Friday, May 26, 2023

Character Parade Week!

 Dear First Grade Families,

We had another fun, busy week in first grade! The character parade was a blast! The kids looked SO good in their costumes. Thank you for all your hard work putting the costumes together at home. Everyone looked amazing!

Here are some pictures from our week...

Practicing counting base-10 blocks.

We did a guided drawing of the Statue of Liberty.

We made a Liberty Bell craft.

Mittens

Fly Guy

Little Witch

Duckling

Piggie

Gerald

Biscuit

Pigeon

"This is my human costume. I'm really a pigeon."

Dog Man

Rocket

Captain Underpants

Clifford

Cat Kid aka Little Petey

Buzz Boy

Amelia Bedelia

All of our wonderful characters!

Parade time!

Say "CHEESE!"


Friday, May 19, 2023

Week of 5/15

Dear First Grade Families,

We have wrapped up another week in first grade! I was out Monday-Wednesday. The students did a great job with their guest teachers, Mrs. Simpson (Monday and Wednesday) and Ms. Makela (Tuesday).

This week in Math..

-We reviewed 3D shapes.

-We took our Unit 8 math assessment.

-We did a math craft dividing shapes into equal shares (fourths, halves).


This week in Social Studies..

-We started learning about US Symbols.

-We will continue learning about US Symbols and Memorial Day next week.


This week in Reading...

-We worked in reading and writing words with vowel-consonant-e.

-We practiced retelling stories.

-We worked on our character study. We started learning about our character's inside and outside traits.


This week in Writing...

-We practiced writing sentences with proper capitalization and punctuation.

-We practiced spelling our trick words.

-We wrote a story with a beginning, middle, and end.


Reminders

-Next Friday (May 26th) is our Character Parade. Each child has selected a character and will need a simple costume for next week. If you CANNOT make the costume, please reach out and I will do my best to help your child at school.

-Please return Fort Foster field trip permission form ASAP. The field trip date is June 8th (with a rain date of June 7th).


Classroom Needs

-The first grade team would like to tie-dye tee shirts for Fort Foster. Each child would need a white cotton tee shirt (best if it's all cotton!) We are also asking for donations for tie-dye kits. I have included a link for an Amazon wishlist or you could send in money with your child. Please don't feel obligated to help! I will send out more information when details are nailed down! Here's the link:  Amazon Wish List


Friday, May 12, 2023

Week of 5/8

Dear First Grade Families,

We have wrapped up another busy week in first grade! On Tuesday and Thursday, students took a math and reading assessment on the iPads.  Changes in routine tend to shake things up quite a bit! 

This week in math...
-We continued learning about shapes, dividing shapes into equal parts, and practiced adding and subtracting 10 on the number grid. We also did some number grid puzzles.

This week in writing...
-We continued writing poetry.
-We practiced writing sentences that start with an uppercase letter and end with punctuation. We practiced spelling our trick words correctly.

This week in reading...
-We continued learning about adding suffixes to VCE words, i.e., bikes, votes.
-We practiced reading nonsense words.

This week in science/social studies..
-We learned about maps and where we live.
-We did some journaling about the grass seed that we planted.

Today, students chose their characters for the character study. Please look for the paper in your child's red folder. If the character is from a bookie series, I put it in parenthesis so that you can find it more easily. Please do not stress about costumes, they are supposed to be pretty simple! Here's a picture from the 2021-22 school year!



Grass seed experiment! 



Earth Day writing!













We drew some different vegetables!







Friday, May 5, 2023

Week of 5/1

Dear First Grade Families,

We had a busy, rainy week! I did not remember to take pictures and one day, I forgot my camera altogether! I'm glad to report that even though the week was full of RAIN, we were able to get outside for outdoor recess every day!

Here's a glimpse at what we're working on...

Math - In math, we've been learning about Geometry. We've been learning about dividing shapes into equal pieces (halves, quarters). We've learned about polygons and solid (3D) shapes. We've been talking about the defining attributes of shapes (i.e., sides, vertices).  

Science - We have been learning about plants.  On Tuesday, we planted grass seed and we're waiting for it to germinate! We will be observing our "grass seed heads" for the next week or so and writing about what we see.  We also did an experiment with celery and food coloring. We learned about how water travels up the stem of plants to the leaves.  Fun, fun, fun!

Phonics - In phonics, we've been focusing on vowel-consonant-e words, for example, cake, name, and vote.  We are learning tricks for when to use c and when to use k.  We learned that k takes i and e and c takes the other three.  We also learned that s can make the /s/ or /z/ sound when it is between two vowels or a suffix.  The kids have learned so much and it's amazing to see!

Writing - We have been writing poems.  We have learned about list poems, -ing poems, concrete poems, acrostic poems, and color poems.  Next week we will finish up our poetry unit.

In the next couple of weeks, we will be starting our Character Study! The students will learn a lot about a character in a book and then they will dress up as that character in a parade.  I PROMISE I will give you PLENTY of notice and details as soon as I have them!

This week, we needed a LOT of reminders about following directions and first-time listening. Students are taking a long time to transition from one activity to the next.  We have also needed a lot of reminders about following our classroom routines. We will keep working on this!

Reminders

-PLEASE pack your child a snack every day. I do not have snacks for children who forget!

-PLEASE put water in your child's water bottle. Juice spills are happening quite often and they're messy and sticky! 

-It is our school policy that students cannot bring candy for snack.  Please save candy for home!


I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  It's FINALLY going to stop raining! Yahooo!


PS - We got a Chocolate Lab puppy.  His name is Walter. He's a handful, but we love him so much!




Last week of school

Dear First Grade Families, ......Or should I say second-grade families? It is hard to believe the school year is over. I swear the years go ...