This week in First grade...

Dec 15-18
This week we will wrap up our first semester.  We have had 76 days of amazing learning experiences in our classroom and I am so proud of my student's hard work! The Winter Party is right around the corner!  Our committee has been hard at work creating a great event for the Cowpokes.  Thanks to all of you who signed up to bring items for the party.  I am sure the children will have a great and memorable time. Hope to see you all on Thursday!

Now for the not so good news, we seem to have an illness going around our classroom.  I had the Flu (type A) over the weekend.  My symptoms were cough, fever, headache and sore throat.  If your child has similar symptoms I recommend that you take them to the doctor.  I was able to get TamiFlu which shortened my illness.   We have six little people out today!  We will disinfect our classroom and wash our hands frequently!! 

 REMINDERS

Monday: No reading folder, but please encourage your child to read over the winter break and take advantage of online resources such as Razkids, BookFlix, PebbleGo, and MackinVia.  We are going to make sure our usernames are in our Blue Agenda folders before we go on break.  All other passwords to online resources are printed in your brand new copy of the Caraway Directory!

Tuesday: Tuesday folders come home. Please return signed Tuesday folders on Wednesday morning. No Math Homework- Have the kiddos work on iXL math for at least 10-15 minutes. Hopefully when I check our account, I will see 100 percent participation! ( Areas of focus: subtraction facts and problem solving)

Wednesday: Pajama Day (optional).  Have your child come to school in their Pajamas.  We will read the Polar Express book, make hot cocoa and watch The Polar Express movie while drinking hot cocoa.  This is a long time Caraway First Grade tradition!! 

Thursday: Last day of this semester. Winter Party! 1:30-2:30- Hope you can join us.

Dec 19- Jan 5: Winter Break! I wish you all a safe, and peaceful holiday break!

 READING

This week we will read our favorite holiday books including the Polar Express.  We will work on comprehension strategies such as identifying the plot (series of events that happen in order in the story), main characters, problem and solution.  We will also practice retelling, and summarizing the stories in our own words.


WRITING
This week we will learn and practice writing letters. We will learn that people write letters for different purposes.  Sometimes we want to express ourselves, or to tell some people about our feelings, our needs and etc. Other times we write letters to say "thank you", or make someone's day.  We will write short letters and put our ideas in logical sequence.  We will also learn about the conventions of letter writing such as date, salutation, body (text), and closing. 

MATH
This week we will work on making graphs and reading graphs.  Graphs allow us to put our information/data in an organized form and make it easier for us to understand the data. We will have some fun holiday related graphs such as gingerbread, reindeer, and snowman survey.

SOCIAL STUDIES
We will travel around the world and learn about customs, holidays, and celebrations. We will learn about the importance of various beliefs, customs, language, and traditions of communities and how communities celebrate their heritage. Our elf has been so busy traveling around the world.  This week, he is going to travel to Japan, and Germany.

THANK YOU!

Thank you for stuffing the folders, and being willing to help in the classroom or outside the classroom. Your helping hands and hearts are greatly appreciated!  I'm planning on sending out a 2nd semester volunteering schedule!

More than anything, thank you for supporting your child's learning at home.  Your child's success and education is a result of, us working together! So thank you for being a partner in your child's learning

Celebrations in England

This week in First grade...

Dec 8-12
We are rockin' and rollin' as we wrap up our first semester of First grade!!  

BOOK FAIR
There will be book fair at our library DEC 8 through 12.  The library books are not due this week. Please feel free to come by and visit the book fair.  The Book Fair is one of the BIGGEST fundraisers the Caraway Library does!!  Mrs. Letendre uses the money earned to purchase new, exciting and popular library books!!  The library is open after school until 3:30 and will stay open late on Thursday!!

IMPORTANT REMINDERS

Monday: Homework folders come home.  
Tuesday: Tuesday folders come home. Please return signed Tuesday folders on Wednesday morning. 
Wednesday: Math Homework is due
Thursday: Library/book fair
Friday: Library/book fair

Reading and Math homework is due.  

 READING

This week we will explore a new genre in fiction: The Folk Tales.  We will learn about the elements of Folk Tales.  Folk Tales have animals with human characteristics as the main characters, and there is usually a lesson to be learned at the end of the story.While we read some of the most beloved children's stories such as the Three Little Pigs, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, and The Little Red Hen, we will work on many comprehension strategies such as retelling the story (telling the events in logical order), and summarizing the story which is telling the important events in the story from the beginning to the end.  When we summarize we tell the important events in a short paragraph. We will also review main characters, setting and the problem and solution in the story.

RAZ-Kids:  http://www.raz-kids.com/main/Login

When you click the link if our class does not appear enter: mrsc4116

We sent notes home about login information in October.  If your child does not know their password please email me and I will send it to you!!  

WRITING
In writing we will continue writing facts about traditions and celebrations around the world. As our elf is traveling around the world, we will learn about many new traditions. 
Lat week we learned about traditions in United States, Israel, and India.  This week we will learn about Mexico and England.  We will also write a expository writing about the traditions and celebrations in our own family.

MATH
This week we will continue working on subtraction.  Last week, we practiced on many math problems that involved "taking away, separating from a set, taking a part away from a whole".  This week, we will focus on subtraction as a way to find the difference between two quantities, or a way of comparing two different quantities.  If team A scored 12 goals and team B scored 9 goals, how many more goals did team A score than team B? At the beginning of the year, the children learned to solve these kinds of problem by thinking addition: 9+ ?=12.  Now, they are learning that they can actually use subtraction to solve these kinds of problem: 12-9=3.

SOCIAL STUDIES

We are learning so much as our Elf, Frisbee, travels around the world.  He's been to NYC, Mexico and Brazil!! Next up we are sending him to European countries!!  We will travel around the world and learn about customs, holidays, and celebrations. We will learn about the importance of various beliefs, customs, language, and traditions of communities and how communities celebrate their heritage.

Doing some serious learning!

We were working in small groups this morning as we used books, computers and the iPad to research Holidays in the USA! After we worked with our partners we wrote facts about the holidays we celebrate with our families! 

This week in First grade...

Dec 1-5

Welcome back! It sure was nice to have the whole week to spend with my family!  I'm sure you all enjoyed your time off as well!

Early Release Day
Wednesday, Dec 3rd is an Early Release Day.  Dismissal is at 12:45
PTA Spirit Night at Newks starting at 5:00 p.m.

IMPORTANT REMINDERS

Monday: Reading folders come home.  Reading folders are due back on Friday.
Tuesday: Tuesday folders come home. Please return signed Tuesday folders on Wednesday morning. Math Homework
Wednesday: Return Tuesday folders
Thursday:
Friday: Library Day! All library books are due by Friday morning at 8:00. 

Reading homework is due.  

 Here is what we will be doing this week:

READING and WRITING
With the holidays approaching, for the next several weeks we will be learning about many different winter celebrations around the world. We will explore the customs and traditions in different countries by researching and recording some facts about their traditions. 

Before the break I attended an exploratory workshop on Project Based Learning.  It was incredible!  Project Based Learning is exactly what it sounds like.  

1. "Project Based Learning is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to a complex question, problem, or challenge."  -www.bie.org

   We began our project to explore holidays and customs around the world today.  We asked questions such as, "What do we need to know to be successful on our mission?"  Our Elf, Frisbee, will travel the world to help bring us information.  Unfortunately, he will have to spend the night in the Elf Hospital for at least one night.  Hopefully, after a regimen of Peppermint Extract and Hot Cocoa 'round the clock he will be ready to help us on our Mission.  

   Today the students met in small groups and partnerships to make a plan.  One group, "Santa's Little Helpers" will decide what countries we will travel to based on our classmates heritage.  Another group will be our "Travel Agents".  They will arrange travel for our Elf and find out the best way to get to countries all over the world.  Another group will make a list of questions that have to be answered when our Elf goes to each country.  The last group will inform our Elf about the weather and seasons in each country so he can pack his suitcase and take the appropriate clothing.  Of course, we can't forget to include traditional clothing worn for a holiday celebration in each country.  

   I am so excited to see the learning going on in our classroom.  We will have a showcase the last week of school before we go on our Winter break!  

MATH
We will continue our double addition strategies and move on to subtraction. Subtraction names a missing part by taking away, removing or comparing to find a difference. We will use concrete and pictorial models including ten-frames, math racks, Base Ten blocks ad other manipulatives to represent word problem situations involving separating or comparing sets of whole numbers up to 20 where the unknown may be start, change, or result for joining and separating problems.

SCIENCE
This week in science we will learn about force and movement.  Energy causes force and force causes motion/movement.  Force can be defined as a "push" or a "pull" which causes objects to move in different ways such as straight line, zigzag, up and down, side to side, round and round and slow.  We will also explore magnets.  Magnets can pull or push certain objects.  The push and pull caused by magnets is also a force.

As always, Thank you for supporting your child's learning at home.  I want to extend a special Congratulations to Adithya for being on the Top 10 list of Sticker Earned for iXL!!  He is one of two first graders!  Way to go, Adithya!!

Have a warm week!

This week in First grade...

Nov 17-21

Only 5 more days of our routine before we all get a break!  I know your little people are looking forward to some school-free days!

THE PILGRIM DOLL PROJECT

The Pilgrim Doll project is due on Wednesday, November 19th.  Please feel free to send the dolls back if you are done with it already.  I can't wait to make a little exhibit of our pilgrim dolls in the classroom.  This is such a fun project and the students get to really understand what a "pilgrim" is!

We had a long detailed discussion the other day and found out that many of the friends in our class are pilgrims!  We made a first grade definition of the word pilgrim too!  We said, "A Pilgrim is someone who was born in one country and made a choice to move to another country with their family or alone."

IMPORTANT REMINDERS

Monday: This week we will be logging into Raz-Kids for our reading homework!  If you need a reminder for login names and passwords please let me know.  I can send it to you.
Tuesday: Tuesday folders come home. Please return signed Tuesday folders on Wednesday morning. No math homework this week.  Please have your child complete a few activities on iXL this week!
Wednesday: Pilgrim Doll project due.
Thanksgiving meal at 11:56 . PTA reflection Award: 6:30-7:30
Thursday:
Friday: Library Day! All library books are due by Friday morning at 8:00. 
Nov 24-28: Thanksgiving Break

 Here is what we will be doing this week:

READING
This week we are diving deeper into different types of fictions.  We will read Realistic Fictions, stories that all the characters are human and the problem and the solution in the story are things that could really happen in real life.  We will also learn about Historical Fictions.  Sometimes authors of fictions are interested in a part of history. The author might choose to make up a story that is set in the time period they are interested in.  But the characters are usually made up and the plot of the story is fiction.


WRITING
We will continue writing about the Thanksgiving Story.  The kids have done a great job recording facts in their own words about the Pilgrims, the Mayflower Ship, the Native Americans and the first Thanksgiving feast. I always have so much fun reading their stories!  It is just amazing how they learn the facts and then they interpret/understand it in their own way! I can't wait for you to see their writings.This week we will put our pages together and make a non-fiction book: All About Thanksgiving.

MATH
This week we will introduce the double strategy in addition.  Knowing doubles will help us to do addition facts quicker.  We will learn doubles from 1-9 and then apply our knowledge in problem solving.  Once we master our doubles, we can use this strategy to do doubles + 1 and doubles +2 really quick.  For example if I know 4+4=8 than I know 4+5 is just one more than 4+4, which means one more than 8. 

SCIENCE
We will continue learning about different forms of energy such as light, heat and sound. This week, we will be "energy detectives' and we will examine everyday objects such as the alarm clock, the holiday lights, the hair dryer, the pencil sharpener and so on and observe and detect different forms of energy associated with each object. We will make observation, discuss the importance of each type of energy and record in our science journals. 

Pilgrim Dolls Examples

This week in First Grade...

Nov 10-14

Our field trip to Zach Scott Theater was fantastic! We had lunch in our classroom before departing on the bus!  We sat together and enjoyed the play that was about 50 minutes long.  If you get a chance the Zach Scott Theater puts on


This week, due to a project (Pilgrim Doll Project) we will be sending home, there will be no reading homework.  While I will read with kiddos everyday during our guided reading group, I will not send the reading homework home.  I want to make sure you and your child have enough time to complete the project by Wednesday, November 19th.  Please see below for details.

THE PILGRIM DOLL PROJECT

As we are approaching Thanks Giving, this week we will read the story of Molly's Pilgrim by Barbara Cohen. This beautiful story tells us how recent immigrant Molly leads her third-grade class to discover that it takes all kinds of pilgrims to make a Thanksgiving. 

This week, in the Tuesday folders, your child will bring a wooden doll with instruction and a few research questions. Your child will interview you and ask you questions about the first pilgrim/ immigrant in your family that came to this country. Please help your child complete the research questions and have them write the answers with pencils in complete sentences in their own handwriting. You may help your child with spelling and sentence structure, but please do not write the answers for them. After that you and your child will dress the pilgrim doll with the traditional clothing of the country that your pilgrim came from. I will send some photos from previous years so you will have an idea.

This project (the research questions and the pilgrim doll) is due By Wednesday, Nov 19th. Each child will get to present their doll on Nov. 20th and 21st. This project by far is one of our most beloved projects in first grade and every year, we, first grade teachers can't wait to see the final product!  Have fun crafting and creating with your child!

IMPORTANT REMINDERS

Monday: No reading folders.  But please have your child read daily.
Tuesday: Tuesday folders come home. Please return signed Tuesday folders on Wednesday morning. No Math Homework this week!
Tuesday, November 11th: Veteran's Day is observed.
Friday: Library Day! All library books are due by Friday morning at 8:00.

 Here is what we will be doing this week:

READING and WRITING
This week as part of our non-fiction reading and writing,  we will start our research on The First Thanksgiving and spend this week writing facts about Thanksgiving, the Mayflower ship, the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. As we learn facts about thanksgiving, we will record our facts and make a book about Thanksgiving.  We will create an "All About the First Thanksgiving" book to share with our families!

MATH
We will continue counting by tens and ones using dimes and pennies and apply our knowledge in problem solving.  Now we know two digit numbers so well and we know what each digit in a two digit number means and what value each digit has, we will practice making 10 more, or 10 less.  For example, the children will be able to show 57 with manipulatives and pictorial models and then add 10 more, which will be 67 or take off 10, which will be 47.  We will also work on different combinations that make 10, such as 4 and 6, 3 and 7, 2 and 8 and so on.

SCIENCE
This week in science we will learn about different forms of energy such as light, heat and sound.  We will discuss the importance of energy in everyday life and how scientists use energy to invent objects that improve our daily lives. 

Have a great week!  The weather is going to turn cold tomorrow so please send your child with a coat!!

Mrs. Caballero

Field Trip to the Zach Scott Theater

Our Field Trip was so much fun.  We discussed what a good audience member does during a play before we left.  We were so excited to see "A Year with Frog and Toad"!  Ask your child about their favorite part!

Here is a picture of our whole class in front of the big Zach Theater.

This week in First grade...

Nov 3-7

FIELD TRIP
We are very excited to take our first graders to Zach ScottTheater for a live play (A Year with Frog and Toad).  This is an opportunity that many of our kids experience for the first time in their lives.  We are thankful to our generous Parent Teacher Association for providing us with the funds to do this for our kids.  Our field trip is on Thursday, November 6th.  We will leave campus at around 10 AM.  Please have your child wear a Caraway shirt (if they have one), and comfortable tennis shoes.  Also, please check the weather to see if any warm clothing is needed.  Please pack a disposable sack lunch and water bottle.  We will eat a picnic lunch outside the theater. *If the weather is wet or the ground is saturated we will picnic at Caraway before leaving for the play.


IMPORTANT REMINDERS

Monday: Homework Folder comes home
Tuesday: Tuesday folders come home. Please return signed Tuesday folders on Wednesday morning. 
Report cards will come home on Tuesday.  Please keep the report card for your reference but sign and return the report card envelope on Wednesday.
Thursday: Field Trip to Zach Theater.
Friday: Library Day! All library books are due by Friday morning at 8:00. 

Reading Homework is due.

 Here is what we will be doing this week:

READING
We will continue learning about non-fiction and this week we will explore a new genre which is biography/autobiography.  Sometimes writers try to teach us about someone's life and therefore they write about the important events in a person's life and things that they have done.  We call these kind of books biography.  Sometimes,  writers write about the important things about their own life and we call this autobiography.  

WRITING
This week in writing we will focus on expository/nonfiction writing and we will write about some important facts about ourselves.  We will brainstorm and think about things that we are really good at, or things that are important part of us and make a list of them.  As a class, we are going to put our writings (the important things about us) together and send it to a publisher and publish a class book.  You may choose to purchase this book from the publishing company. Please look in Tuesday folder next week (the week of Nov. 10th) for more information about this. 

MATH
This week in math we will learn about money and particularly the value of pennies and dimes.  We will count the dimes by 10 and count the pennies by one.  In the process, we will review the place value and counting by groups of tens and ones.  We will also learn that one dollar is 100 pennies (100 ones) or 10 dimes which is 10 groups of 10.

SOCIAL STUDIES
This week in social studies we will learn about physical characteristics of places and different landforms such as plains, valleys, mountains and hills.  We will also learn about different bodies of water and the characteristics of each such as river, lake and ocean.

Meeting our 4th grade buddies!

On Friday we did a fun Halloween activity with our 4th grade buddies, Ms. Wilczynski's class.  Here are our pictures with our buddies! P.S. They are the MOST photogenic bunch ever!!  So cute!!

This week in First grade...

October 27-31

It was great to see a few of you at the Harvest festival ! Our PTA works so hard on this fantastic event!  It's one of the biggest fundraisers for the year!  I hope you enjoyed some fun family time as you experienced the festival!  Of course my girls' favorite thing was the petting zoo!  

Red Ribbon Week

This week is Red Ribbon Week.  We will talk about a healthy life style, eating healthy, exercising, and staying away from all the harmful things that could hurt our body. As a whole school, we will do different activity each day to show our support for a healthy and happy life. 

Monday:  Red Ribbon Day- we will start to wear our red ribbon today for the rest of the week.
Tuesday: Pair up and make good choices (find a friend and dress up as twins)

Wednesday: Sock It To Drugs Day (we will wear silly/crazy socks to school)

Thursday: Good character is our super power (we will wear superhero clothing)

Friday: Rally In Red Day (We will wear as many red items as we can). 

IMPORTANT REMINDERS
Monday: Mrs. Caballero was out with a sick child. Homework will be sent home Tuesday!  We will have "online" homework this week!  RAZ-Kids for reading and iXL for math!
Tuesday: Tuesday folders come home. Please return signed Tuesday folders on Wednesday morning. 
Wednesday:  Early Release Day-dismissal is at 12:45
Friday: Library Day! All library books are due by Friday morning at 8:00.

Reading Homework is due.

Saturday: Time change!  Fall back @ 2am!  Remember to change your clocks!

 Here is what we will be doing this week:

READING
We will continue our study of expository/non-fiction text. As a class we discussed the features of nonfiction such as real photos, table of contents, glossary, caption, labels, index, diagram, and maps. We concluded that the purpose of reading nonfiction text is to learn! We also learned the differences between fiction and nonfiction. One difference is we read a fiction text from beginning to end. However, we do not have to do the same thing when we read a non-fiction text.  We can read the parts of a nonfiction text which holds the information we want to know, or the information that is important to us. This week we will be reading texts about bats! 

In our guided reading groups we will be diving into Bat books to help us learn all week!  We will become experts on Bats as we confirm our learning and investigate the things we still wonder about Bats!

To follow up on our study of spiders from last week:
This is a beautiful story for your child to listen to.  This is a fiction story read by CCH Pounder.  Have your child compare the features of this story to a non-fiction that we read at school about spiders.  

http://www.storylineonline.net/sophies-masterpiece/

WRITING
We will continue writing non-fiction.  Our focus this week will be writing facts about bats.  We are learning how to draw careful diagrams like scientist and label the parts. Our goal is to write these facts so we can teach others about what we have learned.

MATH
This week we will learn to tell time.  We will learn to tell time to the hour using a digital and an analog clock.  We will learn about the hands, the hour hand (the short hand), and the minute hand(the long hand) and how they move: The minute hand makes one full turn while the hour hand moves slowly from one numeral to another.

SOCIAL STUDIES
Maps and globes are the focus this week in Social Studies. As a class we will compare the two and learn how each is important. We will also be learning about where we are located in the big scheme of the world, starting with our street address and moving outwardly to the entire world.

Lastly, please be safe this weekend as you Trick-or-Treat with your children!  They are so excited about Friday and their fun costumes!!  Enjoy your special time with the little people!  Send pictures of your children all dressed up!  They would love to share their pictures with their friends!

This week in First grade...

October 20th - 24th

This weekend was a recovery weekend at our house!  When I got home Friday I felt tired.  The allergens in the air were high so I always assume my tender throat issues are allergy based.  Well, I was wrong.  Strep strikes again!  So, please let me know, when your child is out, if they have a contagious illness.  I will begin disinfecting the classroom daily to get all of these yucky germs out!  We are diligent about washing our hands but it may take a little bit more effort.  I got a great (strong) antibiotic and am no longer contagious!

Reminders:
Saturday, October 25: Harvest Festival 12-3
Wednesday, October 29: Early Release
Field Trip to the Zach Scott Theater coming soon!

Math:  This week we will be learning about length and measurement.  We will talk about longest and shortest and longer and shorter.  We will not use rulers to measure in First Grade.  We will use non-standard units of measurement.  We will use pencils, cubes, paper clips, and other non-standard objects to measure.  We will even have a small history lesson to learn about an ancient form of measurement called a cubit.  You can help your child with this skill at home by letting them measure different objects around the house.  How many steps is it from the front door to the couch?  How many pennies long is a fork?  Have fun!

Reading Workshop:  We have been learning about Nonfiction and this week, we will actually begin doing teacher guided research!  In the spirit of the month of October and Halloween, we will be researching Spiders.  The kids love this unit!  We will become experts on Spiders by the end of the week, and your child should be able to tell you some very interesting facts about Spiders.

Writing Workshop:   We are continuing our Nonfiction unit from Reading.   We will begin by learning the difference between fact and opinion since Expository writing is only facts.  We will talk about how authors who write Expository texts are experts on the topics they write about.  We will pick topics that we are interested in and that we already know a lot about to practice writing facts.  At the end of the week, we will write facts that we have learned during our Spider research.

Word Study:  We've reviewed the concepts of syllables, consonants and  vowels.  Last week we learned what sorting means and we even learned the expectations for cutting our sorts out.  

This week we will begin working with small group sorts in Words Their Way as we become familiar with the procedures.  These sorts will be how we supplement our spelling instruction, and this work will be done in the Word Study Notebooks. Each student will bring a copy of their sort home in their homework folder.  They can cut it apart and practice sorting multiple times and different ways as well as attempting to spell the words.  They do not need to turn in their sort.

Science:   This week we will be continuing our discussion on physical changes to materials.  We learned this past week that adding heat and removing heat cause materials to change.  We will be doing more experiments this week to observe those changes first hand!

 On Friday we learned about Habit #4! We will practice "thinking win-win" all week!

Habit #4 Think Win-Win:  I balance the courage of getting what I want with consideration of what others want.

Have a great week!!

Mrs. Caballero