This week in First grade...

September 21-25

As I'm updating the blog this evening I realized that I did not send or post an update last week!  I'm so sorry for not updating everyone! I hope some of your questions were answered at Open House last Monday night.  I know many of you were unable to come so I'm going to post the Prezi here for your viewing pleasure!

This week we will be a fun week for the Cowpokes!  They will have a substitute Tuesday through Friday this week.  The Caballeros are closing on our new home and moving in.  I'm just an email away so please don't hesitate to send your questions.  Mr. Sparks will be teaching the students this week.  They had the opportunity to see him last Friday during PE when he was subbing for Coach Cavazos!

IMPORTANT REMINDER
Tuesday: Tuesday folders come home. Please return signed Tuesday folders every Wednesday morning.

Please make sure you check your child’s Daily Folder each night and initial the day to show me you saw the information.

*We will have Library this Tuesday.  Please return all Library books by Tuesday at 8:00am.Wednesday: Early Release Day- Dismissal is at 12:45


GROWTH MINDSET

We will continue to instill the attitude of "perseverance, embracing challenges, and giving our best effort", in our daily activities.  When something is a little more challenging, the children naturally say, "I can't do this".  We want the children to change their thinking and mindset: "I can't do this YET, but I will try and give my best effort, until I can".  Please help your child to change their mindset.  Use the same language at home when they feel defeated by modeling it yourself.

 Here is what we will be doing next week:

READING
This week we will learn about fiction and elements of fiction.  We will learn about 

the setting; the place and time where the story takes place, the main characters; the important people or animals that do or say important things in the stories, and the plot which is a series of important events in the stories.  We will learn that just like the stories we write, fictions have also a beginning, middle and ending.  We will also discuss the author's purpose in writing fiction.

WRITING

We will continue working on our stories.  The children have done a great job illustrating and writing about some real events in their lives.  This week, they will practice planning their stories across their hand using the first finger to tell the beginning and the next finger to tell the next event.  This will allow children tell their stories with a beginning, middle, and ending.  We will continue to work on reading our stories to make sure they make sense and check for capitals, periods, and sight words.

MATH

This week in math we will review some of the concepts that we learned earlier this year in order to make sure the children have a strong foundation before moving on to count on addition.  We will work on reciting numbers forward and backward from 1-20, skip counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's and tell or record instantly the number of dots or other pictures that are in various structured arrangements.  We will practice counting on strategies.  Counting on will allow us to count and recognize numbers faster.  It also allows us to do addition faster. For example, we will start from 5 and count 2 more and we know that's seven, instead of counting from 1 and going up to 7.

SOCIAL STUDIES
We will continue learning about our state and national patriotic symbols.  Last week we learned about the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty, and the United States Flag.  This week we will learn about our state's flag, Texas motto, and the Alamo.

SCIENCE
In science we will continue learning about properties of objects.  We will also make some observations and see what happens when objects are heated or cooled.