First Grade News
May 29, 2018
Our Butterflies have been released!! It was a special celebration! Some of them did not want to leave... but after some encouragement, they flew off to find a new home. Some of us were lucky enough to hold our new friends before they flew off on their adventures! We enjoyed talking about where we think they may be heading next, and what may happen to them along the way! May 25, 2018
Our Butterflies Hatched!! Our class was lucky enough to witness three of our ten butterflies hatch from their chrysalides live, Friday morning. It was quite an experience for all of us... lots of excitement! There are still 5 left in the chrysalides, and we expect they will hatch over the next 24 hours. We are looking forward to observing them over the next few days! Thank you to all of the friends and family members who were able to make it to our First Grade Young Authors Celebration earlier this week. The students were VERY excited to share their stories with you all. I hope you enjoyed seeing what they have been working on. Thank you for leaving such thoughtful and positive comments for our authors! These are the things that really encourage them to work to their highest potential! LITERACY: This week, our major focus has been on choosing a "just right" book for independent reading. We have learned the 5 finger rule! Students are becoming very good at choosing a book that both interests them, and is at an appropriate level for them. Our class has been enjoying 15minutes of daily independent reading, in preparation for 2nd grade expectations! During read aloud, we have been having some in depth conversations about connections we can (or can not) make with the characters in this story. We have had some good laughs about the events that occur in this book! Matilda is one funny girl! MATH: Our study of 2-D shapes and fact families has come to an end. We wrapped up unit 7 and will be moving onto our final math unit (unit 8). In this unit we will explore 3D shapes and even have a chance to make some! :) Later on in unit 8, we will be introduced to fractions and explore where we may see fractions in our own world. We will also be making some fractions of our own! Be on the lookout for them to come home in our Take Home Folders! MICRO: Friday was our LAST marketplace day! Now, we will begin to close up our businesses and do lots of end of the year paper work. Students will make their final bank deposits. May 11, 2018
The Final Countdown is on! We are in the swing of the last few weeks of First Grade! There are many exciting events happening in the near future! Students are eagerly awaiting our Young Authors Event on May 21st! We have been working hard to complete our official published books! We hope you can make it and enjoy all of our amazing stories. CONGRATULATIONS to PRANAV for winning the K-2 Math Challenge Competition!!! We are so proud of you and how hard you worked to claim this title. Way to Go!! LITERACY: We finished up our whole group read aloud of The BFG By Roald Dahl. This was a great segway into our next read aloud: Matilda, because it is by the same author. In guided reading groups we have been following right along in the Fundations Program for phonics and sentence structure. Every group has been working hard to improve fluency as well as EXPRESSION while reading! I am so proud of everyone's hard work. We have been reviewing all of our story elements and reading strategies that we learned over the course of our year together! Our most exciting literacy focus this week was preparing for our Young Author's Expo on May 21. Each students has been working hard on their own story to publish and share with our parents and family members who come to enjoy the expo! MATH: We have been studying Fact Families and Fact Triangles. Everyone has learned that numbers can be related in groups of 3, and can formulate 4 different equations. Example: 2, 3, and 5. 2+3=5 3+2=5 5-2=3 5-3=2 We made fact family houses and fact triangles to help us practice fact fluency! :) In addition to our fact family study, we have also been learning about defining and nondefining attributes of 2-D shapes. We were introduced to these atributes: # of sides, # of verticies, color, size, and shape. SCIENCE: Our study of Butterflies has begun! We have some new friends in our classroom: 10 little Caterpillars. We are observing them in their habitat and recording everything we see! Students have been drawing, writing, and predicting what will change about them the next day. We have been lucky enough to utilize the document camera to blow up the image of the caterpillars in their habitat and get an up close look at their features! MICRO: We are about to wrap up our study of France, and hopefully have a chance to work on our next and last country: Egypt. Our last Marketplace Day is going to be May 30th. April 12, 2018 Can you believe it is ALMOST April Vacation week? This month is flying by! There are so many exciting things coming as we finish up our first grade year. Please remember that there is a sign up for time slots for MICRO DAY next Wednesday. :) The students have been working hard to prepare their businesses to show off to all of our visitors! LITERACY: We have been reviewing all of our reading strategies this week. Visualizing, Predicting, Making Connections, Forming Opinions and Identifying Problem/Solution. To do this, we have been reading Frog and Toad stories each day! These characters have become quite popular in our classroom! During reading groups we have been building on the mini lessons on each particular strategy with guided readers. We have also been continuing with the Fundations program for phonics instruction in each group. Some groups have been working on chapter books during their guided reading time which has been a real treat! They have been diving deeper into the meanings of their stories and studying the different elements of their stories. MATH: We are in Unit 6 of our Everyday Math program. Within this unit we have hit on some major topics such as time, money, and place value. Our biggest focus this week has been on making EXCHANGES with coins. We have had lots of practice with this concept using base ten blocks. Now it is time for use to expand upon this and apply the concept to real world skills. We learned a new game called "Penny Nickel Dime Exchange" where we practiced making trades. After vacation we will begin talking about Fact Families and 2-D shapes! SCIENCE: We are continuing our study of WATER! This week we focused on where water comes from and where it goes. We learned the term "Water Source" and discussed many different types of water sources. I.e: ocean, lake, pond, stream, river. Next week we have two different experiments to do! We also learned that water can CLIMB! Did you know it was so amazing?! MICRO: We have begun our study of France for our Travel Zone Venture! April 6, 2018
We are very glad that March is gone! It certainly did not come in like a lion and go out like a lamb, like we thought it would though! We were disappointed that it was basically cold and yucky the whole month! We finished up our Read Aloud of Charlotte's Web and watched the movie as a culminating activity. As a whole group we talked about the difference between the book and the movie, and which things were the same! Our next chapter book is The BFG by Roald Dahl. We went on our field trip to Animal Adventures Zoo in Bolton, MA on Tuesday. See above for some photos from out trip! :) LITERACY: We are becoming such AMAZING writers in this classroom. There have been so many wonderful stories that have been created during our creative writing time. The most recent project we have been working on is related to a book we have been studying called "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs". Students have created their own versions! Here are some examples: Cloudy with a chance of puppies Cloudy with a chance of sprinkles Cloudy with a chance of money Cloudy with a chance of ice cream During our study of this story, we have also been working on literary elements such as setting, plot, characters, and problem & solution. Our next book of study is Officer Buckle & Gloria, This story is about a police officer who travels to schools to give out safety tips and he has a wonderful companion named Gloria (a dog) who helps keep his audience interested! MATH: We have moved on to using doubles facts to help improve our math fact fluency. The term "Doubles Helper Facts" is something we use to describe a fact like 6+7, 3+4, or 5+6. These are facts that are close to doubles that we know quickly such as 6+6, 3+3, or 5+5. We are also studying parts of a word problem. There is a lot of room for differentiation in this part of our unit because each student can work on a problem at his/her own level. SCIENCE: We are continuing our study of WATER! We are investigating properties of water. Our study began with what we already KNOW about water. Now we have moved on to doing some experiments and incorporating the Scientific Process into our labs. Students are very excited to do their very own "lab report". This week we talked about things that float and sink, as well as things that move in water. Our lab was an exploration of surface tension using water, dish soap, and pepper flakes. MICRO: We have some new employees in our venture now who have joined us from Kindergarten! We are excited to have them with us to help us improve our business here at the Travel Zone! March 16, 2018 March has been a very busy month! A very pesky leprechaun came and made a mess of our classroom. He also ruined many of our leprechaun traps! A big thank you to all of the families who helped their child make an amazing leprechaun trap! I am not sure how we did not catch him! READING: We have been reading Charlotte's Web together as a class. We discuss literary elements during our read aloud. During literacy centers we have been working a lot with our Fundations Program! Some students have been able to read chapter books and work together in Literacy Circles. We have been working on independent reading expectations, as well as working independently during rotations without being reminded of expectations. Our spelling lists are getting more and more complicated as the year goes on. We have been working with our words in spelling center every day! MATH: We are learning all about how to read an analog clock! We have been introduced to telling time to the hour, half hour, and quarter hours. The quarter hours are difficult for many of us, so we will continue to work on this concept even though we are moving on through the Every Day Math Program. SCIENCE: We have begun our study of WATER! We are investigating properties of water. Our study began with what we already KNOW about water. We drew pictures, and made lists of things that contain water; ponds, lakes, rivers, oceans, pools, sinks, pipes, plastic bottles etc... We will continue our study of water for the next few weeks. We will do many hands-on activities!! MICRO: Ireland is in full effect! Some students have switched businesses after being offered jobs in one of the kindergarten ventures. February 16, 2018 This has been a really fun week! We celebrated Valentines Day as a class. Thank you to the wonderful parent volunteers that came in to assist with our activities! And thank you to all of the parents who donated supplies and yummy treats :) Thank you so much to Mrs. Wine for being our Mystery Reader this week! It was such a treat hearing the story of "Frederik" :) READING: This week in literacy we worked hard on our personal narratives about being stuck in a snow globe. Your children were very creative and came up with some wonderfully funny ideas! We have also been reading a new novel "Charlottes Web". We are enjoying the silly characters and events that have been happening in these first few chapters. The students also earned a "Fun Friday" during center time. Go first grade! Our next writing project is an informational piece about a president of their choice. We are collecting facts together as a class and they are choosing their favorite facts to include in their report. MATH: We have been introduced to comparison symbols! The children have learned how to compare numbers that are less than, greater than, or equal to other numbers. They have also been trying to balance equations such as 3+1=2+2. We learned how to add TWO digit numbers in an extension lesson using base ten blocks. They all did very well with this concept! I was so proud :) SOCIAL STUDIES: In honor of Presidents Day, we have been learning all about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln! Students have been using the facts we collect during social studies time to write informational pieces about the president they liked best. MICRO: We are beginning our study of Ireland for our Travel venture! February 2, 2018
Happy February!! Can you believe it is already here?! It feels like summer is right around the corner ;) Many thanks to Mrs. LeBlanc for coming in to be our Mystery Reader this week!! We loved the story about New Hampshire! I hope many of you were able to make it to the Murder Mystery Fundraiser on Friday night! It is surely not going to disappoint. :) Many thanks to those of you who have donated to the Leukemia and Lymphoma society fundraiser! The students have been SO proud to empty their coins into our class bank. GO PATRIOTS!!! READING: We have been reading books about penguins and about Groundhog Day! During centers our main focus has been to finish up our informational penguin writing, and to begin our next writing project. Our new unit is about writing a fictional narrative. This is a made-up story about what it would be like to be stuck in a snowglobe!! We are having a lot of fun creating this piece of writing. MATH: We have been working more with base ten blocks and relating them to pennies and dimes. We learned a few new games to play in parters that allow us to apply these skills! Penny-Dime Exchange, and Base Ten Exchange. The students have really enjoyed working together to play these games and keep score! We have also been working on what the "equals" sign means. For example: does 5+2=3+4? It is a difficult concept for some to grasp on to. We have been using manipulatives to visually see the numbers in groups. The students learned that they can replace the word "equals" with "is the same as" For example: 6+1 IS THE SAME AS 5+2. SCIENCE: We finished up our unit on penguins! We have learned so much! Next up: Investigating water!! Have a wonderful weekend and once again... GO PATS!!! January 26, 2018 Things have been a little crazy here for the last couple of weeks! Between snow days, delays and doing assessments, our routine has been a little thrown off! However, everyone has been very flexible and has done a nice job of making it all work! :) READING: Assessments for Literacy are finally completed. I give your children so much credit for working hard and staying focused during this time. We began a chapter book read aloud: Because of Winn Dixie! This has been our main read aloud for the last two weeks. During ELA lessons we are focusing mainly on writing! The students have been working on informational writing... All About Penguins! We have read so many facts, watched a couple of videos, and studies photos of our fun little waddling friends! Penguins are so much fun to learn and write about! MATH: Unit 5 is in full swing! We are learning all about how to use base ten blocks to help represent a two (or three) digit number. Students have had the opportunity to use these blocs to represent numbers and to show how to make trades. These skills will be applied when we begin talking about coins next month! Students will have a strong foundation in how to made trades and apply this to making change! SCIENCE: We are learning about the life cycle of a penguin, and the parts of a penguin. This is being tied into writing and reading as well. January is PENGUIN MONTH! :) January 12, 2018 Happy New Year!! It has been a while since my last update. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break and has enjoyed the extra snow days! I know I sure have :) On Friday, 1/12, we celebrated the author, Jan Brett! The students rotated around every classroom from K-3 for a 25 minute craft! I am sure your child will be coming home with lots of colorful and creative activities today! READING: Over the last couple of weeks we have been focusing on fun winter stories. We read Tacky The Penguin! This story is about a penguin who is different than all of his companions. They don't always treat him kindly, until one day he saves their lives! We made lots of connections in the story with our own lives and with other stories we have read. I have been working on our Winter Assessments for AIMSweb and DRA. Our class is making great progress this year and I am so proud of the hard work they have been doing! MATH: We finished up our Math Unit 4 this week. One of the most exciting lessons was learning tricks for adding more than 2 numbers together. We practiced many different strategies such as making combinations with doubles facts first, or with combinations of 10. Next week we will begin Unit 5! Students will be introduced to using base ten blocks to help solve double digit problems. We started a new routine: POPCORN MATH!! Every day we start our math block with a 1 minute times test. The students are tracking their own progress using "popcorn pieces" in a box. Once the whole class is proficient in all addition facts up to 12, we will have a Class Popcorn Party (with real popcorn!). SOCIAL STUDIES: We have been learning all about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The students were so shocked to hear that our country wasn't always so understanding of people with darker skin. We are all so appreciative for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s hard work to make our world a better place :) December 18, 2017
Last week was interesting... many of our classmates were out sick with either strep or the stomach flu! We were very careful to wash out hands and clean our desks and materials. We opened Marketplace for the first time on December 12 and it was, for the most part, a success. It was a little tricky to get everything set up and put out in time, but we will soon learn ways to make our transition easier. Our Jan Brett celebration had to be postponed due to the amount of sicknesses going around the building. It would have been too easy to spread germs around quickly. We have rescheduled this for January 12th! :) Remember: our class party is THIS THURSDAY at 1:00! Please send in any materials that you volunteered to provide for our craft rotations! READING: Our book of the week was Polar Express!! We were lucky enough to be able to watch a You Tube version of Liam Neeson reading it aloud. The students enjoyed this very much! We talked a lot about story elements and made connections to the characters and events in the story. During literacy centers we focused a lot on our spelling words of the week and what our spelling pattern was, as the phonics skills are becoming more challenging and difficult to remember! MATH: Unit 4 has been full of measurement and data collection. We have had so much fun collection class data and representing it in many different ways. We have continued our routine of beginning each math lesson with a whole class word problem. The students are always given the opportunity to choose the regular problem or the challenge problem. We always represent our answers with an equation, answer with a unit, and a picture representation of how we solved the problem. On "Writing Wednesdays" we also write a sentence about what strategy we used to solve the problem! SOCIAL STUDIES: We began our study of the difference between WANTS & NEEDS. SCIENCE: We had SO much fun making the phases of the moon with Oreo cookies!! Luckily, we had some extra left over so everyone got one to eat :) December 8, 2017
The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind! Coming back from Thanksgiving break took some adjusting for some of us. However, once we were back in the swing of things, we settled right in and started learning about all sorts of new things!! We began new units in math, and science! We celebrated Nicole's birthday on Wednesday 11/29. She brought in some delicious treats for us to share! I want to extend a BIG thank you to those families who were able to provide us with some items to share for our INDIA study! We have a lot of wonderful authentic items for our classmates to observe! :) All items will be returned as soon as our India study is over. On December 4th we had a very exciting visit from The Fischer Cats! You may have seen the Reading Log form come home this week. Encourage your child to participate in order to receive TWO free tickets to a game! WEATHER: The weather has been getting wintery!! We need to remember that warm coats, hats, and mittens will help the children to stay warm and toasty outside at recess. Our rule is that we stay indoors if the wind chill or temperature are 20 degrees or below. READING: This week in reading we read Snowmen at Night. We incorporated all of the wonderful reading comprehension strategies that we have been learning this year. We also did quite a bit of writing along with this story! During our literacy block we also began learning about the process of writing a "small moment". The children have become accustomed to writing about BIG moments... however now I am getting them to ZOOM IN on a smaller moment. We call Big Moments "Watermelon Stories" and Small Moments are "Seed Stories". Ask your child for an example of each! Our spelling patterns this week were: List 9: short vowels followed by ck List 12: Suffix "S" List 16: st and tr blends Everyone did an excellent job on their spelling test this week! MATH: Unit 3 has come to a close and we dove right into Unit 4! This Unit focuses on measurement with NON STANDARD units. For example: we use unifix cubes to measure our feet, or paperclips to measure our desks. On Friday we did a very engaging activity where the students used unifx cubes to measure their whole bodies! Check out the photos up above! SCIENCE: As you may know, we have begun to talk about the moon!! This is a very exciting unit because the students get to take home our class Moon Log! Every night, another student will bring home our moon log and record their observations of the moon. Keep an eye out for it! We are focusing on the phases of the moon, what life would be like in the moon's atmosphere, and the purpose of the moon's orbit around our planet. We have come up with some very intriguing questions! "Why doesn't the moon zoom off into space?" "Why don't we feel ourselves spinning around?" Etc... November 17, 2017 What a fun week we had! I love teaching the history of Thanksgiving and incorporating it as much as possible into the days leading up to Thanksgiving! We learned a lot about Pilgrims and why they traveled to America. We also watched some videos and made comparisons between our lives and the lives of the Pilgrims and Pilgrim children back then. It was certainly an eye opener for the children! Our turkey hunt was a BLAST! The kids took turns one by one hiding their turkeys in our classroom. Then we tip toed around the class (so we didn't scare the turkeys away) and searched for each hidden turkey! Mary's turkey was the LAST one we found... she did an excellent job disguising and hiding her turkey! Way to go Mary! :) We celebrated Cameron's birthday on Monday, Pranav's birthday on Friday, and we will celebrate Shea's birthday on Monday! Lots of exciting moments in first grade!! Please remember that we are collecting items for our business to display at Marketplace!! These items are for us to BORROW only! All items will be returned back to you at the end of the month of December. Thank you!! READING: This week we had two books that we focused on. The first book was called Turkey Trouble. This book was about a turkey who was trying not to get eaten for Thanksgiving. He dressed up as many different animals in hopes of making himself less appealing! Our second book was called The Littlest Pilgrim. This book told the story of a young pilgrim girl who wanted to help with chores but was always told she was too small! We talked a lot about what she could have done to help in a smaller way! Our spelling patterns this week were: List A: digraphs List B: bonus letters (ll, ff, ss) List C: ang, ong, ung, ing Everyone did an excellent job on their spelling test this week! MATH: We did a lot of review this week with different types of number stories/word problems. Some students were working on solving word problems, while others were tasked with the job of creating their own! Towards the end of the week we reviewed number lines and skip counting. We also had the opportunity to work on some Math Box problems in our Everyday Math Journals. SOCIAL STUDIES: We continued our work with our maps and MOST students were able to finish their maps on Friday! Yay! We are all very comfortable with how to red and label a map (at a primary level). We used our social studies block this week to learn about Thanksgiving and Pilgrims as well. MICRO: Our business is really coming together!! Our designers have been hard at work creating posters and signs for us to display. Our researchers have been busy creating a brochure with some of the older students who work in the media center! We are all looking forward to seeing what they have come up with! November 9, 2017
Hello Families! Another shortened week limited our time together, but that being said, we were able to accomplish so much! Remember there is NO SCHOOL tomorrow (Friday, 11/10) It was wonderful having the opportunity to meet with most of you during Parent - Teacher Conferences. We had some very productive conversations and I enjoyed hearing your perspectives on how well your child's year is going! IMPORTANT INFO..... Coming home in your child's folder today is a fun at-home activity for your child to do! They need to disguise their turkey friend, so that he/she does not get eaten for Thanksgiving!! You can use typical household items to decorate (disguise) your turkey. Please be sure to return your child's turkey by November 15th because we are going to be adding a writing component to the finished product here at school. The hand-out explains everything you need to know! If you have any questions please reach out to me via e-mail. :) READING: This week I was finishing up doing some Progress Monitoring assessments, therefore the students were doing mainly independent work during our literacy rotations, and did not have their regular guided reading groups. They did an excellent job at working responsibly and staying focused on their work. In fact, they earned 5 EXTRA minutes of recess! Yay! Our book of the week this week was called THE RELATIVES CAME. This book is a fun one to read at this time of year because it is about to become the holiday season. Holidays are about a time when families and friends gather together and spend quality time. That was exactly the theme of this story! We had a lot of fun talking about our connections we can make to the characters and events in this story! This week we learned about Stretchy Snake! Here is a great little video that explains how to put this strategy to use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6aW8EudNXA MATH: We have begun Unit 3 in our Everyday Math Program. This Unit begins with an introduction to a Part-Part-Total diagram. This diagram allows students to break down their words problems into two parts and the whole. This is a very concrete way for children to view a math problem and visualize the breakdown of the pieces of information. You may have seen the Home Link that was sent home that can help you to understand how this diagram is used. We will continue to work with word problems next week as well. SOCIAL STUDIES: This week we began our map project! Students are going to be creating their own country, and labeling their country's map with the following: -Title -Compass Rose -Map Key -Capital City -4 Cities - 3 Bodies of Water - Mountain Range We have all chosen a theme for our countries, and the students are excited to start creating their maps next week! Some of the themes are: candyland, unicorns & rainbows, minecraft, pokemon, and puppytown. MICRO: We began to create a list of items that we need to order from the warehouse for our business to start preparing for Marketplace. Our researchers have been hard at work finding information that we can display in the Travel Zone. Stay tuned for more exciting updates! November 4, 2017 Hello Families! This was an interesting week. No school on Monday due to power outages... and then I was out on Tuesday due to an injury I sustained over the weekend. With only three full days at school this week, we accomplished a lot! Yay first grade! Congratulations to all of our students for completing the Walk-A-Thon! I unfortunately was unable to participate due to being on crutches. But, I enjoyed seeing the rosy red cheeks of the students as they returned for their hot cocoa! they worked so hard!! Thank you to everyone who contributed to this fundraiser. I am happy to announce that we have reached (surpassed) our $35 class fundraising goal. The family who started this fundraiser has graciously donated the remaining $365 to MACS and we are extremely grateful!! Thank you to all of the families who contributed to this fund. Headphones Needed!!! We have tablets that want to be used... but we need more headphones. Do you have any extra laying around? Send them in! Our class would be very appreciative! :) READING: Our book of the week this week was called SCAREDY SQUIRREL By Melanie Watt. This book is always a favorite of my students. We talked a lot about how to use evidence in a story to make an inference. The students had to pay attention to the small details in the story, and explain how and why Scaredy Squirrel behaved the way he did. Everyone did a great job being detail detectives. :) For word work, we practiced making sure sentences have the appropriate punctuation. We learned about the difference between an asking sentence and a telling sentence, and practiced which type goes where with a sentence sort activity. This week we began learning about reading strategies (whole group). We will be working with these strategies throughout the year! Be on the look out for hand outs to come home that explain which strategy we are currently working on! This week we learned about LIPS THE FISH! Here is a great little video that explains how to put this strategy to use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBmz11k9wiQ MATH: This week we did a lot of reviewing to prepare us for our Unit 2 assessment. I am confident that the majority of the class is secure in the concepts that we have covered during this unit. I am very proud of all of your children for being so attentive during math lessons!! The concepts that I want them to be secure with are: being able to tell what a question is asking. We have learned that sometimes a problem is asking for a sum, and sometimes it is asking for a missing part (missing addend). They have been working hard to tell the difference between the two. Here is an example: A word problem asking for a sum: Mary had 7 fish in her tank. Seth gave her 5 more. How many fish does Mary have in her tank now? A word problem with a missing addend: Mary had 7 fish in her tank. Seth gave her some more. Now Mary has 12 fish in her tank. How many fish did Seth give her? See the difference?! SOCIAL STUDIES: We are still talking about maps, symbols, map keys, and compass roses. Your child has been reading maps, finding symbols and showing how they would use the compass rose to find their way around a town! Next week we will be making our own maps and using symbols and map keys. In the coming week, we will also be talking about Veterans Day. MICRO: We have been in full research mode! I will admit... it has been tricky, due to the reading abilities of first graders, research has been difficult! But we are very grateful for our two managers: Kira Bairamova, and Patrick Lordan!! They have been VERY helpful to our researchers and are doing a great job guiding them in the right direction. October 27, 2017
We had a very eventful week! Please remember to send your child to school with a warm sweatshirt or fall jacket for when we go outside to recess. :) READING: We read two different books. One focused on bats, and the other focused on spiders. Stellaluna was a story about a baby bat who lost her mother. She made friends with a family of birds and thought she was a bird! The children really enjoyed this story and we talked about several different reading strategies, as we do with every story we read. Next, we read a story called ARGH! SPIDER! They loved this one as well. It was about a spider who really wanted to be a family pet! However, the family was mostly just scared of him and he didn't understand why!. We used it to fuel our writing assignment for the week: "Would you like to have a spider as a pet? Why or why not?" They had to choose a side and explain in writing why they had the opinion that they had. We had a really interesting debate over this! :) This week we also were introduced to verbs and adjectives. We learned the difference between an action word and a describing word. We used the noun "spider" to come up with things the spider can DO and what the spider is like. We will continue to work with this skill next week as well. MATH: In math we are almost ready to finish up unit 2. In this unit we have learned to add 3 numbers strategically, count on from a larger number to the final number in an equation, and we have learned to use an organizer called a "change to more" diagram. As always, we are working on explaining our thinking and showing how we know the answers to certain math problems. We have also begun a new routine in math. Each day we will begin our math lesson with a word problem. The students have been using their math slates to solve the problem I give them each day. They can draw pictures, use tools, or other strategies to solve the problem the best way they know how. We will be receiving Math Journals soon that they will be able to use to solve the problems. This is a great way to get their brains into a math state of mind to prepare for the new lesson of the day. SOCIAL STUDIES: We began talking about maps this week! Students have been introduced to the following vocabulary words: map, map key, symbol, globe, compass rose, and grid. We have been working on how to draw a map to scale, and how to read a map using a map key. We also had a visit from the Nashua Fire Department on Thursday 10/26. They did a wonderful presentation, and the children gained lots of knowledge about what to do in the event of a fire in your home. Please remember to talk to your child about where your safe meeting place is at your house. MICRO: Marketplace isn't far from starting up! All of the students have been given specific jobs within the venture, and are preparing for our business to be up and running! We will begin our country research next week to prepare for our first country of study: INDIA! October 13, 2017
Fall is truly in the air!! Please remember to send your child to school with a warm sweatshirt or fall jacket for when we go outside to recess. :) READING: This week we finished up our study of Kevin Henkes books! We have read three of his stories and loved all of them. We read Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, Chrysanthemum, and Wemberly Worried. Our purpose for reading so many of his books was to compare and contrast his characters and the different messages in the stories. These characters had many personality traits that our class could connect with. We enjoyed reading about these wonderful characters and many of the children have developed a love for Kevin Henkes as an author! Be on the lookout for other stories written by him :) In reading groups, we have been working on using our tapping strategy to sound out words, as well as to spell them. We have been reading level appropriate books and practicing ways to become more fluent readers. Ask your child what fluency means! Each group is focusing on a different phonics rule each week. Ask your child what their group learned in reading group! Some groups are working with digraphs, some are practicing cvc words, and some are working on plurals. There was no spelling list this week, due to the shorted week, and the early release day. Spelling will pick back up next week. MATH: In math we are working with manipulatives to make combinations of 10. We use counters, pennies, bears, stacking cubes, and base ten cubes to model our math problems and show how we achieved our answer. We have been introduced to subtraction and have learned many strategies to count backwards. We use strategies such as a number line, number grid, and counting back in our brains. We are also learning how to represent numbers using pictures and counters. Ten Frames are used to represent numbers up to 10. Soon we will be introduced to DOUBLE ten frames for larger numbers. A big focus for us in this unit (and many others) is to be able to EXPLAIN how we got our answer. Explaining can be done using manipulatives, words, or pictures! SOCIAL STUDIES: October is Fire Safety Month! This week we have begun talking about fire safety during our social studies block. We have learned that firemen are a very important part of our community. We learned that firemen do much more than just simply put out fires. They are also trained EMTs, and have a strong science background. We have begun to talk about ways to prevent fires, and how to stay safe if you are ever caught in a scary situation involving fire or smoke. "STAY LOW AND GO!" MICRO: Students have created their resumes. They have also begun filling out their application for which job they want within our venture: The Travel Zone! Everyone is very excited about this business and eager to get started! October 6, 2017
Welcome to October! We were able to check out the Book Fair today. Your child came home with a "Wish List" of books they are interested in purchasing. If you would like your child to purchase anything from the book fair, you can send a check, or money in with your child. :) READING: Our book of the week this week was called "Chrysanthemum" by Kevin Henkes. Last week, our book was "Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse" by the same author. We were able to compare and contrast the two main characters in these stories, as they had similar messages! The students really enjoyed reading about these characters and talking about the events within the stories! We began reading groups this week. We have been using the Fundations program to review vowel sounds and to build cvc words using our magnetic tiles. We have been reviewing kindergarten sight words to prepare for the new first grade words! Some of the students in the "challenge group" are working on digraphs. The class has been doing a stellar job rotating through the centers during literacy. They have earned several points in our Race The Teacher Race!! MATH: We have completed our Unit 1 math test. Everyone did a fantastic job!! Unit 2 has begun and we are focusing now on making combinations of 10 with ten frames! The students have learned several new games such as Ten Frame Top-It, Roll and Total, Rolling for 50, and more! These games have helped to strengthen new skills, and maintain old skills. Friday we played a really challenging game with TWO dice. The students had to find numbers that fit in a puzzle to create a number sentence. This skill is not something expected at this point in the year, but a preview for later on. It was nice to see some of them feel challenged and determined to figure out the answers! Ask your child about their feelings on this game. :) SOCIAL STUDIES: This week has been devoted to learning about Christopher Columbus! We have watched videos, read books, made crafts, and developed writing pieces on what we would do if we were explorers! Ask your child about the 1492 song. "Oh Columbus found America in 1492":) MICRO: Our Class Representative is.... PRANAV!! Congratulations :) We have decided on our First Grade Venture name. We will be called the TRAVEL ZONE. Our business is going to be a travel agency style business. Our venture will focus on a new country every month. Customers will be able to enter our doors and be transported to a new country! Stay tuned for more information!! We are all very excited about this. September 24, 2017
Busy! Busy! Busy! READING: Our book of the week this week was called "Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon". This story is about a young girl who is different in many ways, but she doesn't let it get her down! She is able to be confident and stand up for herself in every thing she does. We focused on making connections between ourselves and Molly's experiences. We also practiced finding small details within a story, and determining what was in the story and what was not in the story. The students began learning about our literacy center rotation routines and expectations. We were introduced to some new sight word activities and learned some new literacy games to help with automaticity of sight words. MATH: We are still working in Unit 1 in our Everyday Math Curriculum. This week we focused on collecting data using tally marks and graphs. The children were introduced to their white board slates, another tool that we will be using for our math lessons almost daily. :) WRITING: During writing this week we talked about writing complete sentences and remembering to use punctuation and capital letters! We have been reviewing how to form letters properly, a skill that should have been mastered in kindergarten. We do a lot of writing in grade 1, to strengthen their fine motor skills, as well as prepare them for grade 2 where writing is much more rigorous. SCIENCE: In science we have been learning all about apples and the life cycle of an apple. We did a lot of hands-on craft type activities that also required them to show me what they have learned so far in our apple unit. Up until this point, we had done most of our work together as a class. However, this week I wanted to see what they could do on their own!! I am happy to say that every child has mastered the sequential order of the life cycle. :) MICRO: The candidates for Class Representative have been selected! The 4 students that will be running for class rep are Charlotte, Seth, Pranav, and Liam. We are looking forward to hearing their speeches next week!! Additionally, we have been brainstorming some ideas for what our class venture will be. The students have come up with some pretty wonderful ideas! September 15, 2017
We have had a FANTASTIC first full week of school! Scroll down to see some pictures :) READING: Our book of the week this week was called "The Dot" by Peter. H Reynolds. This story is about gaining self confidence and persevering to become better than you ever thought possible! You may have heard your child singing "the dot song" or talking about the dot they made! During the week, we spent each day introducing a new reading strategy. Some examples are making predictions, making connections, and character changes. Our culminating activity was to listen to "The Dot" via YouTube read aloud, and to make our OWN dots with watercolors! What a fun week :) MATH: We jumped right into our curriculum and started working in our Every Day Math Journals. We learned some new games such as the Penny Dice Game, and Top-It. We are working on finding strategies to count such as skip counting and using a number line. WRITING: We have begun to set up our writing portfolios. This is where we will house all of our important pieces of writing from each part of the process: planning, drafting, editing, revising, and publishing. We have also been introduced to our writing journals. We keep these in our cubbies and use them for specific writing prompts throughout the month. Usually, the prompts are about something related to the season or something we have been working on in class. This week we wrote about apples! SCIENCE: In science we have been learning all about apples and the life cycle of an apple. We made life cycle necklaces and did a lot of coloring,cutting, and pasting! On Friday, we did some experiments with the apples that your children brought in. First, we drew a diagram (like a scientist) of our apple. Next, we weighed them on our balance and determined how many counting bears were equivalent to the weight of the apple. Then, we used string to measure the circumference of each apple. Finally, we sliced them open and counted the seeds. I made a graph on the white board of how many seeds each apple had. MICRO: We reviewed the purpose of voting and how to choose the best person for the job you are looking to fill. I read "Duck for President" and we related the leader of the farm to the leader of our school. We watched an online version of the book as well. We have begun discussing ideas for our First Grade Business! The students are starting to decide if they want to run for class representative. Speeches will take place in two weeks. Scroll down to view some photos of the exciting things we have been up to! September 8, 2017
Wow! This has been such a WONDERFUL beginning to the year! Your children are an absolute delight. We have been having a great time getting to know each other and learning the rules and expectations of our classroom and school. READING: We read a book called "First Day Jitters" and discussed our feelings about entering FIRST grade! Your children had many different emotions and feelings about the first day of school. Everyone made an Emoji to express their feelings. We even had a special treat to calm our jitters... Jitter Juice! :) MATH: We were able to explore some of our math materials to become familiar with them! WRITING: We had a BIRTHDAY to celebrate! Everyone made a page in a book for our friend, Christopher! We wrote about what we love about him. We also wrote about how we felt about the first day of school. Scroll down to view a view photos from the first two days of school. August 31, 2017 Parents! Listen to this! If our class has a combined order of $50 through Scholastic Book Orders by September 30th, then EACH child will receive a FREE book! Not only that, but the more orders we have on our class account, the more books I can order for free for our classroom library! Here is the link you need if you would like to order some books for your child! Click below! www.scholastic.com/bookclubs Our class code is: Q9VXG Additionally, I am sending home a Book Order form on the first day of school, so be on the lookout! There are some great book deals and bundles :) Best, Ms. McClintick August 25, 2017
Are you ready?! The countdown is on! I hope you are looking forward to this school year as much as I am. I have been busy in our classroom getting everything ready for our first day! We have a fresh coat of paint on the walls and all kinds of new materials at our disposal. :) I hope you have all received my Welcome Letter and Supply List. Please be sure to stick to brand specific requests for pencils (TICONDEROGA), all other brands tend to clog the sharpeners and/or break too easily. I can't wait to see everyone on September 6th for our Meet & Greet Event. Please bring your supplies at that time! Enjoy the last few remaining days of summer... get outside and play in the warm sunshine :) Best, Ms. McClintick |
IMPORTANT DATES
May & June, 2018 May 11: Talent Show May 21: Young Author's Expo (10:45-11:30) May 28: Memorial Day (NO SCHOOL) June 1: Field Day June 8: Class Party June 12: Last Day of School June 12: Award Ceremony @ 10:30am |