Weekly Update

Hello Families,

We almost made it through a whole week without any weather related delays or cancellations! Thank you for sending your children with appropriate clothing for the bus and recess on the days we have it. Our January Mystery Readers were my brother, nieces, and nephew. They each read part of one of their favorite book.

 

 

My nephew, Reily, reading The Magic School Bus - Solar System

 

My niece, Kennedy, reading Little Cricket's Big Day 

 

My niece, McKenzie, reading Because You Matter

 

Math

We finished up our geometry unit today and will be taking the end of the unit assessment on Monday. This week we learned about solid geometric shapes: cones, cubes, rectangular prisms, spheres, and cylinders. We know that these shapes have vertices and faces.

Reading Workshop

GREAT readers ask questions…lots of questions! We know that good question words are who, what, where, when, why, and how. These questions allow us to dig deeper. Questions words like was, did, have, and do are okay, but they usually only require a yes or no answer which stops conversation about the text. Good readers reading a good fit book WILL have questions before, during, and after reading. If readers do not have questions while reading, the book is either too easy or too hard, or they are not thinking about what they’re reading.

Writer’s Workshop

We are writing an opinion paragraph. We all made a list of our favorites. Favorite book, movie, candy…. We chose one of our favorites to write about. Each child needed to identify his/her favorite something and list at least two reasons why it’s the best “something.” The reasons had to be specific. They could not say, “It’s good.” We will be working more on these this week.

This Week I Really Learned!

I hope you’re enjoying your child’s T.W.I.R.L. journals. We love reading your letters each week.  Students are more motivated to write when they know they will receive a letter back. Even a short letter is better than no letter at all. Thank you for taking the time to write each week. J

Word Workshop

Yay for long vowels! We are now learning about the other sound that vowels make….the long sound. This week we are learning about long O made by adding a silent e. Be on the lookout for long O word with silent e endings. (stole, poke, joke, slope, rope) First graders should be able to read and spell long O words with silent e endings. Ask your child about the silent E song that we listen to every day. J

Grammar

We practiced using is and are correctly. We use is when we talk about 1 thing and are when we talk about more than one thing.

FAST Testing

We are gathering math and reading data with FAST assessments. Some of these are being done in the classroom and others are done on the computer. We completed the math computer portion on Wednesday. Next Tuesday we will complete the reading portion on the computer. These results will be discussed at conferences.

 

Enjoy your weekend!