This week in First Grade...

Feb. 8-12

Please join me in welcoming the newest addition to our first grade team, Mrs. Tricia Knight.  Mrs. Knight is joining us from San Antonio with 27 years of experience in teaching first grade.  Since her arrival, Mrs. Knight has been working with whole group, small groups or individual students in different first grade classrooms.  Welcome to Caraway, Mrs. Knight! We are thrilled to have you with us!   


Chocolate Fever is spreading...

This Thursday, February 11th, we will be celebrating "Chocolate Fever Day".  On this day we ask the students to wear their pajamas as we all pretend we have chocolate fever.  We will read the first few chapters of the book, Chocolate Fever.  We will begin reading Chapter 1 on Wednesday afternoon! We will also put "chocolate spots" on our faces or hands! This is a fun day for First graders.  We have fun activities planned that involve chocolate.  We will bring our items home so you can monitor the consumption of chocolate! 

VALENTINES PARTY
The Valentines party will be on Friday, February 12th (1:30-2:20).  If your child has made his/her valentines, please feel free to send them in starting Monday, Feb. 8th. The children have done a great job decorating their Valentine's bags, so we are ready to go! Hope you can all join us on the 12th for the party!


 REMINDERS

Tuesday: Happy 101 day of school!
Tuesday folders come home. Please return signed Tuesday folders on Wednesday morning. 

Wednesday:Counseling Lesson
Thursday: Chocolate Fever Day
Friday: Valentine's Party in our classroom (1:30-2:30)
Reading folders are due.

 READING and WRITING
This week we will wrap up our guided research unit.  As a class, we have been researching about the objects in the sky such as the sun, the moon,  and the planets. This week we will continue our research and learn more information about the stars and the clouds.  We now know the research process.  We start with questions in mind, go to the right sources to find out the answers to our questions, and records the new information in our own words and in an organized form so others can learn from our research too.

MATH 
We will continue working on part, part, whole.  Part, part, whole is the foundation for algebra and algebraic thinking.  How can we find a missing part by knowing the whole and another part? What are the relationships between the parts? Some children may still think addition.  For example, if Ms. Amiri wants to buy a book that is 12 dollars and she only has 7 dollars, how much more does she need to buy the book? Some might add on 7 and say 7+5=12, therefore she needs 5 more dollars.  But we also want children to see the whole amount, and one part and think subtraction to find the missing part: 12-7=5

SOCIAL STUDIES
This week we will start our geography unit.  We will learn about four cardinal directions and learn to locate places on the map using cardinal directions.  We will create and use simple maps to describe the location of objects relative to other objects in the classroom and school.  We will also locate RoundRock, Austin, Texas and United States on the map.

This week in First Grade...

Feb. 1-5

FIRST GRADE P.E. PROGRAM

First Grade P.E. Program start time has been changed.  Please join us Tuesday February 2^nd at 6:20 pm in the cafeteria.  This is a chance for our first graders to shine and show some of the skills that they have been practicing this year. Please meet in the cafeteria.    

VALENTINES PARTY
The Valentines party will be on Friday, February 12th (1:30-2:20).  I will email a list of the students names for your child to use when making Valentine cards.  We will make bags for the Valentine cards here at school.  Donations of valentine stickers/craft items that could be used on the lunch sacks are greatly appreciated! The students can start bringing their valentines to school starting the week of Feb 8th.


 REMINDERS

Tuesday: Tuesday folders come home. Please return signed Tuesday folders on Wednesday morning. 

               Library 

Wednesday: Early Release Day (dismissal at 12:45).

                      Catfish Parlor PTA FundraiserThursday: 
Friday: Homework is due.

 READING and WRITING
We will continue our guided research unit.  This week we will review the research process, pick a topic that we are interested in, think about what we want to know about our topics, look at different resources, and non-fiction texts to find new information, take notes in our own words, and then present our findings in an organized form so others can use our information and learn from our research too.

MATH 
This week we will connect addition and subtraction by introducing the fact families, part-part- whole, and missing addend.  The parts join together to make a whole (addition).  If we know the whole and a part, we can find out the missing part using both addition and subtraction.  We will use our knowledge of part-part-whole to solve a variety of math problems.

We've been adding a lot of things to our Seesaw Account! Go see our technology products!

SCIENCE
We will continue learning about our natural resources such as water, rocks, soil, trees, sun, air and more.  We will brainstorm and discuss why it is important to conserve these natural resources, keep them clean and to pollute them.  We will start the week by exploring water, its properties, its movement, and uses.  Why is it important to conserve fresh water? why is it important not to pollute water? What are the different natural sources of water.

This week in First grade...

January 25-29

Congratulations to Hazel our Science Fair winner!  She worked very hard on her project! We are proud of you!

Homework this week: 
The student's homework came home on Monday.  Due to the nature of the homework this semester it works best to send it home on Mondays and have it returned on Fridays.  
In the student's Tuesday folder there will be work samples from our week.  Every week we will try to send home a math skill practice sheet, a math problem solving activity, an academic writing sample and a science/social studies activity.  There may also be items in the folder that your child has not finished.  We are working on completing our work and being responsible. 

 REMINDERS
Tuesday: Tuesday folders come home. Please return signed Tuesday folders on Wednesday morning. 

Wednesday: Counseling Lesson
Thursday: 
Friday: All homework is due.

 READING and WRITING
We will continue on our guided research.  This week, we will learn how to pick a topic that we are interested in, think about what we want to know about our topics, look at different resources such as books, pebble go, and on-line encyclopedia to find the information.  We will also learn how to jot important information in an organized way so we can use the information to answer our questions.

MATH 
This week, we will use a variety of strategies to solve real world math problems involving addition and subtraction or finding differences.  We will use, make 10 strategy or bridge to ten, number line, and counting up.  We will draw a picture to represent the important information in a problem with pictures, or tens and ones. Using addition or subtraction number sentences, we will find the answer to our problem using numbers and words.

SCIENCE
In science, we will learn that our natural world is made up of rocks, soil, and water. We will learn that we can observe these resources in cycles and systems. We will learn that there are many uses for natural resources and therefore it is important to reuse and conserve them. This week we will focus on earth materials and products, rocks and soil. We will observe different kinds of soil and describe the properties of rocks and soil.  We will explore and see what useful products we can make with rocks, soil and water.