This week in First Grade...

Apr.22- 26

REMINDERS
April 22: Earth Day
April 23: STAAR (no parent volunteers)
April 24: STAAR test ( no parent volunteers)
April 25: STAAR test (no parent volunteers)
April 25: Talent show (k-3)
April 26: Talent show (4-5)
May 1: Early Release Day
May 3: Field Day
Thursday: Library Day

READING and WRITING
This week we will continue reading poetry and working on our poetry books.  The children have done a beautiful job writing different types of poems, free verse or rhyming such as color poem, acrostic poem, and shape poem.  We have learned how to think of an idea to write a poem about, how to brainstorm describing words to describe it in a fresh and unusual way and how to use those describing words in short lines to write our poems.  This week as we will continue reading poetry and become more familiar with the work of many beloved children poets such as Eve Merriam,  Zoe White Ryder, and Shel Silverstein, we will add a few more poems to our poetry book and publish it.

MATH
In math we will review and revisit the Doubles facts including doubles plus one and doubles plus two, which is also called "Near Doubles".  The use of Doubles strategy is an efficient strategy for solving addition problems with one addend that is one or two more than the other addend.  For example 6 + 8 can be solved by thinking that this is really two more than double 6 or two more than 6 + 6 or 9 +8 is really one more than double 8.

SCIENCE
In sciences we will continue finishing our studies of different habitats and how the animals and plants interact with each other and help each other in that habitat.  We will focus on concepts such as adaptations of living things, camouflaging and food chain in desert, arctic, rainforest, ocean, fresh water and forest habitat.

This week in First grade...

April 15^th- 19^th   

Reminders:

**STAAR testing on April 23^rd, 24^th and 25^th.  No Parents allowed in the building!**

Friday, April 19^th  First grade Field Trip to Elgin Christmas Tree Farm

Monday, April 22^nd Earth Day

Reading Workshop:

In Reading Workshop we will continue our unit on Poetry.  We will read and examine different forms of free verse poetry.  We will read and write acrostic poems, shape poems, emotion poems and friend poems.  We will continue to add poetry to our poetry folders in our book boxes to read during workshop.

Writer’s Workshop:

In Writer’s Workshop we will continue our Poetry writing unit.  We will continue to write our own poetry as we learn about various types of poetry.  This week we will write sensory poems and feeling poems.  We will focus on using adjectives to describe objects in the form of poetry.  We will also use the same descriptive language to write Feeling Poems.  We will brainstorm words to describe things and utilize a planning form to collect our ideas before we write.

 Math:

In math we will begin our unit on Doubles Subtraction we will “think addition” that help us quickly recall our math facts.  We will apply the strategies we are learning to problem solving situations.  During this unit we will apply all of the addition and subtraction facts we’ve learned in first grade and be able to identify them in our math notebooks. 

Science:

Over the past couple of weeks, we have learned so much about animals and their body parts, their special adaptations, and about their basic needs. We will now be learning about how animals and plants need each other and how they help each other survive.  We will be researching habitats and creating murals for each habitat to illustrate how the plants and animals depend on each other in each habitat.  This is a culminating activity to our animal unit.

This week in First grade...

April 8^th -12^th  

Reminders:

The Eggs will hatch in 2 days!

Friday, April 12^th  Family Fun Night

**STAAR testing on April 23^rd, 24^th and 25^th.  No Parents allowed in the building!**

Friday, April 19^th  First grade Field Trip to Elgin Christmas Tree Farm

Monday, April 22^nd Earth Day

*Please remember every child in my class has access to IXL Math and Raz Kids online.  The links are posted on the Caraway website under students.  I receive an activity email each week that shows me our class progress as well as which students utilize these practice activities.  A big THANK YOU goes to our PTA for providing the funds to pay for these programs!

Reading Workshop:

In Reading Workshop we will begin our unit on Poetry.  We will read and examine different forms of poetry.  We will begin by discussing Rhyme in poetry.  We will think about how poets see the world in different, fresh and unusual ways.  The students will make inferences with poetry as a strategy to comprehend the poem.  We will also discover sensory language in poetry and understand that sensory images help us visualize the poem.

Take Home Reading homework this week incorporates our Animal study in Science.  Each student has a bookmark that outlines the expectation for the homework each day during the week.  This week we are going to have each group return their reading bag each day.  Ms. Mann and I will be monitoring the progress of each student on a daily basis this week.  

Writer’s Workshop:

In Writer’s Workshop we will begin our Poetry writing unit.  We will “See with Poets’ Eyes” as we begin writing about ordinary objects in different ways.  We will hear the music in poetry as we discuss how to write a rhyming poem.  We will learn that poems are big thoughts in little packages.  Our poetry writing unit will last for three weeks.

 Math:

In math we will review our math facts and math fact strategies by playing games and solving problems.  We will be “Digit Detectives” as we relate numbers to things like quarters, sides on a hexagon and number of items in a pair.  We will play a game called “Rolling the Facts”.  The students will use dice to make facts and solve them with a partner.  They will discuss whether the fact they rolled could be a Count on 1, 2 or 3 or a Double Fact. 
Math Homework this week we will be a problem solving activity.  Math Homework is usually optional but I would like all of the students to complete it this week.  It will come home in the Tuesday folder.

Science:

As we continue to learn all about animals this week, we will investigate where different types of animals live, and how their colors and body parts help them survive. We will also be taking a couple of days to turn our focus back to the life cycle and celebrate the hatching of our baby chicks!! 

This week in First grade...

April 1st – 5th

Ms. Mann is well in to her second week of total teaching.  I've been in and out of the classroom as we collaborate to plan lessons and work with the students.  She's doing a great job and I'm so pleased with the engagement level of the students.  They are learning so much!

Reminders:

The Eggs will hatch in 8 days!

**STAAR testing on April 2 and 3. No Parents allowed in the building!**

Friday, April 12th Family Fun Night

Reading Workshop:
In Reading Workshop we will continue our unit on Research! We will learn about synthesizing. When
we synthesize, we put all of our thinking, our connections, our questions, and our references together
to make sense of the whole story, we construct meaning. As we learn we will be reading many different
books to practice this skill together, with partners and independently.

Writer’s Workshop:
In Writer’s Workshop we will continue working on our independent research projects. The students
choose a subject, a book and researched on the computer during our computer lab time. They will be
recording their learning on a folder with sections. We will share our projects when they are finished.

Math:
In math we will continue our unit on Fractions! We will connect our learning to real life situations
through problem solving. The students will be presented with a situation such as, if you and 4 friends
want to share a pizza with 10 slices how many slices does each person get.

Science:
In Science this week we will begin our unit on Animals. We will learn about Animal Characteristics and
Adaptations as we examine each animal group in depth. We will make a sketch of an animal from each
group in our Science Notebooks. We will label it’s body parts and discuss their functions. We will record
facts about each animal group in our notebooks. We will be learning about animals for two weeks!