This week in First Grade...

Oct. 13-16

We had a great week last week!  We are getting setup to use Google Classroom so we can do more activities on our iPads then turn them in digitally!  Parents will be able to view their work as well!

Books Orders are due this Thursday, October 15th.  I will submit the order after school that day so we will receive the books by Halloween!  Scholastic is a great way to get new, leveled books for your child to read at home for reasonable prices!  Your orders earn points for our classroom so we can add new books to our Cowpoke Library!  We get super excited about new books!

IMPORTANT REMINDERS

Monday: No School - Student Holiday

Tuesday: Tuesday folders come home. Please return signed Tuesday folders every Wednesday morning.
Please make sure you check your child’s Daily Folder each night and initial the day to show me you saw the information.
Wednesday: 

Thursday: Book Order Due!
Thursday, October 15: Science Night at 6:00
Friday: Reading bags are due!

No Out of the Box Homework this week!

GROWTH MINDSET
Albert Einstein said, " I am not a genius, I only stay on a problem longer".  Perseverance is the key to success. Our children will learn in time that is is not a matter of luck, or being smart that makes us successful.  It is our hard work, consistency, and perseverance that make us successful.  We will read some wonderful children's stories such as " Whistle for Willie", "Ruby's Wish", and " A chair for My Mother" and see how the characters in these stories all wanted to achieve something.  It took a long time for each to get their wishes but eventually they all got what they wished for with their hard work.  


This week:

 READING

We will continue reading some of our favorite children's stories and practice thinking while reading.  Strong readers constantly think about what they read, They put the clues in the story together and make thoughtful predictions.  They think about the characters and not only try to remember the characters' names, but also think about their personalities.  What kind of a character is my main character? Is this character, funny? generous? friendly? scared? Thinking about the characters, setting and plot of the story will help us to have a better understanding of the story. 

Reading bags will come on Tuesday.  Remember, repeated readings help build confidence and comprehension as children practice the skills they've learned to become fluent readers!  Record the titles of the books your child reads on their Reading Log as well as the number of minutes they read! Our goal is 10 minutes each night! 

RAZ-Kids will be available for at home, leveled reading as well!  I will put your child's login information in their blue agenda folder on Tuesday! 

WRITING

We have been writing great stories/small moments about our lives.  This week, we will learn how to reread and revisit our stories and make any changes that would make our stories much better before publishing it.  We will learn to read our stories carefully to make sure our stories make sense.  In the process, sometimes we need to add to our stories and sometimes we need to take off from our stories.  We will learn to fancy up our stories, by adding to our pictures, coloring neatly and writing neatly and then publishing our stories!

MATH

This week, we will be learning about length and measurement.  We will talk about longest and shortest and longer and shorter.  In First Grade we will not use rulers to measure but instead use non-standard units of measurement such as pencils, cubes, paper clips, and etc.to measure.  We will even have a small history lesson to learn what a cubit is.  You can help your child with this skill at home by letting them measure different objects around the house.  How many steps is it from the front door to the couch?  How many pennies long is a fork?  Have fun!

SOCIAL STUDIES
This week in social studies, we will learn about life in the past and present.  We will learn how technology has changed our lives comparing to the past.  People communicate differently, have different ways of transportation, entertainment, and hold different jobs comparing to the past due to technology. 

This week in First grade...

Oct. 5-9

IMPORTANT REMINDER

*Library is TUESDAY*

Tuesday: Tuesday folders come home. Please return signed Tuesday folders every Wednesday morning.
Please make sure you check your child’s Daily Folder each night and initial the day to show me you saw the information.
Wednesday: Walk and Bike to School Day! Check in at the flagpole to help our class earn a treat!

                      PTA Dinner Night at Newk's

Thursday: 

Friday: Please return the Reading Bag and the contents today.  Homework is due today.

Monday, October 12: Student Holiday
Homework Assignment: We've been learning about types of change in Science.  We've learned and seen how heat can change a Popsicle and how taking heat away from water can make ice. Find a type of change at home and record it like a Scientist by writing about it, drawing a picture of it, making a video (upload to Google drive Homework folder) or taking a picture and email it or upload it.  

Reading Bags: They came home today with one book and a spiral notebook. 

1. Our goal is to read aloud to an adult for 10 minutes 5 nights a week!

2. Have your child read the book I selected 2-3 times aloud this week.

3. They also get to choose a book at home to read.  Free Choice! This may be one that you read together!

4. Record the title of what the child read and the number of minutes they read for on the At Home Reading Log that is glued into their notebook. 

5. At the bottom of the reading log there is a comprehension activity for the week.  Your child can complete it anytime during the week, except for this week! The activity is related to making predictions!

5. Return the bag, book and notebook on Friday!
GROWTH MINDSET
This week in growth mindset, we are going to talk about the importance of showing persevere, and being persistent.  Sometimes, when we are trying out something new, or taking a risk, things won't go our way.  We might feel we have failed and for this reason, we are afraid to try again. Starting today and for the rest of our lives, we are going to be persistent, and don't let our failures prevent us from trying again and again.  We will keep moving forward!

This week:

 READING

Reading is thinking and as we read, we will learn how to think about the story or the information we are reading about.  Readers make connections between the story and themselves.  The story might remind them of something in their own life.  We call this text to self connection.  Sometimes we can make connection between one story and another story, meaning one story reminds us of another story that we previously read.  This is called text to text connection.  And sometimes we can make connections between text and the world or something that has happened in the world.  We call this text to world connection.  These comprehension strategies will help us to understand the text better. 

WRITING

We will continue writing stories about our lives.  Last week we learned how to "zoom in" on one thing and write about a small moment in time, something in our life that happened over a small few minutes.  This week, we will practice stretching one small moment across several lines or several pages.  We will read stories or part of stories that have those moments in them and see how famous authors stretch a small moment over few pages.

MATH

This week we will continue working on addition and count on strategies.  We will use a number track and show what happens when we jump from a number one step, two steps, or zero step (count on zero).  If we jump from 13, two steps further and land on 15, the matching number sentence will be 13+2=15.  We will apply these strategies in problem solving. We will also look at the "turn around" and see that 13+2 is actually the same as 2+13.  It might look different on the number track as far as where to start, but it lands on the same number.

We've been exploring new apps for math practice after we complete our math assignment for the day. If you use some fun apps at home for math feel free to share the name of them with us! It's fun to be an "expert" and teach our friends something new!

SCIENCE

This week we will be continuing our discussion on physical changes to materials.  We learned this past week, that adding heat and removing heat cause materials to change. We will be doing more experiments this week to observe those changes first hand! We will do an experiment this week with Miss Lee where we get to observe the change in pancake batter!  We will get to taste our experiment as well!  We plan on making a video about our learning on our iPads.

Lastly, if you plan to place a Scholastic order please use the classroom code: GX2LM.  This allows me to earn points toward the purchase of new books for our classroom! THANK YOU!

This week in First grade...

Sept. 28- Oct. 2

What a week! I'm so grateful to Mr. Sparks for keeping our classroom rolling so the students could learn! I was so happy to see their sweet faces this morning instead of the boxes in my house!  The Caballeros are officially moved in and have about 7 boxes left in the house!  Now we can get back to school and concentrate on learning!  The boys and girls worked really hard last week even with our little hiccup with the technology in our classroom! We have individual pictures tomorrow!!  I placed a sticker on each child as a reminder.  If you plan on purchasing the pictures please do so by tomorrow (Tuesday).

Homework this week: We are learning about Count on Strategies.  Find an example of how you used a count on strategies at home.  An example might be when you are making dinner.  You start with 2 tablespoons of water and add 1 more (2+1=3).  You can take a picture, make a video or write it on paper! We will share our strategies on Friday during math!

IMPORTANT REMINDER

Monday: Tuesday: Individual student photos
Tuesday folders come home. Please return signed Tuesday folders every Wednesday morning.

Please make sure you check your child’s Daily Folder each night and initial the day to show me you saw the information.
Wednesday: Counselor Lesson with Mrs. Reyes

Thursday:

Friday:

Monday,October 12: Student Holiday

GROWTH MINDSET
This week in growth mindset, we are going to practice how to give each other constructive criticism.  What is the best thing to say to each other in order to improve each other's work? We will learn how to start with something positive, saying something nice about each other's work. Next, we'll say something that can be improved and then end our talk with something positive again.  " I really like how your picture and your words match in this story, you could add more words to make your story more interesting, you are such a great story teller!" 


This week:

 READING

This week we will work on a comprehension strategy; making predictions.  Reading is thinking.  As we start to read a story, we will look at the picture on the front cover, read the title and try to guess what the story is about based on the title and the picture.  When we read stories, we stop from time to time and predict what might happen next.  Sometimes our predictions are correct and sometimes they are not.  We will learn how to use all the clues in the story and things being said so far, to make the best prediction possible.

WRITING

We will continue writing stories about our lives.  This week we will learn how we can "zoom in" and write about a small moment in time with details.  Our job from here on is to discover those small moments in our lives.  A small moment happens over a few short seconds or minutes.  For example, it could be about a moment that I was riding my bike and I fell into a mud puddle and hurt my knee, or about a time that we were in the car, coming back home and we had to stop the car in the middle of the street, because a deer was standing there and wouldn't move.  We will learn how we can expand our small moment with details and write it over a few lines.  We will also use our fingers and tell our small moments across our hand so we can record the beginning, the middle and the end of our small moments.

MATH

We have been practicing how to use the number line/number track to find specific numbers and find out one more or one less.  This week, we will take that knowledge and apply it in addition. The strategies that we work on are "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. Count On strategies include Count On 1 (+1 facts), Count on 2 (+2 facts) and Count on 0 (+0 facts).  This week we will focus on Count On 0, count on 1 and turn around strategy.  If 12+1=13 then 1+12 is also 13.  We will apply this Count On strategies in problem solving.

SOCIAL STUDIES
We will continue learning about our state's symbols: The flag, Texas motto, Texas song, and the Alamo.

SCIENCE
In science we will continue learning about properties of objects.  We will also make some observations and see what happens when objects are heated or cooled.