Week of April 30 – May 4

Dear Parents,

It’s hard to believe that April is coming to a close!  Students had a great week back from vacation and we are accomplishing so much!  Our animal projects are complete!  We will be posting them to our websites and blogs shortly!  We will be wrapping up some units and beginning some new classroom routines; including our Buddy Study program.  There are only a few weeks of school left, but we are plenty busy!

                               

Here is a look at next week:

Reading: Next week, we will discuss Fairy Tales!  Students will explore the different components of Fairy Tales through books and videos.  We will examine the different elements of Fairy Tales such as “Once upon a time…”, magical powers, good vs. evil, and characters in threes.  We will also tie in previous lessons about inferring events, analyzing character traits, and interpreting the author’s message.

Word Work/Handwriting: Students have been eager to begin their spelling program and have been working very hard to understand the different components of the program!  We will officially begin the routine next week.  In “Buddy Study”, students begin creating their own spelling lists and working with spelling words in a variety of activities.  Words on their list will come from sight words, word wall words, spelling patterns (like –ake, -ite, -in,-at), and other words that are appropriate for their level, which they show interest.  Words will also come from the spelling lessons that we teach from day to day.  For example, students will learn about silent “e”, and then will be able to choose words with the silent “e” for their spelling list.  Students will be creating their own list and will gain independence through this process of learning. 

Writing:  Students have felt empowered to move around the genres we have explored thus far in our Cross-Genre writing unit!  We have begun the publishing step by choosing a piece and discussing ways to revise their writing.  Students are met with on an individual basis to explore their genre and discuss ways to enhance their piece.  Next week, we will continue the publishing phase of this unit.  By the middle of the week, we will be ready to begin our next unit!  We are creating a plan for both first grades to engage in cooperative writing during our next unit; informational writing with a focus on science.  Stay tuned for more information!

Math: Students have enjoyed learning about skip counting through different games and activities!  Next week, students will be working with combinations of 10.  We will explore tens by playing games such as “Roll Tens” and “Ten Plus”.  Students will be able to work with connecting cubes, number lines, and 100s charts to solve for number sentences in which you add 10.  By the end of the week, students will explore equivalent expressions for a given expression.  (For example, 7 + 8 = 10 + ____)  Students will also take an “End of Unit” assessment on Friday and will begin getting ready for our next investigation; Adding and Subtracting 2-digit Numbers.

Social Studies:  With our animal projects officially complete, we will move into our new social studies unit; Careers!  Each class has taken a survey to compile a list of careers that we would like to learn about!  We will explore the different careers, what skills are needed for each, and how the careers can help different people (or animals!).  We are also looking forward to having some special guests in the near future to talk about their careers with students!  We will keep you updated as we get more information about guest speakers.

Have a wonderful week!

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

Seed Project

This week we have been talking about how to keep our Earth clean and healthy in honor of Earth Day.  We planted pea seeds to observe how plants grow and discussed why plants are important for the Earth.   We learned that all plants need sunlight and water to grow.  Over the next few weeks, we will observe our plants twice a week and record findings in our Plant Observation Journals.  Students have made thoughtful predictions onto what they think is going to happen and are ready to start watching them grow.  We will be tying in what we learned about measurement in math to measure our seeds and plants.  Students are very excited about this project and can not wait to see the seeds bud!

Earth Day

We have been learning a lot about why we celebrate Earth Day, on April 22, and how we can help keep our Earth a safe place to live and grow.  Below are some of our ideas:

Mackenzie- "We need to take care of the Earth by picking up liter and planting trees"

Eva- "We can recycle and walk if we are going somewhere close instead of using our cars"

Emma- "We can buy things at the store that are made in and from the rain-forest like different kinds of nuts.  They are healthy for us too"

Lucy- "Remember to turn off the lights when we leave a room and try to buy things that are not made from
plastic.  We can also remember to recycle phones and laptops we are not using anymore"

Pink- "Recycle phones and computers"

Sarah- "Trees help the air"

Jacob- "We can always remember we need to take care of the Earth together, with other people, to help make it stay looking good"

Drew- "We can buy organic foods when we go to the store.  They are good for us and for the Earth"

Daniel- "People can do many different things to help the environment"

Evan- "People need to pick up more trash"

Ryan- "Teach others not to cut down trees because trees keep our air clean and help us breathe"

Gracie- "Trees make paper and help the plants by giving them share when they need it"

Week of April 23-27

Dear Parents,

A lot of fun learning happened this last week in first grade!  Our new units are going very well and students have been eager to complete their science projects to share at home, stay tuned shortly for their release on our classroom website and blog!   We attended the Spelling Bee this week where we had a chance to learn new vocabulary words and cheer for other students in our school competing.  The program was very motivational as students left eager to spell challenging words and even tried to spell a few words spelt in the Bee! 

           

A few reminders:

·         Next week, Monday, April 16 through April 20, is Spring break! We hope you have a fun and relaxing week. We look forward to our return on April 23. 

·         The week of April 23 is TV Turn Off Week.  There will be many activities held afterschool. Check the school website for more details. 

·         Budget Hearing will be held April 23 at 7:00 p.m. at Wamogo. 

·         The Learning Fair will be on Tuesday, April 24 at 5:00 p.m.  Many students will be presenting and we are eager to see all the great projects!

·         The District Spelling Bee will be held at Wamogo on Thursday, April 26. 

           

Here is a look at the week of April 23:

Reading: Students have been working hard explore characters, comparing and contrasting characters between books, and making inferences on characters and their motives!  When we return, we will review what we have been working on in reading: discussion of characters across books will continue and we will use familiar books as well as new books to explore characters.  Main character and supporting characters will be defined and discussed during this review. 

Word Work/Handwriting: Spelling has been going very well!  Students are eager to show off the sight words they know and have learned how to check their spelling and the spelling of others.  When we return, we will review spelling, activities to help us learn our sight words, and begin a spelling program called “Buddy Study”.  In “Buddy Study”, students begin creating their own spelling lists, work with spelling words in a variety of activities to begin to learning new words.  Words on their list will come from sight words, word wall words, spelling patterns (like –ake, -ite, -in,-at), and other words that are appropriate for their level, which they show interest.  Students will be creating their own list and will gain independence through this process of learning.  We are eager to begin and will send home more information when we return!

Writing:  Students have felt empowered to move around the genres we have explored thus far in our Cross-Genre writing unit!  When we return, we will continue to collect pieces.  Students will be encouraged to use mentor texts to help inspire their own writing.  We will revisit the different genres by reading examples for favorite authors.  By the end of the week, we will be ready to choose a piece to revise and add more details to “hook” our audience!  We will then edit for uppercase letters, punctuation, neat handwriting, and to make sure sight words as well as other words we know are spelt correctly.  The following week we will be ready to publish and share our pieces!

Math: Unit 8 has been off to a great start.  We have completed our first assessment in this unit and students demonstrated a great understanding of counting on and counting backwards from 100!  When we return, we will take a day to review counting to 100 and beyond along with story problems focusing on counting by 2’s and 4’s.  Then we will be ready to move to counting and combining objects that come in groups of 1,2,4,5, and 10, counting by numbers other than 1, recognizing and using strategies for counting and combining, along with beginning to develop fluency with 2-addend combinations of 10.  We will finish the week with an assessment to show what we have learned so far regarding strategies, counting and combining things that come in groups of 1, 2, and 5, as well as showing our work! 

Science: When we return, students will have a chance to catch up and work on anything that needs finishing.  We will wrap up our science animal projects, catch up on some very interesting weekly readers, and continue to explore the season of spring through fun activities, books, and videos.  We will begin planning our next social studies unit the week of April 30, which will revisit maps and begin talking about workers and their basic needs.  Map symbols, a look at our own school and neighborhood, and reading maps independently will completed the week. 

We hope you have a wonderful weekend and a relaxing break!

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

Spring Break!

Hello Students and Families,
     I hope you are all having a wonderful, relaxing break.   The weather has been cooperating and I hope you are all getting a chance to go out and enjoy the sun!
     Share a comment below on what you are doing this week or what you would like to do for the remainder of the week.  I can not wait to read and comment on all of your posts.  See you all next week!

Awesome Experiment!

Yesterday, we mixed water and jellybeans and Sprite and jellybeans to discover what happens!  We had a great time.  When we put the jellybeans in the water, the water changed colors!  When we put the jellybeans in Sprite, the jellybeans "frizzed up" (bubbles started to come off of the jellybeans) and the soda changed to the color of the jellybean.  The Sprite also made the hard covering of the candy come off, which made the jellybeans look clear.  Ask us more about what we discovered!

   

Week of April 9-13

Dear Parents,

We hope you had a nice week!  We were very busy here in first grade!  Our new units are going very well and students have been eager to work on different spring activities!   

A few reminders: there will be a half day on Friday, April 13.  Also, there will be no school from Monday, April 16 through April 20 for Spring break! 

Here is a look at the week ahead:

Reading: Students have been doing a nice job using their inferring skills to explore characters!  Next week, we will compare a character across different books.  For example, we may look at a character from Henry and Mudge to see how their traits are similar throughout the different stories in the series.  We will also contrast characters, their traits and their actions.  We will be looking at stories like The Three Little Pigs and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (The wolf’s version) to explore how the characters are different in their traits and actions.

Word Work/Handwriting: Next week is all about spelling!  Students will have several activities to enhance their spelling and their ability to check to see if a word is spelled correctly.  Students will practice spelling strategies like “look, say, cover, write, check” and learning how to make connections between words.  Students will also explore the “buddy system” of spelling.  This is when students will be able to work together to check each other’s spelling.  With these activities, students are given several opportunities to try words again if they are spelled incorrectly.  In handwriting, students will review lowercase letters like “a”, “d”, and “b”.  We will also practice forming “e”, “u”, and “i”.  

Writing:  Students love our new writing unit; Cross-Genre Writing!  Students feel empowered to move around the genres we have explored thus far!  Next week, we will continue to collect pieces from the different genres that students love best.  Students will be encouraged to use mentor texts to help inspire their own writing.  We will continue to review what the genres are and what they look like.  We will also explore how to find a proper mentor text to help them write in their preferred genre.

Math: Unit 8 is off to a great start!  Students are enjoying revisiting some of the other workshop activities with new expectations and challenges!  Next week, we will continue to move through the unit and explore more problems with 2s and 4s.   Students will participate in center games such as “How Many Hands” and “How Many Fingers”.  This unit encourages students to count on and solve problems by thinking about number relationships.  The 100 chart that all students have been working with is a great tool to notice patterns and make connections between numbers!  

Science: During this block next week, students will have a chance to catch up and work on anything that needs finishing.  We will wrap up our science animal projects, catch up on some very interesting weekly readers, and continue to explore the season of spring through fun activities, books, and videos.  We will begin planning our next social studies unit when we return from spring vacation!

We hope you have a wonderful weekend!  

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

Week of April 2-6

Dear Parents,

It was great to see all of you this week for conferences.  We had a lot of exciting things to share and are looking forward to the remainder of the school year!  We have many activities planned to welcome spring and many new thrilling topics ahead.   

A few reminders: there will be no school next Friday, April 6 for Good Friday and a half day on Friday, April 13.  Also, there will be no school from Monday, April 16 through April 20 for Spring break.  

Here is a look at the week ahead:

Reading: Students enjoyed sharing their favorite books and studying two favorite characters, Frog and Toad.  Next week we will continue our character studies and begin inferring regarding character traits and motivations.  We will use characters that we are very familiar with, like Henry and Mudge from our Author Study, to help us infer.  We will set some time aside, if necessary, for students to share their favorite books.  If students have not brought in one or two of their favorite books to share with the group, they may still do so!  

Word Work/Handwriting: Students have explored and applied the use of adjectives, nouns, and verbs through writing, reading, and games.  Next week, we will review what we have learned about consonant digraphs and focus primarily on “sh-“, “ch-“, “wh-“, and “th-“.  Games and activities will be used to review each diagraph. 

Writing:  Students have worked very hard and have published amazing Non-Fiction books.  The topics chosen and the research used to enhance their writing has allowed students to grow as writers.  Watch for their books as they will bring them home very soon to share!  Next week, we will spend a day sharing our final published Non-Fiction books and then move into our next writing unit, “Cross-Genre Writing: Self-Selected Writing”.  In this unit, students will choose from previously taught genres to produce their writing.  They will select their own writing pieces to create and begin writing with initiative, investment, and independence.  This unit will allow students to reflect and create in the genre that most interests them!  Next week, we will review each genre previously taught and allow students to begin composing in each genre.  From there, over the next few weeks, students will focus on one genre and collect many pieces.  

Math: Students did a wonderful job with Unit 7, focusing on patterns and counting by two’s.  We are ready to begin Unit 8, “Twos, Fives, and Tens”.  In this unit, topics include “Getting to 100”, “Twos, Fives, and Tens”, “Tens”, and “Adding and Subtracting with 2-Digit Numbers”.  Next week, we will revisit the 100 chart, games like ‘Ten Turns’, and counting to 100 and even beyond. A wide variety of materials and activities will be used to teach counting to 100 and beyond.  We will also revisit familiar games and activities to enhance our learning.  

Science: Students have been drafting their scripts for their animal projects and have been planning their pictures to go with their final presentation.  As a class we have decided to use a Voice-Thread to show off our projects, therefore, this week we will begin recording.  Students will create their pictures using the net-books and then begin recording their scripts.  Once the Voice-Thread is complete we will post it to share with all of you!  

We hope you have a wonderful weekend!  

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