Week of Sept. 30 - Oct. 2

Classroom News

Reading: Robert Munsch continued to make us laugh with several other books including Pigs, Moira’s Birthday, and Stephanie’s Ponytail.  Robert Munsch has a great website with numerous books on audio.  In your spare time please browse the site (robertmunsch.com) and let your child listen to the books we did not have a change to read.  There are other links to poems and stories.  Have fun exploring!

Math: First grade took a Chapter 2 Math Test on Tuesday.  On Wednesday, we revisited addition once again.  Students have learned how to “count on” when adding 1, 2, and 3.  Please have your child model and practice this skill at home.

Writing: Watermelon and seed topics have continued.  Students have learned how to work with a writing partner.

What We’re Learning Next Week:

Reading: Students will be learning about seeds for the next two weeks.  We will begin our seed unit with a concentration on apples.  We will begin our unit with an apple science experiment.  If possible, please send an apple (red, green, or yellow) to school on Monday for our science experiment.

Math: Students will learn to use doubles facts to add to 20.  Doubles Plus one and minus one are also skills we will learn.  Research shows that many children remember doubles facts more easily than other facts with sums within 20.  It is important for children to be able to identify doubles facts and to develop quick recall of their sums.

Writing: Students will continue working on seed topics and bringing their stories to life.  When appropriate, partners will help one another.

Phonemic Awareness:

Short u

When there is only one vowel at the beginning or in the middle of a word, the vowel usually stands for its short sound.

Final Blends

Consonant blends consist of two or more letters whose sounds are blended together when pronouncing a word.

Important Dates:

10/3

Teacher Institute

No School

10/13

No School

10/15

11:45 Dismissal

S.I.P. Day

                         

Community Helpers

Classroom News

Reading: Our unit on community helpers has come to a close.  Students really enjoyed learning about the responsibilities of those we see in our community on a daily basis. 

Math: Students began working on subtraction.  We used visual representations as well as manipulatives to help with our subtraction.  A few new vocabulary words we learned include: difference, minus, subtraction sentence and subtract.  We also began Gumball Math.  Students have taken a couple of timed tests with fifty fact problems.  In order to progress onto the next level of difficulty, students must earn a 100%.

Writing: The writer’s workshop has continued.  Students have had opportunities to review how to write a story and label pictures associated with their small moment stories.

What We’re Learning Next Week:

Reading: Robert Munsch is a famous children’s author that we will highlight.  His books are quite humorous for adults and children.  If you have the opportunity to get to the library please check out the Robert Munsch section.  Students will be reading multiple books and completing activities linked to the books we read.

Math: Subtraction practice will continue.  We will use pictures to help us subtract, subtract zero, and take apart numbers.  An assessment is planned for the week of Sept. 22^nd.

Writing: Students are doing well with the writing process.  Encourage your child to write a small moment story at home.                          

Phonemic Awareness:

Inflected Endings –s

The letter s can stand for the sound /s/ or /z/.

Inflected Ending –ing

When reading words with –ing, take off the –ing and read the base word first.

Important Information

Please make sure your child has a healthy snack.  Chips, cookies and donuts are discouraged.  One snack and one drink is sufficient for snack.

Important Dates:

S.I.P. Day 9/17

Progress Reports go home 9/19

October 3

Teacher Institute

No School

Main Topic with Community!

Classroom News

Reading: Our new unit on community helpers and community workers began this week.  We read several books and identified the main topic.  Students used a graphic organizer to note the main topic and also labeled pictures of community helpers from the books we read.  A great website that we used this week is wegivebooks.org.  Please check out this free resource at your leisure.

Math: Students wrapped up Chapter 1.  We spent time manipulating addends to come up with the sums 8, 9 and 10 and also learned how to add in any order.  Students had a summative assessment on Friday.

Writing: The writer’s workshop has continued.  Students have had opportunities to review how to write a story and label pictures associated with their small moment stories.

  

What We’re Learning Next Week:

Reading: We will continue our Community Helper theme for one more week.  Students will focus their learning on firefighters and police officers.  The main topic will be identified and students will learn to use multiple labels with their illustrations.

Math: Subtraction Concepts (Chapter 2) will begin on Monday.  This chapter will teach students about comparison equations or problems with language such as more than, fewer than and how many more.  Students will also learn about problems that take from.  Take from problems involve situations where a number of things are removed from a total group.  Our final type of subtraction problem is considered a take apart problem.  Take apart problems involve situations in which there is a whole group separated into 2 smaller groups.

Phonemic Awareness:

Short o

When there is only one vowel at the beginning or in the middle of a word, the vowel usually stands for its short sound.

Ex. pot, rock

Main Character and Setting!

Classroom News

Reading: Students continued to read fictional stories and identify the characters and setting of each story. A few of the entertaining stories we read this week included First Grade Stinks, Peanut Butter Homework Sandwiches, and Arthur’s New Puppy. Students did an exceptional job identifying the characters and setting.

Math: Students continued working on addition. We learned about adding zero and using a bar model to help with our addition.

Writing: First grade has started the Writer’s Workshop. Students wrote about a small moment, something that has happened to them or something that they did. We learned how to 1) think of an idea; 2) plan a story; 3) write. 

What We’re Learning Next Week:

Reading: Community workers and helpers is our next topic of study.  Students will read information text (nonfiction books) and learn how to ask and answer questions about key details in a text.  We will also describe  connection between two things in a text (people, events, ideas, pieces of information).  Finally, we will use illustrations in a text to describe key ideas.

Math: Chapter 1 will come to an end. Students will have an assessment prior to the end of the week. Please complete the practice test that will be sent home for homework. It is a great way to practice skills and concepts covered throughout the chapter.