makes such a big difference when the students are getting a double dose of practice, both at school and at home! Thank you for all of your hard work!

Science

This week during science instruction, we learned about penguins. We discovered that penguins only live in the southern hemisphere, and that many of them live on the coast of Antarctica. We also learned about a few of the ways penguins protect themselves! We learned how they camouflage themselves with their black backs and white tummies so if a predator is swimming above them and look down, they blend in with the deep, dark ocean. If a predator is swimming below them and looks up, they see the bright light from above shining down on the water, so their white bellies help them blend in with the light from above. We found out that penguin bodies are special too, with a thick layer of fat called blubber that helps keep them warm! They also have a layer of downy feathers that help to block out the cold wind, and a coating of oil on their outer feathers to keep the water from soaking into their downy feathers and body. Ask your first grader to tell you about the two experiments we did to discover this! Next week, we will continue to learn about penguins!

Have a fantastic weekend!

Mrs. Glaser ☺

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KATE!

Today we are celebrating our friend Kate's birthday! Her birthday isn't actually until tomorrow, but the lucky duck has a birthday on a Saturday, so we are honoring her today! Happy birthday!

Royal Reader!

Yesterday, Kate's sister Kenzie surprised us as our next Royal Reader! Kenzie is a third grade student, and is the first sibling this year to surprise a first grader! Great job, Kenzie. What a special treat for Kate and the rest of our class!

Junior Achievement

On Friday morning our Junior Achievement representative, Mr. Wick, joined us to do "JA in a day". We enjoyed learning about families, jobs, and needs/wants. We played games and completed a floor map of a community, and we were excellent listeners and participants as Mr. Wick was presenting. We are now experts on needs and wants!

Weekly News!

We had a very full first grade week this week!

Our class photographer for the week was Jill, and she took over 65 photos of our activities! She was a busy girl! Here are her favorite photos and captions from the week:


We have been in school for 110 days (on Monday)! We count money every day in calendar.


We have 19 people in our class.


A kid is doing rainbow words for spelling practice.


Kate and Lily are doing read to a buddy during Daily 5.


It was Leilani's birthday on February 28th.


Matthew is pulling a word up for our word sort.


Kate and Emilia are doing read to a buddy.


We did a math thing exploring the My Reference Books.

Reading

This week, our Treasures theme was “What’s the Weather?”, and we used a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the the types of weather we were reading about. Our spelling and word work focused on long /a/words. During grammar instruction, we learned about the present and past tense forms of the verbs “go” and “do”. Next week, our Treasures theme will be “What Scientists Do” and we will practice summarizing and revisit making inferences as we read the selections for the week. Our spelling and word work words will all contain the long /e/ sound, using the -ee or –ea vowel blends. Our focus for grammar will be on using the correct form of “see” or “saw”.

Writing/Social Studies

This week in writing, we will finished our President reports and our unit on George Washington, Abe Lincoln, citizenship, and American Symbols. As a culminating activity to go along with our Social Studies focus, we completed a Venn diagram like the ones we’ve been learning about this week in Treasures instruction, and compared and contrasted our friends George and Abe. We have 19 George and Abe experts in our room! Their reports turned out so nicely, and will be hanging in the hallway, so make sure to stop and take a look at all of their hard work when you are here for conferences!

Math

This week in math, we explored our My Reference Books, or MRBs. This is a tool that may be used from time to time as a reference to supplement our math instruction. Next, we practiced collecting data and making bar graphs to analyze the data we collected on calculator counts. We graphed our results to show how many counts each student in our class reached after 15 seconds of programming their calculator to count by ones. Finally, we took our Unit 6 test on Thursday and are ready to begin Unit 7 next week!

Unit 7 focuses on Geometry, and we will begin the week with a lesson on attribute rules. Students will analyze attribute blocks to group blocks by shape, size, and color. Next, we will have an Explorations day, when we will explore attributes, designs, and a new concept that will be used to reinforce math fact practice, called Fact Platters. On Wednesday, we will use pattern blocks and our pattern block template to make shapes. We will wrap up the week with a lesson on making polygons. And as always, please keep practicing the sets of math fact flashcards and fact triangles at home! Your extra practice at home will pay off!

Science

We are now switching gears from Social Studies back to Science as we begin our Penguin unit! This week, we heard a sound that many thought was a fire truck or police siren. It turns out that the sound was actually that of a penguin! Next week, we will be focusing on what we wonder about penguins, and what we already know or think about penguins before diving in to our penguin instruction. This is always a unit that the students enjoy SO much, so I am really looking forward to all of the excitement that surrounds learning about penguins in first grade!


Announcements

**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.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Glaser ☺

First Grade Musical

On Tuesday, the first graders put on their musical, "Read It, No! Sing It!". Mr. Deptula and the parent volunteers did a fantastic job putting the musical together, and the kids had a great time performing! They worked so hard, and just beamed with pride on stage. Great job, First Graders!