Optional At-Home Project: Speech Contest

Due Date: Open

The 1st grade will be hosting the Citizen of the Month Assembly at the end of February. One child from the 1st grade classes will be chosen to read an essay they have written on the subject of sportsmanship. All students wishing to be considered for reading a speech to the student body at the end of the February need to submit an essay to their teacher by Friday, February 12. A winning essay/student will be chosen by the 1st grade teachers. Parents of that child will be notified so they can make plans to be at the assembly. This is good public speaking experience and an excellent opportunity for video memories.

Fifty-First Day of School

Today we discussed high and low notes in music and how different tones are made. We also discussed the song element of melody.

Tomorrow we will do our first round of filming. those wishing to run for class president or take part in the interviews should not wear any green tomorrow.

On Wednesday we will take the periodic math assessment.

Unit 2 Week 4 Preview

Continuing our exploration of families and neighbors, we ask the question: what is a home? Our oral vocabulary words are collapse, company, construct, entire, and material. Our high-frequency focus words are again, could, make, one, then, three. Our grammar rule will be proper nouns and capitalization. In phonics and spelling we will tackle the complicated idea of the open-syllable long-vowel spelling beginning with 'long-a'.

Reminders:

Every year Room 11 has the tradition of electing a class president. This supports the government portion of our Social Science standards. Those students interested in running for Room 11 Class President 2014-15 will work on a speech at home to be delivered to the class on November 3, 2015. Speeches will be filmed using chroma key technology and saved to flash drives.

Students who would like to have their videos edited, will make sure they are not wearing any shade of green in any part of their outfit.

On this day we will also try to film our expert interviews. Those students wanting their interviews to be edited will also need to remember not to wear green on that Monday. Make sure to practice these and these questions to improve oral fluency.

Thirty-Sixth Day of School

We will likely take a mid-chapter test in Math on Wednesday. The district Math assessment questions will be finalized this week. Optional practice questions will be posted soon. If you would like to have your child's practice-test work reviewed before the assessment, have your child bring it to school along with their regular homework assignment.

In Social Science we compared the past with the present. In particular how many items (toys, candles, horseshoes) were made made by hand (tested).

For Oral Language we practiced our interview skills on the subject of Roberto Clemente.

Twenty-Seventh Day of School

In Writing we revised for closure (CCSS W.1.3).

We listened to a selection on Roberto Clemente and generated the following questions on his life:

1. Where was Roberto Clemente born?
2. What was Roberto Clemente known for?
3. What kind of person was Roberto Clemente?
4. How did Roberto Clemente die?
5. How was Roberto Clemente honored following his death?

Additionally:

• What did Roberto Clemente want to accomplish in Puerto Rico?

Unit 1 Week 5 Preview

We close out the unit discussing what we like to do with our friends and what we can accomplish with teamwork. Our oral vocabulary words are challenging, charity, admire, focus, offer. We will read, discuss, and generate question for a non-fiction selection about baseball and humanitarian great, Roberto Clemente. We will use our generated questions to conduct expert interviews about Roberto Clemente. Our sight words are help, now, use, very. We will develop our skill of identifying the author's purpose to develop the comprehension strategy of analyzing text structure. We will analyze texts where authors use description to give information. We will focus on final consonant blends (eg. -nk, -nt, -sk, -st, etc.) for decoding, and spelling.

For Social Science we will discuss the significance of Independence Day (HSS 1.3.2) and some national iconic symbols (HSS 1.3.3) (tested).

In P.E. we will be using teamwork to accomplish various goals as well as chasing and learning base running.

In Science we continue our exploration of matter with an investigation of liquids.