Weekly Update

Hello Families,

Our first grade friends are making good progress adjusting to more responsibility and independence. We had a fantastic day today, earning a Panther Pride card for following expectations at the school Pep Fest and earning another one for following expectations in art! These are two places that it takes lots of self-control and conscious decision making to do the right thing. They were very proud of themselves.

 

We will have our first Mystery Reader on Tuesday. The first clue is:

You see me everyday.

 

 

 

Our Hero Costumes

 

 

 

Math

We spent the week preparing for math workshop which will begin on Monday. Students what group they are in and what their expectations are when not working with the Miss Grimes.Today we practiced what it will be like when groups are working with the teacher and others are working independently on seat work and hands on activities.  Expectations were followed perfectly. When meeting with Miss Grimes we learned the correct way to count. When counting we want to arrange objects in rows of 5; starting a new row at 6, 11, 16, etc. This will help students accurately and begin to recognize numbers in 5’s and 10’s.

 

Reading Workshop

Reading time was interrupted a few times this week by our a-reading assessment, hearing and vision screening, a fire drill, and our pep fest. We still were able to learn about why people read, and we started to write our rules for “turn and talk.” Book shopping and independent reading is going very well. They are excited to have classroom library day on their color day.

 

Writer’s Workshop

We are working really hard to come up with meaningful topics. Each child has created “heart lists” of people and places to write about. Next week we will finish topics with writing a “heart list” of things. We will then choose a topic and dabble with writing a story.

 

This Week I Really Learned!

We LOVE hearing the letters that are written to us! Each Friday students that have a letter written to them has the option of having it read out loud during snack. It’s a fun surprise for some to see who wrote to them. J

 

Word Workshop

We reviewed short vowels by sorting words accoriding to word family. We practiced writing our number on the back of each word BEFORE cutting them out. Then we learned how to cut our words with only one scrap, and finally we learned how to glue without making a mess. J

 

Grammar/Mechanics

We know that capitalizing I is a non-negotiable in first grade. Please make sure your child always capitalizes I when it’s all by itself. We also need to capitalize the first letter of our first and last name.

 

Water Bottles

Please remember that water bottles may only contain water. If you would like your child to drink something other than water at snack, please send a small amount (no more than 6 ounces) of a beverage that does not contain sugar. I’ve asked the students to bring their water bottles to school empty and fill them with water in the morning. I’m hoping this will eliminate the bathroom “emergencies” we’ve been having lately. Thank you very much for your help with this! J

 

Bathroom

We are working on staying in class unless we really need to use the bathroom. Children need to use the bathroom each morning before coming to the classroom and after recess. We also take a bathroom break in the afternoon, and they may leave the class once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Right now they can go whenever they need to, but soon they will need to go during non-instruction times.

 

Science

We went on a couple of leaf hunts and then sorted leaves according to color and size. We talked about we could have also sorted by the type of leaf. We talked about why the leaves dry up when they fall off of the tree. We finished up by doing a leaf rubbing project this afternoon.

 

 

Have a wonderful weekend!