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