The Week of Dec. 6

 Upcoming Events

Secret Santa Gift Making Workshop

Dec. 21 from 8:30-9:30

Classroom Holiday Party /Early Release Day

Dec. 23 - Students will be dismissed at 11:30

More information to come this week!  

Winter Break 

Dec. 24- Jan. 2

All School Community Meetings - Each and every Friday from 7:50-8:15

Spelling and Fundations 

Last week, we focused on a review of letter id and sound, and worked with glued sounds (am, an, all). We also began a short study of long vowel sounds and silent e words. The students enjoyed playing partner games to help practice these skills. 

Readers' and Writers' Workshop

We began new units of study in both reading and writing last week. We began exploring nonfiction texts and how to read and write them. Here are some of the big ideas we will be working on in reading.

In writing, we began studying some cool new nonfiction mentor authors and books. We read several Gail Gibbons books together and created a Notice, Name and Why chart. When we return from winter break we will begin researching and writing our own nonfiction books! 

 Animal Adventures/Animal Biodiversity

We began our first science unit of study! The first and second graders had to figure out a mystery animal by uncovering its attributes. Later, we sorted animals into groups based on common attributes such as: feathers, bones, lays eggs etc. Later we had to sort some very challenging animals into groups using their attributes too! We created a "driving question" board, where students jotted down questions they would like to answer in future lessons. On Friday, we had a new mystery to figure out. Why would a wild animal visit a playground...We learned to observe and keep track of our thinking too. 

First Grade Math  

In math, we wrapped up our unit of study on addition strategies. We began a new study of 3D shapes and have been enjoying learning some important math vocabulary words. Students learned about spheres, cubes, rectangular prisms and cylinders. We learned to identify the edge, face and vertices of a 3D shape. In Unit 3, we will continue with addition and subtraction strategies and work on becoming more fluent with our facts to ten. We will work on place value, adding ten and subtracting ten from double digit numbers. 

 Read Aloud - New Genre

Realistic Fiction 

The first and second graders read Owl Moon together on Friday, and talked about a new genre of fiction book...Realistic Fiction! Together we compared this story to other fiction books we have read together. Later, we drew and painted our own winter scene! 

Comfy/Cozy Fort Day

 

Comfy Cozy Fort Day Pictures

We spent time this morning making our fort plans, building and enjoying! We used our forts for independent reading and math practice work. Thank you to all the families who helped make this a fun day for our students! 

 PBIS Comfy, Cozy Fort Day

 Dec. 2, 2022

Tomorrow we will celebrate! 

Students may bring a sheet, blanket, pillow, a small stuffy and some clothes pins. We will make our forts in the morning and use them to read and write throughout the day. 

The Week of Nov. 22

 

Upcoming Events

No School- Nov. 24-26 Thanksgiving Break

Dec. 3 Early Release Day @ 11:30- Teacher In-service

Report Cards go home : Dec. 7

Happy Thanksgiving

I am grateful to work with these wonderful students each day. Each student is progressing, growing and improving each day.  Enjoy your time at home and Happy Thanksgiving to you all :)

Writers' Workshop

The first and second graders worked so hard to complete their "Fancy" copies of their small moment narratives. . It is amazing to see their progress from the beginning of this unit, and how they see themselves as writers! In the words of one student, "Hey this is cool, it's like reading workshop but we are the writers!!" 

Here are some snapshots from our classroom share time.

Each student should have their book in their backpack to share with you at home. 

The Week of November 14

Silly Soccer 

 Upcoming Events

Trimester I ends: Nov. 23

No School- Nov. 24-26 Thanksgiving Break

Report Cards go home : Dec. 7

**Please pack water bottles and extra masks each day**

Big Buddy, Little Buddy Poetry Presentation

The first and second graders have been working on planning, writing and reading our 

5 senses Autumn Poem called When Autumn Falls. On Friday, we performed our poem with our Big Buddies at Community Meeting! Here are some snapshots from the performance. 

Writers' Workshop

In writing, we have worked hard to make our fancy copies! Students used a rubric to identify what they are doing well and what they need to work on. We spent time creating detailed illustrations, covers, dedication pages and a cool All About the Author page.

A note on publishing... 
Current best practice around student publishing and editing is that teachers work together with a child to enhance writing. We work together to target age appropriate spelling, use of capitalization and punctuation, handwriting skills, and overarching goals we have learned about.

 We don't fix every single word, grammar/usage and mechanics error that would be only significant to a highly experienced  writer.  You will see that your child may still have misspelled words and/or other errors in their book. Please remember we are celebrating our children's hard work, growth and developmental stage. 

Here are a few of the published book covers...

A BIG, BIG thank you goes out to Ms. Marie for her help laminating all of the book covers :)

Technology in the Classroom -Typing.com

This week, we began working on getting to know the keyboard and how to type using the home row. Students enjoyed learning how to position their hands on the keyboard, and locating various keys with certain fingers. We use typing.com in class to practice these skills! Each child typed their own All About the Author page in their fancy Small Moment Story. We also learned to use our laptop camera and insert a picture into a google doc. 

First Grade Math 

This week in math, we worked on using our addition and subtraction knowledge to write equations. We learned the part, part whole model and solved many equations using this knowledge. Students used the smartboard to write equations, and later in the week we worked in flip books to write and solve equations. Students created their own number stories and drew detailed pictures to match them!