Non-Fiction and Opinions

We are off to a great start this week!  We worked hard in literacy to learn about our new spelling pattern- r-blends.  We are working with words that start with cr____, gr_____, tr____, and dr____ this week! As you're reading with your first grader at home, keep track of how many words you can find that begin this way!


One reading group used the index of a book today, to find a topic they were interested in reading about.  They located the page, read about the topic, and shared with their group.

In writing, we practiced our speaking and listening skills by reading secret opinion prompts and coming up with reasons for them!  These are the prompts we responded to:
____ is the worst sport because ______
_____ is the worst smell because ________
______ is the best school because ________
_____ is the best dessert because ______
_____ is my favorite food because_______


We had a great time coming up with reasons and listening for reasons from the audience.


Our school-wide holiday sing-a-long is Friday, December 18th at 1:50pm.  If you plan to join us, please meet us in the cafeteria/gym at that time.

Double, Double

Today we learned all about doubles in math and how we can add doubles quickly.  We also learned a new game, Roll for Doubles, that we can keep track of with a bar graph!  It is so much fun when everything we're learning about works together. 


We learned about cause and effect during literacy.  We read a literary non-fiction book The Disappearing Moon to learn about what caused certain things to happen.  Ask your first grader to tell you about literary non-fiction and cause and effect when they get home today. 


We also practiced our blends and k, ke, ck endings.  Check out this chart the first graders made with words they found!

We are continuing to write about our opinions in writing.  We have MANY, MANY opinions to choose from! Today, we wrote about which animal we liked best, a cat or a lizard.


We also read our weekly Scholastic News magazine.  You can access Scholastic News at home:
 http://sni.scholastic.com/SN1


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Blends, and Explorations and Literary Non-Fiction

Oh, my!


We have been hard at work in first grade learning about so many things! 


Today in math, we learned how to take a survey to collect data. We surveyed our classmates and also explored with shapes, measurement and value.

In literacy, we are learning about literary non-fiction which is a genre of book. These books look and sound like a story, but also have true information.  Today, we read The Disappearing Moon. In this book, we read about animals who thought the moon was disappearing and learned about the phases of the moon.  We made our own books showcasing phases of the moon when we were done reading.


We have been learning about "l" blend words.  First graders today read books from their book bins and books from our science station and recorded words with blends as they went.  They added words to our classroom chart!

The first graders are having a wonderful week and are working so hard to achieve success!

Measuring and Sorting

We are measuring and learning.  (Madison)

We measured different things.  (Kiera)

We had a really good day.  (Brayden)

We are having fun learning.  (Tola)

We love school! (Ben C.)

We used unit cubes, big paper clips, small paper clips, markers and tens to measure.  (Eliza and others~)

We are sorting words. (Madison)

We sorted our words by the end sounds.  (Andrew)

We say the words, and put them in the right column.  (Micah)

We put our words in our Word Work notebooks! (Makayla)

We sorted by sounds of wh, ch, th, sh, and ss.  (Ben P.)
We are very smart now! (Noah)

Overdue Update

We have been so busy learning, working and having fun in first grade we have been neglectful of our blog and taking pictures! The first graders will tell you- we've been learning SO much this week!


Our WOW word is "livid" and we've shared some moments in our lives when we have all been that angry before. Our word study focus this week is on the digraphs th, sh, ch, and wh. We have been writing these digraphs, finding them in reading, and thinking of words that we know have them.  Today, we even found a digraph we weren't learning about- ph! 


In math we have been learning about skip-counting and finding rules. We use strategies like counting up, find the space between, and counting back to figure these tough problems out.


We have been learning about Thanksgiving, Native Americans, and Pilgrims.  Ask your first grader what they have learned about the Mayflower today.  We are writing thankful books and will present what we are thankful for at School Wide Morning Meeting Friday morning!


Report cards will go home on Friday and conferences are next week. I'm looking forward to seeing many of you then!

Subtraction Rules

We have learned that in addition, turn-around facts help us solve problems quickly.  We know that 5+2 is the same as 2+5; 7!  Today, we explored to see if the same is true in subtraction.  We learned that it is NOT!  We started by solving 5-2= ?.  To solve, we drew a picture. We showed 5 items and crossed 2 out.  We had 3 remaining. We wrote the number model: 5-2=3.  Then, we tried to turn it around just like we do in addition!  We drew a picture showing 2 items, and then tried to cross out 5.
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"Hey!  You can't do that!"  "This doesn't work!"  "Mrs. Hershman!  Did you  mean 5-2 again?"


We realized that in subtraction, there are no turn-around facts and you must always start with the larger number! 


We are still looking, listening for, building and writing short vowel words.  We have found them everywhere!  We have also been impressive detectives and found lots of examples of words that don't follow the short vowel sound rules. 


In reading, we are learning to follow characters through longer stories.  Today, we learned that we learn about characters by what they say, do, like, and dislike.  We learned all about a character named Mr. Putter and his cat, Tabby.  Ask your first grader to tell you what we learned about them! 

Wow!

What an outstanding day we had today!  Our WOW word this week is somber.  We used our new word in sentences and realized we could think of many instances when we felt somber.


We learned how to count up, count back, add, subtract and skip count on a number line!  We worked hard in math to show that we could do all of these things with dice and a number line.

We are reviewing all of our short vowels this week.  When we were sorting our words, we were *really* excellent sound/spelling detectives and we were able to find two oddballs!  Oddballs are words that don't fit our pattern.  We found that her and saw don't fit because in her, you hear the "h" and the "r" but not the vowel and in saw, it sounds like it should be an "o" but is spelled "aw".  The first graders are amazing!  We also worked through our first tasks in spelling city.


We are writing personal narratives in writing and remembering to use temporal words which show the order of events.  We are writing some impressive pieces. 


This week our focus in on liquids and how they are different from solids and each other.  The first graders told me this morning that they are different from solids because they are different states of matter, they take the shape of the container that they are in, and their particles are moving faster and further apart than solid's are.


WOW!

Hat Day!

We have been working so hard to fill our warm-fuzzy bear and we have collected enough warm fuzzies to earn another celebration!  Tomorrow will be HAT DAY at school, so make sure your first grader comes to school ready to wear their favorite hat!


We can't wait! 

Number Stories and Our First Field Trip

NToday in math we learned how to read and write number stories.  We practiced putting information from the number stories into number models to help us keep track of our information.  We are very comfortable with number stories that ask us to find the total.  We are less comfortable with number stories that don't give us all of the information.


For example:
We LOVE: I had two donuts.  I ate two more.  How many did I eat?


We like LESS: I had two donuts. I ate some more.  I had eaten 4 donuts by the end of the day.  How many more did I eat?


Practicing at home with missing information will be helpful!  You can turn anything into a number story! 


We are learning all about short "e" this week.  We got our new word work list and color sorted the different endings.  We are looking for ___en, ___et, and ___eg words.  See how many you can find while you're reading at home!


We read Caps for Sale to get ready for our field trip to the Flynn Theater tomorrow.  We are very excited for a live performance and a field trip! 

We also investigated solids and described them in science! 

Halloween Reminder and Retelling

Tomorrow is our Halloween celebration.  If you are sending in something for the party, feel free to drop it off Friday morning, send it with your child, or bring it at 1:30.  Children's costumes can also be sent in the morning, or you may bring it at 1:30 when you arrive for the parade.  We will get dressed at 1:30 and the parade begins at 1:50.  We hope to have snacks while we wait for the parade, but we will have to see about timing. 


Today, in math we learned about a new diagram to help us with addition and subtraction called, Part/Part/Total.  Ask your first grader to teach you about this diagram and how dominos help us, too.


In literacy we learned to put post-its in our books when we read something we want to remember to tell our reading partner about.  Today, we practiced retelling our stories (telling the most important parts, in order) by flipping through our post-it pages.  We are fabulous readers!

Puppets in Education and 4 Winds

We had a very busy morning today! We saw a wonderfully fun puppet show from Kids on the Block about Bullying Awareness and Celebrating Differences.  We learned a lot!  Ask your first grader what they learned today.  (If they need help... remind them to StandUP!)

After Kids on the Block, we had Mr. McAuley here for 4 Winds.  We learned about the plant life cycle and parts of a seed.  We discovered parts of beans, and matched seeds to plants. 

Important Updates

Halloween Parade:

• Doors open at 1:30 p.m. for family members who are helping to set up.
• All visitors will sign in at the front of the building.
• Parade will start at 1:50 p.m.
  • Classes dismissed by grade level – Kinder, then grade 1, finally grade 2 – by intercom announcement
  • Proceed out the recess doors to the back field where cones will be set up for the parade route.  Classes will follow the cones in a zig zag so students see each other.
  • Once classes are done, groups will re-enter the building
• Costume guidelines:  No masks for adult or students, no costumes with violent themes (guns, weapons, etc.)

Students can leave with their families as long as students are signed out in classrooms.


We are still looking for a fun "treat" for our party in the classroom. If you would like to send something in, please let me know!

Thanks!
Picture re-takes:  Thursday – Oct. 29^th in the library – 9 to 10 a.m.

Unit 2 and Writer's Celebration

Wow! We had a very busy day today!  We took our Unit 2 math assessment (and worked SO hard!) and we also had our very first Writer's Celebration!


To celebrate all of our hard work in writing, we read our published pieces like authors!  We sat in the teacher's chair and we even were able to give out one warm fuzzy if we saw Picture Perfect Pax leaders!  We had a GREAT day today!

Your child's school pictures will be in their folder this afternoon, and so will information on how to access Power School online.

Addition and Subtraction Strategies and a Halloween Celebration

We have been using change-to-more and change-to-less models to help us get ready for other types of number models. Today, we moved into addition and subtraction number models ____+____=_____ and _____-_____+______.  We found the information by hearing number stories orally and also rolled dice to add and subtract.  The first graders have many strategies for adding and subtracting.  These first graders are using their fingers and counters to help them.

Today, some readers took an opportunity to read to a partner.  Reading to a partner is fun work! 

As you have read in the PPS newsletter, we are having a Halloween celebration with a costume parade and small classroom party.  We would love to have families send in a snack for our party.  If you are interested in any of the following, please let me know! 


____ fruit (2)
____ vegetable (2)
____ cheese and crackers (1)
____ grain (pretzels, goldfish, etc) (1)
____ juice boxes
____ fun "treat"! (muffins/bread/etc)