Hello, Room 4 Families. Can you believe tomorrow is the last day of October? Time is passing way too quickly! Below are some highlights from the last few weeks. I have also added some pictures and videos to our class photo album. I need to take more photos each week!
Thank you to the parents who have come in as Mystery Readers! Your children are very excited about this time each week! If you haven't had a chance to sign-up for a time yet, please click on the link in the top right corner of this web page. Once every family has had a chance to sign-up for one slot, I will open it up for additional times. Thank you!
Phonics
•These are the words we currently have on our Trick Word Wall:
a, and, as, has, his, into, is, of, the, to
It is expected that your children will spell these words correctly in their daily writing in class.
•Last week we learned the digraphs ch, sh, th, wh, and ck.
Can you sing me the song you learned to help you remember how to spell the word, “of?”
What are the keywords and sounds for the digraphs?
When would you use the digraph ck in a word? (after a short vowel)
Reading
•Your first graders continue to work on their reading stamina with just right books.
•We recently started meeting in small groups to work on reading and comprehension strategies. •During one of our reading mini-lessons we learned that books can be mirrors or windows. When a book is a mirror we can see ourselves in the book. When it is a window we learn about other people through reading the book.
Tell me about a time when a book was a mirror for you.
Tell me about a time when a book was a window for you.
Social Studies
•We have continued to read books that help us think about belonging. Here are some books we read recently:
One Green Apple (This was a book we started during a mini-lesson for Reading Workshop and finished during Social Studies.)
Math
•Your amazing first graders have completed our unit on careful counting and comparing numbers. We have moved on to our unit on decomposing numbers within 10. Here is an overview of this unit:
In this unit of study we are focusing on the following skills:
Conceptual Understanding of solving word problems about putting together and taking apart situations (using storyboards)
Learning combinations of numbers up to 10 beginning at a targeted number based on the results of an assessment, done individually with Ms. Germaine
Understand the relationship between addition and subtraction and use visuals to understand this relationship (turn around facts as well)
Use number bonds to understand the relationship between addition and subtraction (begin to introduce fact families)
Tell me about the game, Race to Ten. (This is a game that uses both addition and subtraction.)
Science
•Each morning we record the weather and temperature.
•This week we will look to see if there is a time of day that is warmest.
•Later this week we will learn about the different types of clouds and what they mean.
How are you recording the weather and temperature each day?
Open Circle
•Ms. Mortley has joined our Open Circle a couple of times to help us learn about our brain and some exercises we can do to calm down. We might need to calm down if we are anxious, nervous, or excited.
Can you teach me one or two of the exercises you learned to do to help you calm down?
Something New!
The first-grade team decided we would gather once a month to learn Spanish from Salon 6, our First Grade Spanish Immersion classroom. This past Thursday we learned the song they sing for snack time. We also learned a new song about a sardine. There is a video of us learning the snack-time song in our Google Photo Album. :)
