Assignments for January 31-February 2

Math
Study all flash cards
Parents-Make a 10x10 grid
Students-write to 100 on teh 10 x 10 grid
Count 100 small items in groups of 10 (cereal, chocolate chips, noodles)

Reading
Review all words in theme 5
Begin studying week one of theme 6
Log daily

Spelling
Review all spell out words
Study the CvCe pattern using long -u : tube, cube, cute, rule, tune, June, use, mule, rude, tune
Study the CvC pattern of short u words: tub, cut, us, sub, us, run, bus, rug

Language
Write a sentence and a question in your zebra book each day.

**With parental guidance the children could research groundhogs:
Youtube: Fun Facts About Groundhogs
Youtube: How to draw a groundhog

Predict if the groundhog will see his shadow or now.  Go outside and make shadows using different things.

Write 3 facts you learned about groundhogs.

The * items are ideas for extra fun.

***We have been learning about cold weather.  We were going to watch The Magic School Bus in the Arctic.  This is a good video about how arctic animal keep warm.  We will be doing an experiment next week about blubber.

****We have been studying adjectives.  We are going to make a poster for each child in the class using adjectives to describe 1. Physical appearance and 2. Character traits
Your child can write 2 adjectives about each class member and we will compile our information on Monday.  We did Ashley's on Monday so we have hers.  We need
Hunter
Keaton
Eric
Keira
Jill
Collins
Nolan

I hope you all stay well!!

Brrrrrr.... It's Cold in First Grade.

January has been filled will topics related to cold weather.  Many of the students experienced snow for the first time.  Each student wrote a story about building a snow man in which they used the sequencing frame FIRST, NEXT, THEN, LAST as a guide to help with sequence and recall.  We made "snow paint" using glue and shaving cream and we used it to paint snowmen, the pictures dried into   puffy 3-D snowmen.   We made "snow" from cornstarch and lotion and enjoyed making snowballs with our classroom snow.  We put water and food coloring in an ice tray and left it in the fairy garden over night.  When we left it it was a liquid, but when we found it the next morning it had frozen into solid cubes.  We used these colored cubes to do ice drawings (we had to work quickly because the cubes were cold!!)  This week we will be studying about Arctic animals and how they survive in the cold.  We built a "den" in the math room to protect us from the cold...(the AC unit blowing full force!), we saw how a shelter is helpful in keeping us warm.  We will do an experiment using blubber to find out how important this fat layer is for our cold weather friends. 

In math we have been working on addition and subtraction facts with 2, addition facts that we call "doubles +1, graphing, tallying, counting by 2's, 5's and 10's forward and backwards, number words, double digit addition with out regrouping and word problems.  We will begin regrouping soon!!

We have completed Theme 5 in our reading series and we started the Accelerated Reader program.  Our reading skills are really getting stronger.  Stop by first grade and you may just find us curled up with a good book!

Dashing Through December...December 12, 2017

Hi Parents,
I've listed some helpful tips as you head into the "Twelve Days of Christmas"...
-put time limits on technology
-set aside time for journaling/journal with them as well
-play board games
-teach waiting...waiting in a store, waiting at a restaurant, waiting for their time to talk
-teach monotonous tasks...Santa loves a hard worker.
...folding laundry
...hanging laundry
...unpacking groceries
...setting the table
...clearing the table
...making breakfast/lunch
...making their bed
Social Things to work on-
-taking turns
-sharing
-winning and losing nicely
-compromising
-complimenting others
-using please and thank you

Christmas vacation is a great time for snuggling in front of a fire and sharing a great book or telling a story.  Spend quality time with your child this season...next year they will be a year older and much bigger so cherish each moment and enjoy your family time!! 
Merry Christmas

November 19, 2017

November was filled with many activities related to Native Americans, the Pilgrims and our first Thanksgiving.  The students discovered the different land forms that were homes to the Native Americans and how they used the land to survive.  They studied about the homes and survival skills of  the Ojibway, the Iroquois, the Cherokee, the Lakota, the Hopi and the Haida tribes.  We drew different  types of homes (tepee, long house and pueblo) , made pottery from play dough, wrote summaries of each tribe and played a few Native American games.  We learned a rain dance and are waiting on the rain to come!!!
All of the children have made exciting progress with their reading skills and look forward to their time for independent reading each day.
We are studying odd and even numbers, adding 2 to a number, ordinal numbers, symmetry, telling time, counting money, capacity of containers, estimation, and using standard and nonstandard measurement.  The children are copying and creating beautiful patterns using pattern blocks and they enjoy using calculators to solve and check higher level math problems.
There is never a dull moment in our classroom...first grade is fantastic.

We will be boarding the Polar Express and going around the world to learn about Christmas in other countries during December. 

October 19, 2017

October has been a busy month in first grade.  The students have researched and learned so many interesting facts about bats, spiders and pumpkins.  If you see a first grader walking around, ask them to share their knowledge on these topics.  The 1st and 2nd graders "got to know" a pumpkin this week.  Each student brought a pumpkin to school.   They wrote adjectives that described their special pumpkin, they read to their pumpkin, they weighed the pumpkin and measured the circumference of their pumpkin. We mixed all of the pumpkins into a big pile and they had to find the pumpkin that matched their description.  Each pumpkin made it to its rightful owner.  Today we "gutted" each pumpkin and boy oh boy did we have pumpkin faces, hands, knees, elbows and arms as we worked on this project.  Tomorrow we will have the help of some 8th and 9th graders and each student will carve a face into their pumpkin.  I'm excited to meet the jack-o-lanterns that will be created.

The first graders are rocking in their math shoes!!!!!  Every student scored 100% on their math test yesterday!  I am seeing improvements each day.

We have completed theme 2 in our reading series and are now in theme 3.  The students are always saying..."WE ARE READERS,,,WE ARE READERS!!!"  They are so excited to read to anyone who will listen, just ask our pumpkins, lol.  In theme 3 we will focus on sequencing, main idea and details, topic sentences, summarizing, words with double consonant endings, consonant blends, long vowel words, plurals with -s, and verb endings -s, -ed, and -ing. 

There is never a dull moment in first grade!!!

October 3, 2017

HaPpY  OcToBeR....Things here in first grade are getting a little "batty"!!!  Yes we are studying bats this week and we have some large vocabulary words to prove it. Bats are nocturnal mammals.  Some bats hibernate.  All bats use echolocation to navigate.  Microbats eat millions of mosquitoes and insects, we like that!  Megabats eat fruits and help spread seeds.  We will make bats, read about bats, research bats, compare bats and play games using "echolocation".

Next week we will have our theme 2 reading test, the information for that test will be in the weekly folder this week.  I am so proud of the progress the children are making.  We are reading CVC words and are learning to read CVCe words.  We have mastered all of our first high frequency word list and are working on list 2.   We will work with "s" blend words this week. We are dividing words into syllables to decode and we have learned the "i" and "e" sound that -y makes at the end of a word.

Fun in math.
The children learned a rap song to help them memorize their doubles facts.  They are writing number  sentences and solving word problems.  They are creating amazing patterns with pattern blocks.  We are using ordinal numbers, color words, directional words and number words every day.  Math time is a busy time in first grade

Stay tuned for SpIdErS, pUmPkInS and other HaLlOwEen things...

Welcome Fall!!

We welcomed fall by painting leaves and learning a poem about fall.  We are watching for signs of fall outside.  We are sooooo ready for the temperatures to "fall".
The children are becoming such good readers.  We have worked on one and two syllable words and have learned how to segment a word by syllables.  We know our short vowel sounds and are working on the long vowel patterns.  We will be working on comparing reality and fantasy as well as sequencing events in a story.  Please use the key words, first, next, then and last when discussing a story with your child.  Have your child make a sandwich or help you prepare a meal.  Discuss what you did first, next, then and last.  We are writing complex sentences by using "and" and "because" to link more information in the sentence.  We are working on writing on a topic and adding details in the sentences to "paint pictures in your head".
In math we are working on the doubles facts through 9+9.  Please study the flash cards each night.  We are working  word problems and writing number sentences to match the problem, ordinal numbers through sixth, counting by 2's, 5's and 10's, color words, number words and shape words.
Thank you for all that you do to help your child learn!  I am seeing progress daily.