This week in First grade...

April 16-20

Word Work:
them, then, there, these, they, this, to two, up, us, very, was, we, went, were, what, when, which, who, will, with, would, you, your

*This is our last week for High Frequency words.


Language Arts:
This week in writing workshop, we will continue The Writing Process with personal narrative writing. All the students are on different levels of The Writing Process and as they complete the publishing stage, each child will have the opportunity to sit in the Author’s Chair and read their personal narrative. For reading workshop we will continue to build on some of the reading strategies already taught such as: talk to a partner that has already read the book, make a sketch (for mental pictures), and using clues from the book (relationships and characters)

Hatching Chicks and Silkworms:
It was very exciting to watch the chicks hatch from their eggs last week! We had 26 baby chicks hatch in all the first grade classes. Friday night, after our class left one more chick started hatching. Most of the baby chicks were picked up Friday by Farmer Jackson, Mrs. Hadden's Father, who took them to his ranch. He will send us pictures periodically and we will continue to monitor their growth until the end of school. We have enjoyed watching the various molting stages the silkworms have experienced and we are looking forward to observing the next stage in the life cycle, making the silk cocoons! Mrs. Christofferson’s class has already had one silkworm make its cocoon, so we are hopeful to see more cocoons this week.

MATH:
We are starting a new unit on subtraction and fact families. This unit introduces the “THINK ADDITION” strategy for the Count On Subtraction facts. The facts covered in this strategy are related to their partner facts covered in the Count On Addition strategy. Each Count On Subtraction fact and its Turnaround subtraction fact form a fact family with their addition partner fact. This unit also reinforces the Addition Count On strategy and the Addition Use Doubles strategies that the children have already learned. For example: Addition has turnaround facts such as 2+6=8 and 6+2=8, subtraction has partner facts such as 8-6=2 and 8-2=6. Addition facts and subtraction facts that involve the same parts in total form fact families.


SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:
This week in science we will be studying living and non-living things. Important questions: Does it have basic needs? Does it have offspring? How do animals depend on other living things to survive? How are animal body parts related to where it lives? How it eats and how it moves?


IMPORTANT DATES AND REMINDERS:

Tuesday. Please return the library books so your child can check out a new book.*


April 19 6-8pm Family Skate Night, Playland Skate Center
April 27 6-7pm Family Fun Night
May 2 Early Release Day 12:45pm
May 7-11 National Teacher Appreciation Week
May 9 Natl. Walk & Bike to School Day
May 11 Field Day


Thank you!
Tuesday Folders: The Score Family

Have a great week!
Mrs. C