This week, Sept 30-Oct 4, in First grade...

September 30-October 4

On Monday we will begin our weekly homework routine.  

Math:  Students will continue to develop their ability to conceptualize a number as being made up of two or more parts and their understanding of the part-part-whole model and related number relationships. They will also continue to explore, in this unit and throughout the year, a variety of addition/subtraction problem situations including joining, separating, part-part-whole, and comparing, with different unknowns: result/change/start, or part/whole or difference, in order to develop an understanding of the operations of addition and subtraction. Sums and differences are limited to 20. Students will generate a problem solving situation from a given number sentence and use concrete and pictorial models to solve problems using addition and subtraction with whole numbers to 20.

Reading Workshop: This week in reading workshop we will continue with our lessons on Reading to Someone and practicing what that looks like independently.  We will focus on choosing our own classroom spot, learn how to choose our own partner (so far I have placed them with a partner), and finally learn techniques for coaching our partners (if they get stuck on their reading or with comprehension).   Partner reading can be very productive and rewarding for each person, but certain guidelines must be followed so optimum learning will take place.  This will complete all our lessons on Read to Someone.  From now on, the focus will be on learning different reading strategies to help build our reading comprehension and stamina.

Writing Workshop:  As we move to the end of the writing process this week, we will begin learning how to revise and edit "Fancying Up and Fixing Up" our writings. Each child has written at least one story that is personal and special to them. We will be ending this week with a celebration of writers in which each writer will read his or her story to their fellow writers. We will be practicing our audience skills as well as our presentation skills during this exciting time in Writer's Workshop!

Science:  So far in science we have learned that matter is anything around us that takes up a space.  Matter can be perceived by our senses and can be classified based on its physical characteristics.  This week we will learn that all matter has mass.  Mass is the amount of matter that forms a body that has some sort of shape and size. Matter can be changed from one state to another.  For example water can evaporate and change from liquid to gas, or it could change from solid (ice) to liquid.  When matter changes from one state to another, the mass won’t change.  The mass doesn’t get more or less, it is still there but in another form.

Habit #3:  Put First Things First- Work First, then Play.

We are going to continue talking about priorities.  We will discuss what priorities we might have at school, home and in our community. 

Reminders:

*Please remember to send a healthy snack every day.  Snack time is @ 9:30am.

*Make sure your child wears tennis shoes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

*Library day is Tuesday. 

Dates to Remember:

October 2:  Family Spirit Night @ Catfish Parlour

October 3:  Individual School Picture day

October 10:  Science Night

October 14:  Student Holiday

October 18:  Hoot Family Picnic

October 30:  Early Release Day

November 2:  Harvest Festival

Conferences:

Please don’t forget to sign up for a conference time.  Thanks!

This week, September 23-27, in First grade...

Reminders:

Early Release is Wednesday, September 25th at 12:45pm

Conferences begin Monday, September 30th

School Picture day Thursday, October 3rd

Student Holiday Monday, October 14th

Math:

In this unit, students will consolidate prerequisite skills as a continuation of the math skills they began to develop in kindergarten.

Students will practice and demonstrate their ability to subitize, or instantly recognize sets of objects (such as dots) in patterned arrangements and to tell how many without counting. Students will continue to develop their conceptual understanding of the relationships between the numbers 1-10 and the anchor numbers of 5 and 10 and will use five-frames and ten-frames in problem solving. Students will practice and develop an understanding of how to compose and decompose numbers 0 – 120 using concrete and pictorial representations. Students will count up and back between 1 and 120.

Students will continue to develop their ability to conceptualize a number as being made up of two or more parts and their understanding of the part-part-whole model and related number relationships. They will also continue to explore, in this unit and throughout the year, a variety of addition/subtraction problem situations including joining, separating, part-part-whole, and comparing, with different unknowns: result/change/start, or part/whole or difference, in order to develop an understanding of the operations of addition and subtraction. Sums and differences are limited to 20. Students will generate a problem solving situation from a given number sentence and use concrete and pictorial models to solve problems using addition and subtraction with whole numbers to 20.

Reading Workshop: 

This week in Reading Workshop we will focus on Reading-to-Someone strategies and creating an anchor chart to review in our classroom.  We will learn how to choose books for partner reading when we want to share the same book and how to read with someone when we read different stories.  We will learn and practice "I Read, You Read" working on the reading strategy summarizing what our partner reads.  This will take good listening skills as we learn how to summarize what our partner reads to us.  You can practice this technique at home asking your child to teach you how to 'Read to Someone' at home!  We will continue our reading one-on-one reading assessments this week hoping next week we will begin our guided reading lessons.

Writing Workshop:

As we continue to dig deeper into the writing process, we will learn more about writing complete sentences that begin with capital letters and end with punctuation. We will learn that every sentence must contain a noun and a verb. We will practice using finger spaces between our words and stretching out each sound in our words in order to spell the best that we can. Believe me, we are building and strengthening our skills in Writer's Workshop!

Science:

In Science we will learn continue to learn about matter.  Matter is everything around us.  Matter can be observed, described, and classified based on its physical characteristics.  Matter exists as a solid, liquid and gas.  A solid is a matter that keeps its shape.  A liquid is a matter that flows, and takes the shape of its container.   Gas is a form of matter that takes up space like air. 

Habit #3:  Put First Things First:

Habit #3 teaches kids to set priorities and to do the most important things first.  Talk with your child about priorities they have at home (cleaning up their toys, brushing their teeth, etc…) and remind them to Put First Things First at home.

This week, Sept 16th- 20th, in first grade...

 First grade needs your help!!  The Cowpokes need Elmer's Glue in bottles and pencil top erasers. 

Math:  This week we are exploring numbers as we count forward and backward from 0 to 120.  We will continue to compare numbers using symbols and discuss before, between and after.  We will solve problems that make us think about numbers, their place value and how they are related to each other.  We will look for patterns and relationships!

Reading Workshop: This week we will continue reading independently for a longer period each day to build up our stamina during read to self.  We started student reading assessments this week and when we finish, students will be placed in different guided reading groups.  That is when you will get your child's homework packet with a book appropriate for his/her level. This week we will emphasize couple of reading strategies such as, re-reading and making predictions.  There are times that we lose concentration when we read.  Strong readers always catch themselves when this happens and this is when they need to go back to re-read what they just read.  Strong readers also make predictions.  When we understand things that we read, we can predict what is coming next.  These strategies will help us to be a better reader and to comprehend what we read better.

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT YOUR CHILD'S LEARNING AT HOME?
As you and your child read together, stop periodically and ask your child what do they think will happen next? If your child is confused, review the clues in the story.  You can also pretend that you are confused about a part, or you didn't pay attention well and model how you can go back and re-read it again.  These are some comprehension strategies that as adults we do naturally, but children don't do it naturally and therefore they need to practice these skills.

  

Writing Workshop:  This will be another very busy week in Writer's Workshop as we will learn the strategy of stretching and writing words by slowly saying the words we want to write, stretching the sounds out, and writing what we hear. We will also learn how to use  the Word Wall when we write and begin labeling our sketches to help us recall more details and the order of events

Science:  In Science we will learn about matter and properties of matter.  Matters are objects around us, things that we can see, smell, taste, and touch.  Matters can make sound too.  For example you could hear the crunchy sound of dry leaves under your shoes.  We use our five senses (see, hear, smell, taste and touch) to describe the matters. Matters have properties that we can observe.  For example, they come in different sizes, shapes, color and texture.  We will learn that we can sort matters based on their physical properties.

Our Class Mission Statement

Yesterday we wrote our class mission statement as we thought about Habit #2, Begin with the End in Mind.  Today we wrote it in our agendas.

Cowpokes Mission Statement

2013-2014

In Mrs. Caballero’s class we are leaders who will become AWESOME readers, illustrators, authors, mathematicians, and investigators while using our best effort and having FUN! 

This week, September 9-13, in First grade...

Reading workshop:

This week in our reading workshop time we will model and practice correct Read-to-Self expectations for the classroom.  We will think about what this time looks like, feels like, and sounds like and make an anchor chart together in class.  We will practice the expectations this week starting off with just a few minutes and building our reading stamina all the way to 10 minutes.  We will also think about and record in our Reader’s Response journals what kinds of books we love to read and why we enjoy them.  We will end the week with writing our reading goals for first grade! 

Writing workshop:

Next week in Writer'w Workshop we continue learning to add more details to our writings. We will spend time generating and sketching ideas of what to write about. We will also be setting up our Writer's Workshop Folders and learning what to do with a piece when we are not finished.

Science:

In Science we will explore and discuss what scientists do. The students will be introduced to science journals and discuss the importance of recording scientific observations. We will learn science safety; how to ask questions about science; make predictions; record observations and data about investigations; and explain our thinking about what we have learned

Math:

This week in Math we will be focusing on place value.  We've been working on grouping items such as cubes and beans.  We discuss how many groups of 10 and how many items are leftover.  We will work with manipulatives to solve problems.  This year the math department for RRISD purchased Math Racks for each first grade classroom.  We will begin exploring our Math Racks and learning how to use these tools.

7 Habits:

Habit #2:  Begin with the end in mind

I set goals for myself and plan ahead.  I look for ways to be a good citizen

*Next week, just read books that emphasize habit #2 and incorporate the vocabulary in the classroom.  Do this when you can.  I will have activities to reinforce this habit for the week of Sept. 16-20

September 3-6 in First grade...

We had a great first week!  Today our Orange 1st grade agenda folders came home.  Each student will be documenting their success as a leader daily.  Please check the calendar in their folders. A sticker on the appropriate date indicates a successful day practicing leadership skills. If there is a number written with my initials (ec) in the box please discuss solutions at home.  Explore the folder and agenda with your child!

Math:  This year in Math we will learn many new concepts and develop new skills.  The state of Texas revised the TEKS for the 2014-2015 school year.  As a proactive school district RRISD instituted a conversion year.  This year we will teach the current TEKS and the "new/revised" TEKS.  Many things are new and/or different.  For our first unit we will be exploring Place Value.  The objectives for this unit include 1) composing and decomposing numbers up to 120, 2) Generating numbers from 0 up to 120, 3)Representing, comparing and ordering numbers to 100 using symbols (<, >, =), 4) Using Place Value to compare whole numbers up to 120 (i.e. 23 has 2 groups of ten and 3 ones).  Please review your child's work as it comes home in their folder.  The students also use their Math Notebooks on a daily basis.  As we establish routines we will begin sending home the Math Notebook periodically for parents to review. 

Reading Workshop:  This week we will launch our reading workshop procedures and the students will learn that one of the most important things to do to become a better reader is to read good-fit books.  We will learn how to look for good-fit books in five ways using the acronym I PICK.  They will learn:  “I” choose my book, “P”urpose-Why do I want to read it? “I”nterest-Does it interest me? “C”omprehend-Am I understanding what I am reading? “K”now-I know most of the words.  I encourage you to use this same dialogue with your child at home to help them choose good-fit books for independent reading at home.  Once we grasp how to choose a good-fit book, we will start our lesson with three ways to read a book.  It takes time to establish reading workshop procedures, but after we build a solid foundation, it pays off all year long! J

Writing Workshop:  In this session of Writing Workshop, we will be learning what the expectations are for Writing Workshop, and how to use the supplies. Once we model the process of choosing a topic, sketching it, and then writing about it, the students will choose their own topics, sketch, and write.

Social Studies:  This week, we will be discussing rules and laws at school, home and in our community.  What is the difference between a rule and a law?  Why do we need rules and laws?  We will also talk about positive and negative consequences.

Habit #1:  Be Proactive-  Being proactive means that you are a responsible person.  You are in charge of your actions and your moods, and you take responsibility for your choices.  We read stories about being proactive last week.  This week, we will reinforce being proactive in the classroom, at home, and in our community.  Please talk with your child about what they can do to be a proactive member of your family.  Thanks!