Pictures From Our Dr. Seuss Reading Party!

Below are some pictures from our Dr. Seuss Reading Party that was held at the beginning of this month.  Students enjoyed sharing their favorite Dr. Seuss books to celebrate his birthday!





 


 

Read Alouds

Over the last couple of weeks students have been eager to bring in books to share with the class during Read Aloud time.  Below are pictures of some students who have shared so far.  If your child is interested in bringing in a book to share they are more than welcome to!  Students enjoy listening to their classmates read and those sharing are very proud to show off how they have grown as readers.

Week of March 26-30

Dear Parents,

We hope you are all enjoying the beautiful weather we’ve had!  It’s hard to believe March is coming to an end!  Students have been doing a marvelous job in school.  We have been working very hard across all subject areas and making some excellent connections between our academic units!

We will be holding conferences next week.  Thank you all for signing up!  Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (28^th, 29^th, and the 30^th) will be half days and conferences will be held during the evening/afternoon hours.  We are looking forward to seeing all of you as we have many wonderful things to share!

Here is a look at the week ahead:

Reading: Students have enjoyed interacting with books with their partners and during whole group settings!  We have practiced asking questions and inferring our authors’ messages.  We have also looked closely at characters and how they change throughout a story.  Next week, students will be able to share and celebrate their favorite authors.  Students may bring in books from their favorite authors, if they wish.  We will also continue to explore characters while focusing on two of our beloved characters; Frog and Toad.  We will review their character traits and will discuss the difference between the “main” character and the “secondary” character.

Word Work/Handwriting: Students have really enjoyed learning more about adjectives, nouns, and verbs!  We were able to apply our new knowledge of these words to some spring activities!  Be sure to check out our amazing spring adjectives that are hanging outside our classrooms!  Next week, we will continue to explore and apply the use of adjectives, nouns, and verbs through writing, reading, and games.

Writing:  Students have been working so hard on collecting several topics and information!  We have practiced dividing our topic ideas into sections for our Table of Contents and we have practiced gathering facts and information for our Informational Texts.  Next week, we will start our publishing process.  Students will select a topic from their writing folders (it will be a tough job; there are so many amazing collected pieces!) and will begin organizing, revising, editing, and publishing.  Students will be creating their very own Non-Fiction Informational book!

Math: Students did a wonderful job during our review week of “True and False”, unknown numbers, and time.  We have started Unit 7, which looks at patterns and counting by two’s, and we will continue through the unit next week.  We will be practicing counting by two’s, reviewing picture, shape, and number patters and will be taking an end-of-unit assessment by late in the week.  We will be ready to begin Unit 8, “Twos, Fives, and Tens” by the first week of April.

Science: Students have been working on getting organized and ready to begin finalizing their science projects.  Students will have many choices as we complete our animal projects.  Students will be able to draft scripts for a voice thread, draw, find, or create pictures of their animals, and incorporate their facts and information notes into their projects in through written work or “speeches”.  Students are very excited to be able to decide how they want their project to look and they are coming up with very creative ways to display their knowledge of animals!

We hope you have a wonderful weekend!  We look forward to speaking with you during our conferences next week!

~Your first grade teachers: Miss Field and Mrs. McIntire

Leprechaun Traps

For St. Patrick's Day students created Leprechaun Traps to try and catch that sneaky little Leprechaun!
Check out their traps below:

 

Week of March 19-23

Dear Parents,

            The first few weeks of March have gone by quickly and students are enjoying every minute!  Our writing and science units are huge hits. Students are enjoying collecting, organizing and researching information about their animals.

            The Student V.I.P. (Very Important Person) program is off to a great start.  This Friday, a new student from each class will be randomly selected to be our V.I.P. for next week.  A reminder of the V.I.P’s responsibilities will be sent home with their poster when it is their turn.  Every student will have their own week to be a V.I.P. !

            This weekend, a little leprechaun will visit our classrooms.  We have set up our traps and are eager to see if we have caught the mischievous guy.  We have many questions to ask him!

Here is a look at the week ahead:

Reading: Students have enjoyed reading books by our three authors; Cynthia Rylant, Arnold Lobel, and Lois Ehlert.  We have charted the characteristics of all three authors, compared and contrasted their pieces, and used their books to make connections and sensory images during and after reading.  Next week, we will review asking questions before, during, and after reading.  We will also revisit author’s message, as well as, inferring how characters can change through a story.

Word Work/Handwriting: Students did a wonderful job sorting words by common word families and built, spelt, and explored many new words. Next week, we will discuss adjective, nouns, and verbs.  Students have noticed these word categories while exploring non-fiction text. Hands-on activities, games, and writing will be used to teach each group of words and how they can be used to enhance our writing.  In handwriting, we are ready to begin lowercase letters!  Students have shown wonderful growth in writing uppercase letters and are eager to begin writing the lowercase.  We will begin with lowercase letters “a”, ”d”, and ”g”.

Writing:  Children are benefiting from our writing unit, Informational Text, and have enjoyed selecting many topics!  We visited the library this week to collect information from books and “safe” web sites. Students have used “World Book”, “Animal Planet”, and “Discovery Education” to collect many facts about their topics!  Next week, we will continue to collect pieces on different topics and visit the library when necessary.  Students have utilized books from the library that will remain in the classroom to aid in their writing.  We will also practice setting up a table of contents and continue to divide and organize our information into chapters for their books.  We will continue to remind students that this is a lengthy unit so we need to take time to carefully collect and organize our information as we need to focus on attention to detail.

Math: Students have been eager to review “True or False” addition and subtraction situations, fractions, and telling time to the half hour. Next week, we will spend a day to review “unknown numbers” then begin pattern review, skip counting by two’s, and extending the number sequence.  Students will be introduced to new games in Unit 7 to practice what we have learned.  The game “Penny Jar” will be our first game to teach number sequence and counting by two’s.  We will also build staircases out of cubes and record number sequences.

Science: Students just love their science projects.  We spent this week beginning our research and using graphic organizers to organize the information we found.  Next week, students will continue to collect information on their animals.  We will follow the same procedure that students are familiar with from our writing unit to collect information. We will also begin talking about how they envision their projects in the final stage.  The children have begun sharing ideas and are eager to start creating their end products.  Different technology programs will be explored to show how they can be utilized for their projects.

Have a wonderful weekend!

~Your first grade teachers: Miss Field and Mrs. McIntire

V.I.P.- Student of the Week

     Next week, we will be starting Student V.I.P (Very Important Person) in our classrooms!  Every Friday, a student from each class will be randomly selected to be the V.I.P for the week ahead. A poster will be sent home with the chosen student to complete.  

Here are some reminders:

       Students will need to complete the poster over the weekend and return to share with the class on Monday.  Students may also bring in five things that they would like to share with the class on Monday.  In the classroom, V.I.Ps will have special jobs for the week.  These jobs will include fish feeder, teacher helper, and line leader.   V.I.Ps will also lead our Morning Meetings for the week (with teacher support, of course).   These reminders will also be sent home with the poster when it is your child's turn to be V.I.P! 

      In class, students will have the opportunity to write about their V.I.Ps each week during writing time.  Every student will have their own week to be a V.I.P.  Students are very excited about this and are anxious to see who our first V.I.P will be!  If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me!

Week of March 12-16

Dear Parents,

            March is off to a wonderful start!  We have many exciting things coming up this month!  Our new writing unit is a huge hit and students are enjoying collecting information about their animals for science!  We will also be starting Student V.I.P. (Very Important Person) in our classrooms.  This Friday, a student from each class will be randomly selected to be our first V.I.P. for the following week.  A poster will be sent home for the student to complete.  Students may bring in five things that they would like to share with the class for Monday, along with their poster.  V.I.P.s will have special jobs in the classroom and students will have the opportunity to write about their V.I.P.s each week!  Every student will have their own week to be a V.I.P.  Students are very excited about this and are anxious to see who our first V.I.P will be!  If you have any questions, please feel free to email us!

Here is a look at the week ahead:

Reading: Students have enjoyed reading non-fiction books this week!  Our reading ties in nicely with our writing and science, as well!  Next week, we will take a look at our three authors; Cynthia Rylant, Arnold Lobel, and Lois Ehlert.  We will chart the characteristics of all three authors and use their books to make connections and sensory images during and after reading.  We will also continue to practice our retelling skills while exploring our authors more in-depth. 

Word Work/Handwriting: Next week, students will be exploring different phonograms by looking at words that look and sound similar.  By noticing similar sounds and patterns, students will be able to explore, read, and spell new words!  We will also practice building words with common word families and onset and rimes.  By the end of the week, we will discuss how students can learn new words.  We will discuss how to notice when a word does not look right and how to change a word that is spelled incorrectly by paying close attention to letter-sound relationships.

Writing:  Our new writing unit, Informational Text, is a huge hit!  Students have really enjoyed selecting topics to research and using different means to gather information!  We visited the library during writing this week to learn how to collect information from books and “safe” websites.  We introduced “World Book” to students and they have already collected many facts about their topics!  We will be returning to the library next week during a couple of our writing blocks.  Students will be encouraged to not only collect information, but to think of WHO and WHAT they want to teach by using their informational texts!  We will also practice setting up a table of contents and dividing our information into chapters for our books.  Students will take a couple of weeks to collect pieces on different topics.  This is a lengthy unit with lots of attention to detail; but the end result will be amazing! 

Math: Students have been working very hard on their word problems!  Many of our addition and subtraction word problems have multiple pieces of information and we are working together to organize our math work and use a variety of appropriate strategies to problem solve.  Next week, we will finish up our unit about story problems with an assessment on Tuesday.  Before we begin unit 7, we will take a few days to review “True or False” addition and subtraction situations, fractions, and telling time to the half hour.  The following week we will spend a day reviewing “unknown numbers” before moving on to unit 7.

Science: Students are very excited to create a project about their animal!  Students have selected an animal to study and have started to research their animals through books and World Book online.  Next week, students will use worksheets and graphic organizers to form their thoughts and organize their research.  We will also be discussing the different ways in which a final project can be completed.  This will be a performance-based assessment which will enable students to complete a project based on their strengths and interests.  For example, some students may decide to write a paper while others may decide to create a more visual project.  More information about this project will be sent home next week along with guidelines and suggestions.   

Have a wonderful weekend!

~Your first grade teachers: Miss Field and Mrs. McIntire

Week of March 5-9

Dear Parents,

We hope you all enjoyed the snow!  Our First Grade Reading Party in honor of Dr. Seuss’s birthday was a success!  Students enjoyed sharing their reading through Dr. Seuss books and were very excited to show off their classroom and work to everyone.  This week CMT testing will begin in grades three through six.  Due to testing our special times will be affected slightly.  On Monday and Tuesday for the next two weeks students will have specials from 10:00-10:40.  

Here is a look at the week ahead:

Reading: Reading non-fiction books has been a real hit this week.  Students are very motivated and eager to learn new things from their reading.  Next week, we will explore non-fiction books to locate specific information and begin to share the knowledge we learn.   Students are energized to talk about facts, pictures, and diagrams they find when reading.   We will also spend some time sharing information between both first grade classes.  

Word Work/Handwriting: Students have done a wonderful job adding “s”, “es”, and “ing” to the end of words to show plurals.  Next week, we begin changing middle and ending parts of a word to form new words.  Magnet letters will be used to make the new words before writing.  We will end our week by saying and sorting beginning consonant chunks.   Students will practice handwriting letters and numbers on white boards, chalkboards, and in hands-on activities. 

Writing: It is amazing what students are creating and writing during this time!  Our “Author’s as Mentors” unit is complete and students have published amazing pieces that they will be bring home soon to share.   Next week, we will start a new writing unit “Informational Text” where students will write their own non-fiction pieces!  We will begin by exploring different informational text for ideas, generate a topic list, and go to the library to learn where we can find information to begin.  By the end of the week students begin collecting pieces on themes of their choice! 

Math: Students have worked hard to find combinations and solve addition and subtraction story problems.  Next week, we will continue to work on addition and subtraction story problems and discuss different strategies to help solve each type of problem.  Games, activities, small group, and whole group discussions will allow students to explore strategies that will help them solve the problems independently.  

Science: Students have really enjoyed studying all the animal classifications and are now ready to show off what they have learned in an animal project.  Next week, students will be introduced to the project guidelines and be asked to start thinking about an animal they would like to study further.  Technology resources and books will be used to help students chose an animal and begin their research.  Students will search for facts and record their discoveries to begin the project process.   More information on the project will be sent home shortly.  

~Your first grade teachers: Miss Field and Mrs. McIntire