Field trip to the Zach Scott Theater

What a great time we had! The play we saw was called Holiday Heros. It was a play about different holiday Celebrations around the world. The production incorporated holiday songs and a lot of interaction with the audience! It was perfect for our first graders! Here are some pictures from our adventure!

This week in First grade...

I hope everyone enjoyed the Thanksgiving Holiday!  It was a much needed break for the Caballero family!  The weather was lovely and we were able to spend time with our family.

Reading and Writing Workshop:

Our reading and writing will incorporate friendly letters. We will learn about the structure of a friendly letter such as the heading, the body (text), and the closing. We will read stories such as I Wanna Iguanna, Dear Mr. Blueberry, and letters to Mrs. La Rue and write our own friendly letters to family, friends or relatives. Our guided reading groups will continue.

Math:

This week in math we will be doing our unit on money.  Your child will be able to identify a penny, nickel, dime, and quarter by name and value.  Your child will also be able to describe relationships among coins, such as trading five pennies for one nickel.  We will be making coin books as we introduce each coin.  This is a fun unit, all kids like money!

Social Studies:

With our study of maps and globes continuing, we will be learning about cardinal directions and the compass rose, map keys and legends, human characteristics, and natural characteristics of maps. We will each be making part of the map of our school, and then putting the big map together. After that, we will each be making our own map in its entirety from start to finish. We will include a writing component with our maps that focus on relative location.

REMINDERS
Wednesday, November 28th: Field trip to Zach Scott Theater.
Family Spirit Night at Corner Street Bakery.
Picture Re-Takes: Nov. 29th.

**For the Field Trip on Wednesday, November 28th**

1. Please encourage your child to choose a Caraway shirt to wear. 

2. It will be cold so a jacket or coat will be needed as well.  

3. We will be having a picnic on the Zach Scott grounds.  Please feel free to join us around 12 o'clock if you would like to eat lunch with us.  Your child needs to bring a completely disposable lunch. 

4.  We will eat a snack before we leave school.  Please send your child with a snack.  We will be eating lunch an hour later than normal.  They will be hungry. 

Pilgrim dolls

The Pilgrim Doll project was a huge success! It was so neat to hear about my student's ancestors! I'm so impressed with the amount of effort that was put into this project!

This week in First grade...

November 12th - 16th

Reminders:

Monday, November 12^th  Veteran's Day (observed). School is in session.

Wednesday, November 14^th Thanksgiving Meal in the cafeteria

Thursday, November 15^th 6:30 Skate Night

Wed-Fri, November 21-23 Holiday

Reading Workshop:

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, we will be researching The First Thanksgiving. We will learn about topics related to Thanksgiving, such as Native Americans, Pilgrims, Mayflower, and the first Feast. We will use many resources for research on these topics. We will be asking, “Where do I go to find out this information?”

Writing Workshop:

This week in writing, we will be writing a nonfiction book based upon our research information that we gathered during our reading lessons. Each student will write a mini book about Thanksgiving.  We will focus on writing topics and incorporating details into our factual writing.

Math:

This is our second week of the unit: Developing Count On Addition Strategies for Basic Facts.  

It is essential that all students are able to successfully calculate both mentally and with paper and pencil their basic facts.  Research shows that the most effective way for students to learn the basic facts is to arrange the facts into clusters.  Each cluster is based on a thinking strategy that students can use to help them learn all of facts in that cluster.  We will be doing the "Count On" cluster for the next two weeks.  Counting is a vital life skill and forms the basis of the Count On strategy, a strategy that is useful for more than half the number of basic facts that need to be mastered.  This unit includes Count On 1 (+1 facts), Count on 2 (+2 facts) and Count on 0 (+0 facts).  This unit also develops the concept of "turnarounds," the application of the commutative property of addition.  This property allows any number of addends to be combined in any order and the sum will always be the same.  The vocabulary your child will be introduced to in this unit include: Count on, one more, add one, addition, number sentence, turnaround fact, equation, Count on 2, two more, add two, equals, equal sign means "the same as" (NOT "the answer is"), zero. 

Social Studies:

Maps and globes are the focus this week in Social Studies. As a class we will compare the two and discuss how each is important. We will also be learning about where we are located in the big scheme of the world, starting with Austin, Texas and moving outwardly to the entire world. This is always a fun week for the students!

Have a great week!

Mrs. C

This week in First Grade

November 5^th- 9^th

Reminders:

Wednesday, November 14^th Thanksgiving Meal in the cafeteria

Wed-Fri, November 21-23 Holiday

Library books are due on Thursday.

Reading Workshop:

This week in Reading Workshop we are reading fiction and discussing it’s elements.  We will identify the characters in a story, the setting, the problem and the solution.  All of these elements make up the plot of a story.  We will read stories from many different genres and compare the elements of fiction. 

Writing Workshop:

This week in Writing Workshop we will begin our unit on Small Moments.  We will use children’s literature to model how authors pick a short moment in time to write a lot about.  We will focus on details and description.  We will continue to develop our craft by using the writing process.

Word Work:

First grade words for the week are: {posted Tuesday}

Groups:

Green Group: Beginning Consonants 

Blue Group: Digraphs review

Red Group: Vowel Pairs

**I will begin sending home a copy of your child's sort this week in the Tuesday folder.**

Routines for sorting:  

Monday: Cut and Sort for sounds

Tuesday: Picture sort: Sort and attempt spelling of words 

               Word Sort: Record words in sort order in Word Work Notebook

Wednesday: Word Wall Wednesday

Thursday: Sort and Speed Sort

                Brainstorm other words with your spelling pattern

Friday: Sort and Glue

            *Assessments* (if applicable)     

Math:

We are starting a new unit this week called: Developing Count On Addition Strategies for Basic Facts.  This unit will last for two weeks.  It is essential that all students are able to successfully calculate both mentally and with paper and pencil their basic facts.  Research shows that the most effective way for students to learn the basic facts is to arrange the facts into clusters.  Each cluster is based on a thinking strategy that students can use to help them learn all of facts in that cluster.  We will be doing the "Count On" cluster for the next two weeks.  Counting is a vital life skill and forms the basis of the Count On strategy, a strategy that is useful for more than half the number of basic facts that need to be mastered.  This unit includes Count On 1 (+1 facts), Count on 2 (+2 facts) and Count on 0 (+0 facts).  This unit also develops the concept of "turnarounds," the application of the commutative property of addition.  This property allows any number of addends to be combined in any order and the sum will always be the same.  The vocabulary your child will be introduced to in this unit include: Count on, one more, add one, addition, number sentence, turnaround fact, equation, Count on 2, two more, add two, equals, equal sign means "the same as" (NOT "the answer is"), zero. 

Science:

This week we are exploring forms of energy.  We will review what we have learned during our unit on Force, Motion and Energy.  We will move into our next unit in Social Studies later in the week.  We will learn about maps and globes.  As a class we will compare the two and discuss how each is important.  We will learn about relative location and how using direction words helps us when we are making and using maps.