This week in First grade...

Principal's Pride:

Last week:
Emma is a hard worker and always has a positive attitude! Emma is compassionate toward her classmates and has a sweet, giving nature!

This week:
Josh has a great attitude toward learning and always tries his best! He shares his expertise on cars with his class!

Tonight is Family Story Night! There are two readings, one at 6:15pm-7:00pm and 7:00pm-7:45pm. You are welcome to come even if you didn't RSVP. We'll share stories and delicious refreshments! Hope to see you there!

Don't forget, our Holiday party is Thursday, December 16th at 1:45pm-2:45pm. All are welcome!

If your child will be participating in the Science Fair registration forms are due by January 11th.

This week in Reader's Workshop...
We will work on reading and researching winter holidays around the world. We will focus on six holidays, Christmas, Las Posadas, Ramadan, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Diwali. We will make a class graph to illustrate how many of our classmates celebrate different holidays. We will focus on comprehension strategies and making connections to our own families.
I will also be reading with individual students to complete their mid- year Developmental Reading Assessment.

In Writer's Workshop...
We will be writing short stories and reading responses to the books we share about different holidays this week. We will practice writing sentences with capitals and end punctuation.

Vocabulary words: Christmas, Las Posadas, Ramadan, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Diwali
No Spelling this week!

In math this week...
We will be comparing measurement, weight and length, and comparing temperature. This is our last week for comparing and ordering numbers.

In Science this week...
We will be complete our unit on Natural Resources. We made a chart about uses for Natural Resources and where on the earth we find different types of natural resources.

In Social Studies this week...
We will be learning about holidays around the world focusing on Social Studies TEKS that address family celebrations.

Have a great week and Happy Holidays!
Mrs. Caballero

This week in First grade...

We have a busy week planned as we count down to the winter holiday! The students enjoyed the "blizzard" on Friday. They were outside at lunch recess when it began to snow so they were able to enjoy the winter weather! We even came back in and add "snowy" to our weather calendar.
Today we will go to the Book Fair for our preview. We will have 30 minutes on Thursday morning to go and purchase books at the book fair. If your child is unable to purchase at that time please remember that they will need to be accompanied by an adult after school to purchase books. Also, Thursday morning the book fair will open early for "Breakfast with Someone you Love". Come by, purchase books and enjoy a doughnut breakfast together! We will not be checking out library books again until after the winter break.

Reminders:

Book Fair- Monday-Thursday, Dec 7th-10th
Early Release- Wednesday, December 9th
Winter party- Thursday, December 17th 1:45pm-2:45pm

In Reader's workshop...
We will continue our unit on Giving! We are learning about what it means to be unselfish and give to others without expecting anything in return. We will read, The Mitten, Claude the Dog, The Quiltmaker's Gift and Something From Nothing. Each story will have an activity in which we will make something to give to someone or something.

In Writer's Workshop...
We will continue working on organizing our writing. We will practice by writing stories with a beginning, middle and end. We will read stories by other authors to help us see how they organized their thoughts.

Word work words: day, say, may, stay, play
Sound rule: ai, ay (says the long a sound)
Challenge words: penguin, holiday
Vocabulary words: us, there , nice, come, from

In Math...
We will be comparing lengths of different objects and work on pre-measurement skills. Measurement is non-standard in first grade. For example, we will measure things using cubes or paper clips. Students begin measuring with rulers and standard measurement tools in second grade.

In Science...
We will learn about Natural Resources. How are they used? What are natural resources? We will brainstorm ways to use natural resources.

Have a great week!

This week in First Grade...

The countdown is on! The students are very excited about all of the fun things we will learn during the next three weeks.

In Reader's workshop this week...
We will begin our Giving Unit and our study of holidays around the world. If you have anything at home that would be interesting to share with the class that has to do with holidays around the world please feel free to send it to school! The students read their take home reader yesterday and packed it up! We will also be switching the reading calendars out today.

In Writer's Workshop this week...

We will be writing stories and focusing on the organization of our thoughts. We practiced drawing our picture plan with three parts, a beginning, a middle and an end. We will continue to write stories, publish them and share them with the class.

In Word Work this week:

Spelling sound: ee

Word work words: seed, tee, free, glee, tree, green

Vocab words: some, good, if, not, good

Challenge words: wreath, giving

In math this week...

We will continue our unit of comparing and ordering numbers. Yesterday we read a holiday story and decided to make a class counting book. Each student got a "secret number" and illustrated their page with that number of items. Today the students will compare each others numbers and put our book in order from least to greatest. We will also begin studying fact families this week! Come by and see our fact families houses later this week.

In Science this week...

We will continue to learn about rocks. We made a RAN chart last week to help us organize our learning. Yesterday we were able to move some of the "Things we think we know" to "Confirmed, We know it!" We even had a few scientists in our class learn new things and put a sticky note up under "New Information". What bright young scientists we have!

Reminders:

Early Release- December 9th

Monday Folders for the month of December: Debbie Siegel

Tuesday Parent: Shelby Soleimani

Science Fair note and form went home on Monday.

This week in First Grade...

Last full week before our Thanksgiving Break! Please remember that while we are all preparing for the holiday feast there are many families in our community who will be in need. We are in the final days of collecting canned foods for our Can Drive and coats as well. The Caraway Legacy of Giving Commitee thanks you in advance for your generoisty to families in our community!
Family Science Night is this Thursday, November 19th! It's a great opportunity to come to school and participate in some fun science activities with your child!

Our Principal's Pride winner and Super Star this week is Kristen K. Thanks for being a great friend to your classmates Kristen! Thank you for always being willing to help others!

This week in Reading workshop...
We will be reading books about the First Thanksgiving! We will also be sharing stories and practicing different comprehension strategies to help us learn more about the Pilgrims, Indians and the great feast that brought about this fun holiday. Take home readers will be in your child's backpack today.

In Writer's Workshop...
We will be finishing our Fables and beginning a new story about a Scarecrow. We will also be writing a fun Turkey acrostic poem and a rebus story about Thanksgiving!

Word work words: (long u) cute, cube, tube, glue, blue, flute
Vocabulary words: have, this, our, make, an
Challenge words: Thanksgiving, Pilgrim

In math...
We will be continuing our unit on comparing and ordering numbers. We will practice this skill in a problem solving context using manipulatives and learning new strategies!

In Science...
We are learning about Rocks! We will discuss the properties of rocks, physical characteristics and where rocks come from!

Have a great week!

This week in First Grade...

From e-mail inbox it looks like it was a rough start to the week for a lot of us!
Just a couple of reminders...
1. Early Release is this Wednesday, November 11th at 12:45pm
2. Send in cans for the canned food drive
3. Please send back your child's report card folder if you have not already

This week in Reading Workshop...
We are reading stories and studying Pilgrims, Indians and the Mayflower. Your child should have brought home their take home reader today. Please send them back on Thursday. We will read and learn all about the early settlers all week and on Friday we'll have our own feast to celebrate our friendships.

In Writer's Workshop...
We are continuing our focus on Organization. We are reading stories that other author's wrote to compare how they sequenced their story with a beginning, middle and end. We will continue to write stories, publish them and share them with our class.

Our Word work focus this week is learning words with the long o sound.
Spelling words: (words will be posted on Tuesday)
Vocab words:
Challenge words:
In math...
We wrapped up our unit on Number Sense. Now we will move on to a unit specifically on Comparing Whole Numbers by place value and other attributes of comparing numbers. This unit will last 4 weeks. There were two pages, a worksheet 10-1 and a topic sheet 10-3, for optional homework. These two pages will help reinforce what your child has learned and is learning about place value.

In Science...
We began our unit on Rocks today. The students observed 5 different kinds of rocks and thought about their properties as they recorded some information about the rocks in their Science Notebook. This unit will last 3 weeks.

This week in First Grade...

I hope everyone had a fun and safe weekend! We had the best day on Friday with all of our Halloween activities and they enjoyed the day! This morning we shared our weekend festivities in Community Circle. This is a time when we sit down in the morning and everyone gets to say a few things about what they did over the weekend. It was fun to hear what everyone dressed up as today!

Report cards are going home today, November 2nd, in the Monday folders. Please read through the green information sheets that accompany the report card and reference it before looking at the grades on the report card. There are a couple of items we'd like to point out before reviewing them.
1. First grade goes by curriculum that is on a continuum. Meaning, under one section, there are several concepts that need to be covered in order to be considered mastery. Therefore, what you see as a 1 or 2 is not a negative grade. It simply means that we have only introduced parts of this concept, so it is done with direct guidance.
2. The grades 1, 2, 3, 4 do not correlate with what we know as A, B, C, D, F.
3. As always, if there are any questions, please feel free to call me during my planning time (12:45-1:35) or e-mail. Because our morning is consumed with getting your child’s day properly started, we are not able to address any questions at that time. However, we're always willing to discuss any matters during our conference period. Please remember that with the first report card many concepts are just being introduced, therefore mastery 3s and 4s are not usually given until the third and fourth nine weeks based on the Aligned Round Rock Curriculum. A "2" on the report card means that your child is exhibiting skill/concept with minimal guidance. Also means they are making progress toward mastery of grade level expectations at an appropriate rate.
I am very pleased with my students and the hard work ethic they put forth into their daily work. That has a large part to do with you and the expectations and support your child receives at home.

This week in Reading workshop...
We will be learning about leaves! We have some great fictional stories to read as well as Native American Folklore! We will be reading from different genres to help us gather information about leaves, why they change and why they fall this time of year!
November reading calendars will be in your child purple folder tomorrow (Tuesday) along with a November reading log. There will be four weekly November reading logs in your child's folder for you to use this month!

In Writer's Workshop...
We are working on publishing our "Three Little" stories! We read different versions of the three little pigs and came up with our own version in our Writer's Notebooks! I am publishing them on the computer and each student will get a turn in the Author's Chair where they will read their story to the class and then bring it home to share with you!

Work Work words: (long i sound) like, five, ride, nine, time, bike
Vocab words: of, has, want, little, for
Challenge words: properties, scarecrow

In Math...
We are continuing our unit on Number Sense. This week we will be focusing on place value, tens and ones. We will also be solving problems using our new skills. Just FYI...your child's assessments for math are kept here at school in an assessment folder. If you would like to view the results please let me know and we can set up a time for you to come in.

In Science...
We are continuing our unit on Properties. Today we did an activity on sorting items by their properties. One group sorted buttons by the number of holes! After each group sorted their items they drew a picture of how they sorted them in their Science Notebooks.

Have a great week!

P.S. Next Wednesday, November 11th is an Early Release Day!

This week in First Grade...

What a fun carnival! Thanks to all of the PTA parents and volunteers for putting on a great carnival! Lyla's favorite thing was the "Choo-choo" in the spooky forest! Thanks also to everyone who donated items for the carnival!

Last week was the last week of the first nine weeks! I just can't believe it! Report cards will come home on Monday, November 2nd. They are new and improved so please read the letter that goes with the report card before you review your child's report card.

We are so excited to have our first Parent Friday Reader this Friday. Thanks Mrs. Merhar! We can't wait to share a story with you!

This week in Reading Workshop...
We will be studying pumpkins and working on reading from different genres to learn new things. We will be reading from fiction books, non-fiction and magazine articles! At the end of the week we will make pumpkin patch of facts we learned about pumpkins during the week! Take home readers went home today. If your child's "I'm learning to..." sheet does not have anything new to work on please continue to work on the previous skill that is on the sheet.
We will also be doing some Shared readings this week with different Halloween stories. Today we read A Dark, Dark Tale and then wrote our own version of the story as a class by each adding a sentence to our story. We illustrated our sentence and wrote it in our best handwriting. We will put them all together to make a class book.

In Writer's Workshop...
We finished learning about ideas and made our ideas chart last week. We began our new unit on Organization last week by reading different versions of The Three Little Pigs. We also began our own version of the three little pigs and drew a picture plan with a beginning, middle and end. We will be publishing our stories at the end of this week to share in the Author's chair.

Vocabulary words: out, up, are, will, look
Spelling words: make, game, take, mame, came, gave
Rule: long a sound
Challenge words: pumpkin, estimate

In math...
We are continuing our unit on Patterns and Number Sense this week. Today we made paper chains that had different number patterns on them that the students made with their table group. We will discuss place value and solve problems that involve putting numbers in order and determining a pattern. There is optional math homework in the Monday folder.

In science...
We are discussing properties to prepare for our unit on Rocks and Natural Resources. We will do a fun activity on Friday called Creepy Feelings!

Have a great week!

This week in First Grade...

It's Carnival week! There are still many things that are needed for the Carnival to be successful. One of which is name brand two liter sodas. If you would like to donate those please send them with your child and I will make sure the PTA gets them! These updates are sent out via E-news so if you have not signed up for E-news please do so at the following address http://www.roundrockisd.org/index.aspx?page=3397. I hope to see everyone at the Carnival on Saturday!

Thank you to all of the parents who met us on our Field Trip. The students LOVED the 3-D IMAX! It was so fun to see them grabbing at the animals on the screen and laughing and sometimes even screaming in delight when things popped out at them!

We are going to begin Friday Morning Readers in our class next week. If you are interested in coming in to read to the class please e-mail me to schedule your Friday. It would also be fun if you choose the story to read to the class and explained why it is a good story or maybe even why it's your favorite!

Principal's Pride this week is Xavier M.!

This week in Reading...
Our theme is Night time Animals. We will be learning about Opossums, Raccoons, Bats, and Owls. We've also discussed the term nocturnal. Take home readers will come home today and be returned in their bags on Thursday. Enjoy reading with your child. We will also be learning about Fables during our Shared reading time. This week we will read It's Mine by Leo Leoni, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, North Wind and Sun, The Lion and the Mouse and The Dog and his reflection. We have some great activities planned to help us learn the features of a fable.

This week in Writing...
We will begin learning about Organization. We will read The Three Little Pigs and variations on the story to help us learn how to write a good beginning, middle and end to our stories.

Word Work words: what, we, him, no, so
Spelling words: this, when, with, that, white, bath
Sound Rule: "H" friend words: ch, sh, wh, th
Challenge words: whistle, resource

In Math...
We are beginning our new unit on Number Sense and Patterning. Today we began by reading Up All Night Counting by Robin Koontz and we discussed the Night Time Animals we saw in the book. Then we practiced making patterns with those animals and naming patterns. (i.e. ABBA, ABAB, ABCA) We will continue learning about patterns this week and begin learning about place value next week.

In Social Studies...
We will begin discussing weather. We will record the weather in our Science Notebooks all week and discuss different regions of the globe and what kinds of weather they have. We will also discuss natural resources and how they help us in our community.

Have a great week!

Pajama day and Bat Presentation!

Great friends at Table 1!!!

Warm and Cozy Table 2!

Buds in our favorite jammies from Table 3!

Table 4 ready for our day!

Table 5 in their PJ's!

Playing an echolocation game!

Wafting scents toward our noses!

Bat pictures!

Trying to guess some smells like a bat!

Dana as a bat!

Learning about Bats!

Mrs. Van Metre came to talk to us about Bats!

What great fun we had on our first Pajama day. It was rainy and cold outside but we were toasty and warm inside. One of the kids even asked when nap time was!! The students have been working very hard to earn another compliment party and are one compliment away from earning it. They will be able to brainstorm ideas for fun activities and then vote as a class!

This week in First Grade

We're getting into the fall spirit this week and learning about spiders! We will also be going on our Field Trip this week to the Bob Bullock Museum to see Under the Sea in 3D.
Upcoming Events are:
October 15th- Field Trip to IMAX
October 24th - Caraway Carnival

This week in Reader's Workshop...
We will be learning and reading about spiders. Take home readers went home today. Please return the book along with the bag on Thursday unless otherwise specified. Our goals for this week on our "I am learning to..."chart are the same as last week. During Reading Strategy time we will work on Shared Readings that help us learn about the features of a fable. Ask you child to explain what a fable is today!

In Writer's Workshop...
We will wrap up our our thoughts about how to get ideas and make a class chart to hang up in the room. We will continue to go through the writing process and begin to publish and share our stories with the class. The published stories will also make great additions to our Book Boxes!

Word Work Words are: go, with, let, help, her
Spelling practice words are: she, chin, fish, shop, much, chop ("H" Friends words, ch and sh)
Challenge words are: Fable, October

In math ...
We are continuing our unit on Addition and Subtraction in Problem Solving Situations by reading stories and solving problems in our Mathematician's Notebooks. Your child should have brought their Math notebook home this weekend to share. I hope you were able to see what they have been learning so far this year. We will have a problem solving assessment on Friday to see how well we learned and what strategies we are using to help us master concepts.

In Social Studies...
We are learning about maps and globes and how they help us. We are making a map of our bedroom to share with the class. We will also learn about physical characteristics of places and landforms. We will finish this unit on Friday by making a landform of our own on a paper plate. We will use colored icing for rivers and grass and hershey kisses for mountains, chocolate chips for hills and much, much more! What a fun way to learn about maps!

Have a great week!
Mrs. Caballero

This week in First Grade...

What a soggy start to our week! We can tell fall is here! Last week we went on a nature walk to collect leaves to use as manipulatives after we read Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Elhert and did a problem solving activity with the story. Check the pictures from our nature walk. I also took the Flip camera on our nature walk so I will try to upload the things the kids said as we were gathering learning tools!

We had a great turn out for our first "Meet Me at the Movies" to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. We will be reading Fantastic Mr. Fox over the next couple of weeks and I will plan another "Meet Me at the Movies" so that we can watch that together too! It's so fun to see how excited the kids get to see each other outside of school!

Fun Things coming up...

October 24th- Caraway Carnival

I hope everyone is able to come! It's so much fun!

During the month of October our class will be thinking about how to give to those less fortunate in our community. Tomorrow (Monday) the kids will brainstorm an idea of what we, as first graders, can do to help others in our community. I will let you know what they decide. If you would like to volunteer to help with our giving project please let me know.

This week in Reader's Workshop...

Our theme is BATS! We will be reading and learning about bats! Take home readers will go home tomorrow with books that are on an instructional level for your child. So, they may need help reading aloud to you. Your child will also have a Reading Calendar and Communication Log along with poems (Cheetahs, Horses, and Sharks only) and a Reading log for each week in October. There are instructions printed on the calendar for you. Each group will be working on different strategies to help us read and comprehend. The at home strategies we will work on this month are Making Connections and Analyzing.

This week in Writer's Workshop...

We will continue to write stories using our imaginations. I will begin writing conferences and we will also begin publishing our masterpieces as the students finish stories!

This week in Language Enrichment...

We will continue to build on our concepts of syllables and add more suffixes to our deck. We will continue to code words with short and long vowels and practice "tapping out" words. Ask your child to explain to you how to tape out a word. This is a multi-sensory approach to sounding out words that helps children slow down and use multiple parts of their brain to read words.

This week in Math...

We will continue our unit on Addition and Subtraction in Problem Solving situations. We will read books like Sixteen Little Pumpkins and books by Stuart J. Murphy. I will be monitoring how your child solves problems and how they develop strategies.

This week in Science/Social Studies...

We will wrap up our Science unit on Types of Change by making new crayons. We will melt old crayons and pour the liquid into molds to make new crayons. We will record our thinking and the steps we used in our Science Notebooks.

We will begin a new unit in Social Studies in which we will study different types of maps and globes. We will also make new maps and learn about places around the world as well as landforms and physical characteristics of different locations.

Have a great week!

Mrs. Caballero

This week in First Grade...

A few reminders to begin with...

1. If you have not returned the At-home Reading Survey via e-mail please do so as soon as possible.

2. If you have not sent a book box (i.e. magazine holder; cardboard or plastic) please do so.

3. Parent/ Teacher conferences are drawing near. I will hold conferences the week of October 6th, on Monday October 12th, and the remainder of that week. I will be posting a sign up sheet in the hallway this week. If you have special circumstances please e-mail me and I will find a way to accommodate you.

4. I sent out an Evite for "Meet Me at the Movies" on Friday, October 2nd at 5:30pm. I hope everyone can make it. We will be seeing Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. If not we will have another one in November!

This week in Reader's Workshop...
We will be discussing the features of Non-Fiction texts for our reading strategy. By discussing the features of Non-Fiction texts we can learn information from photographs, diagrams and words! We will also begin working in flexible reading groups for short periods of time as we continue to learn another part of the Daily 5, Word Work.

In Writer's Workshop...
We will continue discussing how to get ideas, where to get them from, how to use our ideas, how to make our picture plan and words match and how to stretch our words to work on writing fluency and identify words we need help spelling. We will focus on writing from our imaginations this week. We will use real stories written by real authors to learn from. The real stories include Skippyjon Jones (a series of books from Judy Schachner) and The Night I Followed the Dog.

Our words to work on this week are: on, not, got, box, hot, top
Our sound is the short o sound.
Our vocabulary words for the week are: at, as, they, jump, but
Our challenge words are: strategies and doubles

In Math this week we will begin our unit on Addition and Subtraction in Problem Solving Situations. We will be learning to solve problems by making our own strategies and sharing them during Mathematician's Circle.

In Science this week we will be continuing our unit on Types of Changes. On Friday we did two experiments involving changes. One was a paper towel t-shirt experiment where we watched what happened when we colored on a paper towel t-shirt with our markers then dipped it in water. We also discovered what would happen if we put some cream in a jar and shook it up! We made butter! Yummy! This week we will make pancakes to discover how heating up a liquid like substance can create a solid object. For our unit we will need pancake mix (the just add water kind), syrup, and butter. If you can send these items please e-mail. If you would like to help us make pancakes please e-mail me and let me know. We will be cooking on Tuesday morning, around snack time (9:30am).

Have a great week!
Mrs.Caballero

PTA picnic

Here are some photo's of your families at the picnic! I enjoyed chatting with everyone and seeing you all interacting!

This week in First Grade...

This week our Principal's Pride feature student is Raina D. She was nominated for making a great adjustment to her new school and having such a positive attitude that is contagious to all around her!

In Language Enrichment/ Word Study...
We have finished talking about the two types of syllables, open and closed. The students learned that an open syllable ends in one vowel. The vowel is long so we code it with a macron. A closed syllable ends in at least one consonant. The vowel in a closed syllable is short so we code it with a breve. We also learned that a syllable is a word or a part of a word that is made with one opening of the mouth. A syllable has one vowel sound. This week we will learn to code words and practice reading and decoding in our Language Enrichment booklets.

Word Work words this week are: get, ten, red, let, men, yes (short e sound)

Vocabulary words of the week: said, was, for, she, his

Challenge words: changes, scientist

In Reader's workshop this week we are focusing on monitoring our comprehension. As a whole group we read a story and record our thinking on sticky notes. After we finish reading we discuss and order our thoughts and them put them together in our Reader's Response notebook. This is a reading strategy children can use to help them understand what they are reading and connect their learning to their life.

In Writer's Workshop we will continue to talk about forming Ideas. So far we've learned that we can get ideas from our experiences and from pictures and things we see. We will be reading a book called All I See by a wonderful author named Cynthia Rylant, in which a man paints things he sees in his imagination. We will discuss who authors use their imaginations to write stories also. Our mini lesson focus this week is stretching words to help us spell the sounds we hear.

In math we are finishing up our unit on Number Sense. We will have our "End of the Unit" game day and assessment sometime this week. The students have learned how to read and write numbers to 99, how to order numbers and what greatest and least mean. We will work with numbers on a number line before this unit is over. Our next unit is Adding and Subtraction in Problem Solving Situations.

In Science we began working in our Science Notebooks. We began by brainstorming what a "Scientist" is and what job they do. Today we will discuss safety as a scientist and share our timelines that we made at home to go with our Social Studies unit.

Have a great first day of Fall!

Mrs. Caballero

P.S. Hook'em

This week in First Grade...

Principal's Pride: Our first Principal's Pride student is Sammy Siegel. We look foward to learning about Sammy this week during his Super Star week!

What a great time we've had the past couple of weeks getting to know each other! Everyone is adjusting well to first grade and learning so much! Thank you to everyone who has signed up to volunteer in our classroom. I appreciate each thing you all do! It helps me spend more time teaching your children and allows me to go home and be a mom!

This Thursday, September 17th is our 2nd annual No Fuss Fundraiser PTA Picnic. It will be held out by the soccer field (close to the park playground) at 6:30pm. Bring a picnic dinner, a blanket and come and enjoy spending some family time with the Caballero's! Don't forget the One Stop Shop forms went home last week. You can use the form to buy things for the year and donate to the PTA in lieu of fundraising projects! No Fuss! Lyla, my husband and I will be there with our picnic! Come on by and see us!

The students also have Early Release on Wednesday. Please make sure your child knows their PM routine for that day!

During Language Enrichment this week we will be learning the concepts of a vowel, consonant, syllable, open syllable and closed syllable. Learning these skills will help us become better spellers, writers and readers!

Our word study focus this week is the short u sound. Our words to master are: up, us, but, fun, run and cut. Our vocabulary words for the week are: I, like, see, can, he, community and citizenship.

During Reading workshop this week we will be focusing on monitoring our comprehension. We will record our thoughts in our Reader's Response Notebooks. We will be sharing stories like Corduroy, Silly Sally, Market to Market, and Caps for Sale. Our non-fiction focus story of the week will be Rosa. A story about Rosa Parks.

During Writer's workshop this week we will be writing stories about our experiences, our ideas that we illustrate and the world around us. We will also begin thinking about how famous authors write stories and thinks of words to pair with their pictures.

In Math we will be finishing our unit on Number Sense; Numbers to 99. We have been identifying, spelling and reading numbers to 99 during activities in our classroom. We will continue to learn and work with manipulative's, number lines and number cards to help us learn that numbers have an order. There will be a note (1/2 sheet purple) in your child's Monday folder about sending some things for us to count and organize during math problem solving activities.

In Social Studies this week we will wrap up our unit about Being Part of a School Community and will briefly talk about timelines and calendars. There will be an at home project about making a timeline in your child's Monday folder. The project is due next Monday, September 21st. We will begin working in our Science notebooks at the end of the week and talk about what scientists really do!

Have a great...cooler....week!

Mrs. Caballero

Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco

This afternoon we could see the storm clouds rolling in and we start to hear thunder! What a perfect time to read Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco. This is a book about a little girl and her grandma, Babuska, and how they make Thunder Cake. Here's the recipe for you to make a real Thunder Cake at home!

Cream together, one at a time
1 cup shortening
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs, separated (blend yolks in. Beat whites until they are stiff, then fold in.)
1 cup cold water
1/3 cup pureed tomatoes

Sift together
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup dry cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Mix dry mixture into creamy mixture.
Bake in two greased and floured 8 1/2-inch pans at 350 for 35 to 40 minutes.
Frost with chocolate butter frosting. Top with strawberries!

Enjoy!

Visit the author's website...

http://www.patriciapolacco.com/books/thundercake/thundercake_index.html

This week in First Grade...

We are going to have a great week in First grade! Please remember to send a magazine organizer with your child by Friday of this week if you have not already. We are going to begin reading groups soon and your child will need this for his or her books. There is a picture of the type of magazine organizer that your child will need in a previous post. Just scroll down to find it. I also have an example in my classroom.

During Language Enrichment this week we will be review vowels and consonants as well as learning about syllables! We will start to code words later in the week in our Language Enrichment booklet! We're learning fast!

In Reading workshop we are going to be reading a collection of big books this week that are based on fantasy stories. In first grade students have to distinguish between fantasy books (fiction) and real book (non-fiction). We are going to read The Napping House, Chicken Licken, Hattie and the Fox and The Day Jimmy's Boa ate the wash. We will learn how to summarize the stories we have read by drawing a picture and writing a sentence in our Reader's Response Notebooks. We will also talk about the order of the story, beginning, middle and end, to help us summarize.

In Writer's Workshop we are quickly building our stamina as young authors! The students are able to write and stay focused for 14 minutes! We celebrate our writing everyday! This week we will work on building stamina and writing about our experiences. We will also talk about how authors get ideas and make a list of how we can get ideas.

In math this week we will begin our Number sense unit. During this unit the students will learn to read and write numbers from 0-99, compare and order numbers to 99 and use concrete models to represent numbers to 99. We will work on these skills for the next two weeks. Our Mathematician's Notebooks will be coming home this weekend for your child to share with you. There will be a note in the baggie with the notebook for you to write something you notice about your child's learning.

In social studies we will be learning about the past present and future. Our vocabulary words for this unit are yesterday, today and tomorrow. We will be learning about the past, things that happen today and things that might happen in the future.

A note will come home in your child's Monday folder about President Obama's Speech to students on September 8th. We have recently discussed the leaders in our community. This will be a wonderful opportunity for students to see President Obama giving a speech. We will be viewing the speech on that day.

Upcoming events...
Elementary Early Release is Wednesday, September 16th
No Fuss Fundraiser PTA picnic is Thursday, September 17th at 6:30pm by the park playground

This week in First grade...

We had such a fabulous first week of school! I have enjoyed getting to know your children and I hope they had a positive experience learning new routines. This week we will continue to practice our arrival procedures, in the cafeteria, and in the classroom. The students are doing so well coming into the classroom, putting their backpacks away, putting their purple take home folder in their pocket and making their lunch choice before they choose a book to read.

This week we will continue to review concepts from Kindergarten including vowels and consonants. There will be a poem in your child's Take Home Folder for you to read with them and activities to reinforce what we've learned each day. Please keep track of the minutes you and your child read together on their weekly Reading Log. We will go over this at Open House on Tuesday night, September 1st, at 6:30pm.

During Reading Workshop we will practice different reading strategies as a class after I model the expectations. This week we will start with The Art Lesson by Tomie de Paola and will focus on Monitoring Comprehension. Your child will have a Reader's Response Notebook that they will use on a daily basis. During Writer's Workshop we will continue to set up our expectations and practice being independent thinkers. This week we will focus on how to get ideas for stories. We will make a list of ideas in our Writer's Notebook.

In math we have been working on collecting data and making graphs. We've discussed why graphs are important and what they tell us. This week we will be doing Quick Surveys to make class graphs about different things. We are going to end our week with a Quick Survey titled, Cone or Cup? What kind of Ice Cream do you like best? We will survey our classmates, make a tally chart and make a graph in our Mathematician's Notebook. I will use this activity to assess how well each student understood the topic.

In Social Studies we have learned about Citizenship. We discussed what a good citizen does and traits of a good citizen. This week we will learn about different citizens in our community from our Principal to our President.

Monday folders will be packed to the gills this week...Thanks Laura! They will have many things to sign and return including handbook forms. Please look through these items and return handbook forms by Friday, September 4th. I am also including Book Order fliers from Scholastic. I will be using the bonus points that I receive from your orders to purchase materials and books to use with your children in the classroom.

I look forward to seeing all of you on Tuesday night at 6:30pm for Open House!

First day of First Grade and this week

We had such a great day together! We learned two different sign language signs to give "silent signals". We also read "No, David" by David Shannon and talked about why we need rules in our classroom. Then we made a list of rules that we should use to stay safe and learn! After that we played a game with a ball of yarn and learned our new friends names. Ask your child what we made together with the yarn! We read a story called "The Cow who Laid an Egg" and why she didn't want to be ordinary. We tried to think about what the work cowpoke means or what a cowpoke is. We recorded our thoughts in our Writer's Notebook and drew a picture of what a cowpoke looks like. After everyone finished we shared our conclusions of what a cowpoke is in our circle group. After recess we practiced writing our names in our best handwriting and we learned how to use the book boxes for our tables (i.e. quiet self sustained reading). We had a great lunch and even got to play outside for a little bit. Right after lunch we headed to PE with Mrs. Rader and that really made us tired! We went back to the room after a quick water break to get ready for Calendar and Math. We learned some new songs for Calendar time and practiced coming to sit on the carpet as a group. We talked about transportation and made a class graph about how we get home in the afternoons. We compared the number of bus riders to walkers, car riders and after-schoolers (daycare and YMCA kids). We learned that there are more walkers than anything else in our class! We will continue to learn about data and putting graphs together this week. At the end of the day we learned how to pack our backpacks and how to line up for dismissal. Our day went by very fast!!
If you have not already designated a spot to meet your child, if they are a walker/biker/door pick-up, then please do so and let me know. The choices are the flagpole side of the school, Carlwood or the playground side, Oakview. I will bring the kids to you in a group. This should help streamline the amount of people in the halls.
If you plan on volunteering in our classroom please go online and register again this year. Mrs. Hohmann has details posted on e-news.

So glad to meet you!!

Hello First Graders!! I am so happy I got to meet each one of you today! I am excited about learning this year and look foward to our first day together! Don't forget to have your parents read the mini book with you so that you are prepared for your first day of school.

Your homework assignment is to find or purchase a magazine organizer. The plastic kind that is tall and thin. This will be your book box! During the school year you will be able to put some of your favorite books in this box to read during Read to Self. If you have one at home just bring it!! I have an example for your mom or dad if they need to see one!

I'm excited to see you on Tuesday!

Welcome to Mrs. Caballero's Blog

On this blog you will find weekly newsletters, updates on happenings in our classroom, pictures, links to other sites and more! Bookmark our blog so that you can keep up with the "Cow"pokes!!