Monday, October 24, 2011

This week in First grade...

October 24th-28th

Reminders:
Oct. 24-28 National Red Ribbon Week
Oct. 25 Family Night at Catfish Parlour (PTA gets 15% of the sales!)
Oct. 26 Early Release Day 12:45 p.m.
Oct. 27 Family Science Night 6-8pm
Oct. 28 Carving pumpkins with Dads at 9:15am
Nov. 1 General PTA Meeting 7p.m./5th Grade Program
Nov. 5 Harvest Festival 12-3 p.m.

A note from Mrs. Hohmann...
Dear Parents,
This afternoon, a suspicious male entered our campus and asked to use the bathroom in the office. He appeared disoriented and did not seem to have any business at our school. Campus personnel called 911 and went into lockdown to ensure the safety of our students and staff. He was contained in the office by office staff members until the police arrived. While this was going on, students and staff were in lockdown, which means that teachers had locked their doors and turned out the lights. Your child may want to visit about this when he/she returns home today, and this will be an excellent opportunity to talk about safety drills and why we perform them. For your information, we are asked to have two lockdown drills (one per semester) each school year. Our students had just gone through this exercise last week. Please feel free to call me if you have additional questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Shelly Hohmann
512-464-5504

This week in Reading Workshop we are reading and exploring Halloween Literature. We are incorporating reading comprehension skills and writing skills into our activities. Today we read The Little Old Lady Who was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams. Our activity focused on labeling just like we do in writer's workshop.

In Word Work this week we are reviewing sounds/skills we've been learning. The Green group is working on word families with short vowel sounds. The Blue group is working on "h" friend words such as ch, sh, th and wh. The Red Group is working on long vowels in CVCe, CVVC and oddball words.

In Writer's Workshop this week the students will continue to work on poetry. Today's lesson focused on hearing the music in poetry! The students listen for the rhythm in the lines and words. It's beautiful how they pick up on poetry and the word's meaning so quickly!

In Math the students are working on basic facts through problem solving activities. We learned and discussed ways to help us remember our math facts that add up to 18. This week we will work on problem solving strategies and showing our thinking on paper!

In Social Studies this week we will begin our unit on Texas! Yee Haw!! We will learn all out the history of Texas, our heritage, our state symbols and the pledge. We will also discuss early Texans, how they lived and how they survived! Next week we will have a Chili Tasting...keep your Chili recipes close!

Have a great week! It's going to get cooler soon!
Mrs. Caballero

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

This week in First grade...

October 17th- 21st

Reminders:
Oct. 24-28 National Red Ribbon Week
Oct. 26 Early Release Day 12:45 p.m.
Nov. 1 General PTA Meeting 7p.m./5th Grade Program
Nov. 5 Harvest Festival 12-3 p.m.

October Tuesday folders: Jill Malinger

*Calling all DADS!!! On Friday, Oct. 28 at 9:15am, we will carve pumpkins and do several activities with our pumpkins. Please let me know if you would like to come. You will need to provide the pumpkin and your own carving tools.


Language Arts/Reading:
We are continuing with Words Their Way. The green group is working on word families with the short i sound. The blue group is working on s blend words with sp, sk, sm. The red group is working on different ways to spell the short u and long u sounds.

In Writer’s Workshop we will hold off on our Small Moment stories for this week. We are beginning our writing unit with Poetry. This week we will learn to see things through poet's eyes. We will discuss the importance of line breaks in poems and how we can hear music in poems. We will write our own poems during our unit.

In Reading Workshop we are reading and discussing poetry. We are learning about different kinds of poetry and making a list of poems we've read.

Math:
We are continuing our unit on number operation and quantitative reasoning. We will create sets of tens and ones using concrete objects to describe, compare, and order whole numbers. The kids will use ten frames to show how to order their numbers. This is an ongoing unit. We will continue problem solving in our math journals, too.

Science:
We will continue our unit on Matter and Energy. We will also use a balance in order to weigh various objects. They will also learn how to measure an object’s capacity, length and weight using non-standard units of measure.

Enjoy the cooler weather!!

Mrs. Caballero

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Red Ribbon Week October 24th- 28th

Here are the activities for the week...

MONDAY “Sock it to Drugs” day so wear crazy or mismatched socks

TUESDAY “Drugs and I Do Not Mix” day so wear mismatched clothes

WEDNESDAY “Say No to Drugs” day so wear a red-colored clothing

THURSDAY “Boot out Drugs” so wear boots or western clothing

FRIDAY “Say BOO to Drugs” so wear a Halloween shirts or orange or white-shirts