This week in First grade...

October 3-7

      Wow! It's already October! On Monday we will have our first Spirit Assembly.  It will begin promptly at 7:40am (for K-2).  We will drop our backpacks off in the room and head down to the cafeteria.  This is going to be a great time for our school community as we share good news and celebrate our accomplishments!
     On Friday we will begin Caraway Academy.  This will also begin promptly at 7:40am.  We will drop our backpacks off and head to the classrooms where our academies are located.  There will be a note that will come home in the Tuesday folder for more information about Caraway Academy! We are all very excited to share our passions with students and help them develop their passions!
    This is going to be an amazing week at Caraway Elementary!

Reminders: 
Monday: K-2 Spirit Assembly 7:40am-8:00am
Tuesday: Tuesday folders come home.  Please sign them and return them on Wednesday.
               *We do not have Library this week.
Wednesday:
Thursday:
Friday: Caraway Academy 7:40am-8:30am

*If you have not signed up for a conference please do so as the slots are filling up.  Email me if you have any questions.

This week in Writing Workshop...
     We will be reminded about all we have learned as writers so far this year.  We will review the steps of the writing process as we lead up to our Celebration on Friday.  Writers begin a story by sketching an idea, matching their words to their picture, then rereading our story to make sure it makes sense.  We also know that a writer's work is never done.  When we finish a story we can add to our picture, add to our words to make them fancy (revising and editing).  We will celebrate by sharing our stories at our very first Author's Chair Celebration!

This week in Reading Workshop...
    We will be thinking about how good readers make connections.  When we read a book we can think about how readers make a connection to something they know (text to self), something they've read (text to text) and/or something they've experienced (text to world).  "That reminds me of..."

This week in Social Studies...
    We will be exploring how the leaders in our community are good citizens.  We will discuss responsibilities of our community leaders from our school to our country.  We will also begin exploring our national symbols.  We will learn about the American Flag, what it represents and why it is so special to us.

This week in Math...
    We will continue our unit on addition.  We have learned to count on (5..6,7,8) when we add. We will learn that basic facts have things in common.  For example 5+4 = 9 so, when you turn it around 4+5 = 9 you know two facts just by thinking about what the problem has in common.  We call these facts Turnaround Facts.  Research shows that students who learn strategies to acquire basic fact knowledge will become better problem solvers! At home you can use concrete objects to add together such as beans or pieces of fruit or vegetables! "I see on your plate you have 5 peas and 3 carrots.  How many veggies do you have!" Try it at dinner some time this week.

Growth Mindset:
    We've been talking about our Fantastic Elastic Brains! We know that if we make a mistake it can help our brains grow! This week we will learn a little more about how our brains grow when we read The Fantastic Elastic Brain.

Have a great week!

This week in First grade...

Sept. 26- 30

IMPORTANT REMINDERS
Monday: 
Tuesday: Picture day! 

               Library Day- All library books are due at 8:00 AM
               Tuesday folders come home. Please return signed Tuesday folders on Wednesday.
Wednesday: Early Release Day.  Dismissal is at 12:00 PM.

Thursday: 
Friday: Optional Homework is due


GROWTH MINDSET
This week in growth mindset, we are going to practice how to give each other constructive criticism.  What is the best thing to say to each other in order to improve each other's work? How can we be kind yet help one another grow? We will learn how to start with something positive. Next, we'll say something that can be improved and then end our discussion with something positive again.  " I really like how your picture and your words match in this story, you could add more words to make your story more interesting, you are such a great story teller!" 


This week:

 READING

This week we will work on strategies that help us become a stronger reader. We will think about our reading "tool box" and how we already know things to do that will help us understand what we are reading!  We will think about using our fingers to track the words we are reading on a page.  We will remember that readers read pages from left to right.  We will practice sounding out words that may challenge us and using the pictures to give us clues!

WRITING

This week in Writer's Workshop we will begin the next stage of the writing process! We will begin to think about how writers make their stories "fancy".  We will add words to our story by rereading and adding details we may have forgotten.  We will call this revising.  Then we will add details to our pictures so our reader can see our whole story.  At the end of the week we will reflect on the stories we revised and begin talking about how writer's celebrate their stories.

MATH

We have using a number line/number track to find specific numbers and find one more or one less than a number.  This week, we will take that knowledge and apply it to addition. The strategies that we work on are called "Count On Addition Strategies for Basic Facts". It is essential that all students are able to successfully calculate basic facts mentally and with paper/pencil. Count On strategies include Count on 0 (+0 facts Count), On 1 (+1 facts), Count on 2 (+2 facts).  This week we will focus on Count On 0, define 0 on the number line, and make count-on 0 equations.  We will use the count on 0 strategy to 20.  We will learn that we can use this strategy to add numbers and add coins as well.

SCIENCES

This week we will be continuing our discussion on physical changes to matter.  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!

Thank you to everyone who came in for our first week of volunteering! The students loved reading to you in the hallway and sharing their stories with you! We look forward to another great week! 

This week in First grade...

Sept. 19-23

We are rockin' and rollin' in first grade! One thing I wanted to highlight this week is the positive behavior recognition system in our classroom.  Brag Tags highlight all of the wonderful things individual students are doing in our classroom.  Every child has a key chain on their backpack. A few are choosing to keep their brag tags in another safe spot.  When the students are following our classroom and school expectations as well as setting a wonderful example for others, I celebrate their accomplishments by awarding them a brag tag! I hope your child has come home and talked about their brag tags!  
IMPORTANT REMINDERS
Monday: This week we will start Reading Assessments

Tuesday: Tuesday folders come home. Please sign the folders and return the next day.

               No library check out this week- You may still keep the books for one more week.
Wednesday: 

Thursday: 
Friday: Optional Homework Due

GROWTH MINDSET
We will continue to instill the character traits of "perseverance, embracing challenges, and giving our best effort", in our daily activities.  When something is a little more challenging, the children naturally say, " This is too hard, I can't do this".  We want the children to change their thinking and mindset: "I can't do this YET, but I will keep trying and give my best effort, until I can".  

 Here is what we will be doing this week:


READING

This week in reading we will learn how strong readers get their minds ready before they start reading a book. Strong readers look at the title and the front cover of the book before reading it to predict what the book or story might be about.  Readers also take a book walk/picture walk to get an idea of the story. They will activate their prior knowledge by making a connection between things that they already know or have read and the new information in the book.  All these will help readers to have a better understanding of the book they are reading.

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 think of additional ways to get ideas.  We will think about our writing lives.  We will also reflect on our writing and think about ways we will become stronger writers. We are working toward learning the writing process.  We will plan, draft, revise and publish in the weeks to come.  

MATH
This week we will work on counting patterns. Counting by 2's starting from 1 (1, 3, 5, ...), or 2( 2, 4, 6, ...)to 20, as well as to 100.  We will use different tools such as a number track, a  number line, or a hundred chart to look at any given number and find out one more/one less  (more or less to 100). We will use 5 as a bench mark to count and add on.  For example if we see 5 dots and 4 dots on a domino, we know automatically the total is 9, since we use 5 as a benchmark and we count up from 5: 5-6-7-8-9. We will work on math problem solving that involves addition using counting by 2's strategies.

SOCIAL STUDIES
September 17 is Constitution Day.  We will review and discuss the importance of rules in our homes, schools, and communities and define the constitution as a set of rules for our country and states. We will travel back in time to learn why the Founding Fathers of the Unites States wrote the Constitution.