This week in First grade

March 28-April 1

Before spring break we said goodbye to Keshav as he and his family move to another state! We will miss him! Last week, Angelie joined our class! Welcome, Angelie!

REMINDERS

Monday: Reading Bags come home with Time for Kids

Tuesday:Closed Campus Tuesday folders come home.  Please sign the folder and return it the next day.  Thank you!
Wednesday: Closed Campus
Thursday: No library this week.
Friday: Reading folders are due.
Family Fun Night 6:30-7:30

READING and WRITING
We will continue our research on chicks. We now have a few hatching eggs in our incubators and we are expecting them to hatch in about three weeks! We will continue to record the facts that we learn and also jot down our "wonder" questions.  The "wonder" questions will encourage us to do more research and find out more.  So far, we have been learning about the body parts of chicks, where thy live and what they eat. This week we will delve more into this and find out about how a chick grows inside an egg, and the chick’s life cycle.

MATH
We will continue working on inequality and comparison subtraction.  We will review that equal sign represents a relationship where expressions on each side of the equal sign represent the same values and inequality represent different values.  We will use objects and pictorial models to solve word problems involving joining, separating and comparing sets within 20.



SCIENCE
We will continue learning about living and non-living, ecosystem and the inter-dependency of animals and plants in their ecosystem.  Last week we learned about the external characteristics of birds and how these characteristics determine what the birds eat, how they move and where they live.  This week we will learn about the fish, its external characteristics, life cycle and the interdependency in its ecosystem.

Our eggs are in the incubator and we are expecting the eggs to hatch around April 14th! Stay tuned for pictures!!

This week in First grade...

March 21-25

There are quite a few changes for the kiddos tomorrow that I hope they will love! My family helped me rearrange our classroom today to offer flexible seating options for the students!  I will post pictures tomorrow when everyone is situated!  There are desks low to the ground for students who prefer to sit criss cross on a pillow.  There are tradition height desks with chairs.  There are two tables of desks with stability balls for students who prefer that.  There is also a table of standing height desks for those who would prefer to stand and work.  They also have the option of using a stool!  I'm so excited to see how this will transform our learning these last weeks of school!  Of course this week I will encourage the students to try each option then we can see what is best for each individual and create a week by week seating chart! It's going to be exciting!

Here are a few reminders for this week:

REMINDERS

Monday: Reading Bags: Time for KidsTuesday: Library today! Please have your child return their books by 8am!

Tuesday folders come home.
Wednesday: Counselor's Lesson

Thursday: Spring Class Picture! Please have your child wear their most beautiful smile! 
Friday: Spring Holiday! No school

Homework this week will be getting back into the swing of things with Time for Kids! I will send it home on Monday.  Please return it on Thursday.  No math this week! Continue to encourage your child to read a self selected book each night!

OUR NEW GUESTS IN FIRST GRADE:

It is that time of the year! Each first grade class will be hosting close to a dozen eggs.   We are expecting our eggs to arrive sometime this week.  We will then put the eggs in the incubators and patiently wait for 21 days for our them to hatch.  This is a part of the animal unit and our first graders will get to observe the life cycle of birds first hand, right in our classroom! It will be an exciting time for all of us!  

READING and WRITING
This week we will start another unit on Research. Our focus will be on chicks. We will determine what we want to learn from a source and stretch our thinking. Readers wonder more as they learn and read more. We will learn how we can go to different sources such expository texts, reliable internet sources, or asking adults to find out the answers to our questions. In Writing we will continue to record our new findings and learning and put it into a book where others can read it and learn from our research.

We will use the iPads to create a presentation to share our learning! This will be on our SeeSaw accounts after we are finished! 

MATH
This week we will work on inequality and comparison subtraction.  We will review that equal sign represents a relationship where expressions on each side of the equal sign represent the same values and inequality represent different values.  We will use objects and pictorial models to solve word problems involving joining, separating and comparing sets within 20.



SCIENCE
We will continue learning about living and non-living, ecosystem and the inter-dependency of animals and plants in their ecosystem.  This week we will focus on birds, their external characteristics and how these characteristics determine where the birds live, what they eat and how they move.  We will also learn about the life cycle and the interdependency of birds and other animals and plants in their ecosystem.

James and the Giant Peach

This week (before Spring Break) in First Grade...

March 7-11

Family Dinner Night a.k.a Caraway City Limits was so fun! I didn't get to see everyone while we were here but I did see a few of you! I told my family that next year we will plan to come and stay for the whole time! I loved the atmosphere and community feel! It's such a great event!

EDUCATION GO GET IT WEEK:
Tuesday: Wear your favorite University t-shirt.
Wednesday: Dress for success, dress up like the job you want to have.
Thursday: When we graduate we wear caps and gowns.  Today wear your favorite cap.
Friday: Caraway t-shirt (remember all careers begin at Caraway!)


FIELD TRIP TO ZACH THEATER
Our filed trip to Zach Theater is on Friday, March 11th.  If you have sent your permission slip and transportation fee, thank you! And if you haven't gotten a chance to do so, please send the permission slip along with 4 dollars transportation fee ASAP.
Please don't forget to send lunch and snack on Friday.  We will eat lunch in the classroom before we leave for the theater.



SHAMROCK' N ROLL RUN
First grade will run/walk for Shamrock'n Roll on Friday at 8:40-9:30.  Please consider joining your child to walk/run laps with them.  Parents/grandparents can collect extra points for their child's class.  Come to the track and meet us there at 8:40.  Be sure to sign in your name and your child's class at the track before running/walking laps.




 REMINDERS
Tuesday:Tuesday folders come home.
All first grade teachers are out due to district business.
Ms. Barnes will be my sub.

Wednesday: 
Thursday: 
Friday: Homework bag is due
Shamrock' n Roll (8:40-9:30).  Field Trip to Zach.




READING AND WRITING
This week we will continue reading poems and use strategies that help us to understand poetry better.  We will work on visualizing and making a mental picture in our mind. This strategy can also help us to understand other genres such as stories/fictions better. As we read the author's/poet's description about the character's look, actions and so on, we will try to picture them in our mind so we can have a better understanding of the poem/story.  Poets often use sensory language such as words describing the sound, look, smell, taste or feel of something.  Sensory words help the readers create a better picture in their mind as they read poetry. In writing, we will continue to write short poems.

WORD STUDY

We have been rocking and rolling in word study! We've come to the time of the year when we begin to transition our program and prepare the students for 2nd grade.  Every Friday we will have a short assessment.  We call it "Show me what you've Got!" instead of Spelling Test.  Hopefully this will help them transition to having weekly spelling tests in 2nd grade.  I am sending their third assessment home in the Tuesday folder.  Their sounds last week were short o, or and o sounds that don't fit the pattern.  We call those "oddballs".  Our assessment contains words they have practiced during the week and words they have to apply what they've learned. 

Here is their sort for this week!

MATH 
This week we will learn about 3-D shapes.  We will identify three-dimensional figures such as spheres, cones, cylinders, rectangular prisms (including cubes), and triangular prisms and describe their attributes using geometric language such as flat surface, curved surface, having corners (vertices) or not any corners, being able to stack or not. We will look at everyday objects around us and compare them to the 3-D shapes that we are learning about.

SCIENCE
In science we will continue learning about living things.  Our focus will be on mammals and their external characteristics (body parts and cover).  We will learn how these external characteristics determine where the mammals live, what they eat and how they move.  We will also learn about interdependency and see how animals and plants in one habitat depend on each other to survive meet their needs. 

I hope most of you have been able to view your child's Living/Nonliving Movie Trailer on SeeSaw.  They were so proud of their work! I'm including some pictures of our adventures outdoors!