Monday, November 12, 2012

This week in First grade...

November 12th - 16th

Reminders:
Monday, November 12th  Veteran's Day (observed). School is in session.
Wednesday, November 14th Thanksgiving Meal in the cafeteria
Thursday, November 15th 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

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