October 1st - 5th

Dear families,

This has been an exciting week, as we have been writing many stories, playing new math games, conducting experiments, and making connections between texts and ourselves, other texts, and the world around us. We have been so busy learning, but not too busy for another joke. This week's joke is - Who stole the soap? The robber ducky!!! Hah!! Your children keep me laughing! :D

Writing Workshop

In Writing Workshop we will continue working on planning, sketching and writing stories with a beginning, middle and end.  We will work as a whole group to put stories in order because the concept of beginning, middle and end can be hard for some students to grasp.  We will also continue talking about the writing process.  The children will start circling the kindergarten (with red) and first grade (with blue) word wall words during the editing process.  I’m so proud of their writing already.  Our writing workshop is a serious time in our classroom and the progress I’m seeing is exciting! I can’t wait to see all the writing by the end of the year.  I’ve told my class how proud I am, and I hope you will continue to encourage them at home! J

Math

As we enter our second week on addition and subtraction concepts and prerequisites for learning basic math facts we will focus this week on counting on and counting back.  We will do a fun lesson using calculators (which the children always love) for two-more-than.  We will also focus on using five and ten frames to build numbers.  It is important for the children to learn how to identify a quantity without counting each number individually.  These strategies will be encouraged as we continue with our problem solving, which is ongoing throughout all our units in first grade.

Science/Social Studies

We had a great time exploring matter, changes in states of matter, and mass of matter this week. During this upcoming week in Social Studies we will be learning the difference between rules and laws and the purpose for them in the home, school, and community. We will examine some ways that rules and laws establish order, provide security, and manage conflict for us.  

Reading:

This week we are going to practice retelling stories in our own words.  We will sequence the events of the story in correct order and retell the stories that we read with beginning, middle and ending.  We will also add to our comprehension strategies and learn how to slow down, go back, and re-read a part in the story that we might be confused about.  Strong readers read with expression and use all the clues such as words and pictures to understand the story better.  As part of media literacy, we will listen to stories on line and learn how words, images, graphics, and sound work together to impact the meaning of the story. 

Thank you:Thank you to our helpers! We LOVE you!

Tuesday Folders – Hanna Horsey

Computer Lab – Carl Alagar

Classroom Chores Helpers – Melissa Castelliani, Santrupta Pranay, Alina Postlenicu, Samaneh Sayyar

Homework Helper - Jennifer Van Metre

Friday Reader - David Horsey

Reminders:

Fall Conferences are quickly approaching. If you are interested in conferencing, but have not signed up yet, please do so.
On that note, MONDAY is FALL CONFERENCING DAY - NO SCHOOL
Homework Packets for next week will go home on Friday of this week. You will return homework packets on Friday morning, as usual. But, I will have the homework bags refilled by Friday afternoon. Your child will take the homework home over the weekend this time. Your child's homework spirals will not all be graded though, as this is just not enough time to grade them. I will catch them next weekend!