Unit 3 Week 4 Preview

We will be discussing how we can be creative and resourceful and likewise how the characters in our selections exhibit these characteristics and what it is that inspires them. Our vocabulary words for this week are create, hobby, inspire, resourceful, structure. Among our selections this week is a fantasy by Harry Horse called A Friend for Little Bear, in which a resourceful toy bear learns the importance of friends over collecting possessions. Another selection is Karen Lynn Williams' story Galimoto about a resourceful child in Africa who has to make his own toys from found objects.

Our comprehension strategy will be making inferences in order to draw conclusions, our comprehension skill. Our sight words will be after done, find, old, new, work.

We will continue with final silent 'e' long vowel spellings for the remaining vowels along with open syllable long vowels as well as the remaining stanza of our vowel poem.

In Science we will be continue our unit on weather by taking a look and experimenting with air pressure.

In Visual Arts we will continue our study of line as an element of art.

In Social Science we will discuss using maps to find our way around town.

In P.E. we will work on strength exercises and learn strategies and skills for the fast paced game of 4-square.

Seventy-Fourth Day of School

Reminder: school shoes should be fastened with ties or a Velcro strap. Socks should be worn everyday.

First graders are being asked to wear black (dark) pants and a red or green shirt for Friday's performance.

In Science we discussed air and wind. We discussed several things that wind can do (push, make noise). We used wind to move a variety of objects.

FYI: A book was read about Santa Mouse (a treasury from childhood) to the children. A child asked (as is always the case) after the second story was finished, 'Are you sure that's true?' Hmm....So the legend goes, that if you should happen to find a small (tiny) gift tucked somewhere in your tree, perhaps tied with a yellow bow, then you will know that Santa Mouse has been to your house. *Shrugs* I don't know, it's just what I've heard. Who knows how these stories get started? But maybe all first graders should check the branches of their trees on Christmas morning just to make sure.

Unit 3 Week 2 Preview

This week we ask the question: What do family members do with one another to have fun? Our comprehension skill focus will be to make and confirm predictions using the strategy of analyzing story structure. We will take a brief look at alliteration (consonance). We will continue our exploration with long vowel spellings in particular: long vowel-u spelled 'i_e' (bike, strike) and 'open syllable with i' (pilot, diver). In grammar we will examine present-tense verbs.

Our oral vocabulary words are typical, possessions, connections, relief, and support. Our high-frequency words are call, funny, how, more, so, there.

As you read with your child at home, please continue to predict and confirm as you read (What do you think will happen? Do you think Goldilocks will get caught?). When finishing a fiction selection or chapter, ask your child to confirm predictions and summarize what happened. When reading a nonfiction selection, have your child state the main idea and details.

In Writing, we will begin to revise our procedural pieces.

As part of this unit, we will collect favorite riddles for our "Riddle Wall." Students may wish to share riddles that they may have read or heard at home and write the questions for other students to guess on the wall. Last year, some students had time to make a riddle book.

We may begin learning and memorizing our vowel poem this week, time permitting.

In Social Science we will continue to compare the past and the present. We will also work towards understanding our location in the world while learning the continents and the oceans (tested). We will compare globes and maps.

In Visual Art, we will begin our exploration of the basic elements of art beginning with line.

In Drama, we are combining all the skills we have learned so far to tell a story using dialogue.

For one of our PE lessons we will practice tossing and catching.

Fifty-Second Day of School

The 5 candidates for Class President delivered their speeches today. tomorrow we will vote by secret ballot.

Reminder: School shoes should be secured to foot by either a lace or Velcro strap.

Unit 2 Week 1 Preview

Our weekly themes in this second unit will center around our families and our neighbors, (having already examined ourselves) our abilities and our growth. Our last idea about teams was that families are the most important kind of team. This week, we will explore the idea of families taking care of each other. Our oral vocabulary words are guide, protect, provide, separate, wild. Our sight words are her, our, they, two. Our comprehension strategy this week will be to focus on summarizing a selection. We learn to summarize by developing the skill of distinguishing main ideas from details. Summarizing a selection is a different skill than a retell. Where a retell would be to tell a story in our own words with as much interesting detail as possible, a summary isolates only the most important ideas answering the basic questions of who? what? where? when? why? and perhaps how? This story is about a girl walking in the forest who seeks food and rest in the home of 3 bears. In phonics and spelling, will take a more detailed look at some long vowel spellings this week beginning with 'a_e'  (cane) and 'i_e' (ride) along with inflectional ending '-ed'. In grammar we will discuss sentence subjects and nouns.

In Writing we will test our understanding of the genre personal narrative and begin work on the genre realistic fiction.

For Social Science we will continue comparing and contrasting the past with the present (HSS 1.1.4) (tested). We will examine photos of schools long ago.

In Science we will begin our exploration of liquids.

In PE we will combine several skills practiced so far to play a fast-paced, high-energy game of sockball.

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.

Twenty-Fifth Day of School

For your information: Friday afternoons are set aside for Science lessons and there is no make-up. There is often no make-up for math tests either due to the time required to administer. In order to leave time for the Science lesson today, the Math test was cut short and will be continued on Monday.

Reminder: Students should wear socks every day with shoes that either tie or close with Velcro. Shoes with elastic straps are insufficient for safety in our P.E. lessons.

Nice to see familiar faces at our Arts Family Night tonight.

Unit 1 Week 4

During week 4 we will tread lightly on the subject of pets. We will read/listen to various selections about pets including a nonfiction selection about White House Pets. Our oral vocabulary words are adorable, dear, needs, sensible, and train. We will continue the comprehension strategy of analyzing story structure using the skill of recognizing parts of the plot. Our sight words will be come, down, good, pull. In spelling we will focus on words having an initial consonant blend with the letter 'l' (fl-, pl-, cl-).

In Social Science we will discuss traditions in a variety of contexts, for example, the classroom, community, and family. (HSS 1.5.1) We will also begin comparing the past with the present (tested) reading a nonfiction selection titled Learn About the Past. 

This week we will test for and comprehension and the first chapter in Math.

In P.E. we will be learning to cooperate as a team to accomplish a goal.

Preview Unit 1 Week 3

In this week's instruction we focus on  how we will change and how we have changed as we grow. If your child would like to bring in a photo showing themselves as a baby, we could display these and guess who they grew into. We will also explore how animals change as they grow. We will draw conclusions about animals that change greatly and those that may only change in size as they mature. We will analyze text for character, setting, and plot. We will focus on spelling patterns: -in, -it, -iss. Our oral vocabulary words will be change, adult, learn, imitate, and practice. Our reading sight words will be be, ride, and run. In grammar we will distinguish between statements and questions.

In Writing, we will begin the revision portion of our process.

In Social Science, we will discuss the difference between rights and responsibilities and what they mean for United States citizenship (HSS 1.1).

In Math we will continue our work with chapter 1.

In Health we will continue our overview of the concept of "good health."

In Science we continue comparing properties of various solids. We use our insight into these properties to perform an investigation.

In Drama we will begin our work on tableau.

In PE we will begin to work with team members to accomplish goals. Due to weather considerations we may have indoor PE on Monday and Tuesday.

Fourteenth Day of School

Instead of continuing on to the revision process, we restarted the writing process to develop a second story for drafting. We will then have at least more than one piece from which to choose for the revising process.

We read a pattern book about moving and generated a list of movement words. We sang a song in English and Spanish about moving and music.

We learned a partner moving game and took our P.E. indoors.

Preview Unit 1 Week 2

During week 2 we discuss how physical activity is an important part of our lives. We learn how activity keeps our bodies healthy and strong. Our oral vocabulary words are movement, energy, express, exhausted, and stretch. Our sight words are: it, over, too. We will analyze story structure to discover selections with patterned text. Examples of famous patterned text are Monday, Monday, I like Monday (Bill Martin Jr.), and The Important Book (Margaret Wise Brown). Ask your librarian for other examples. Patterned texts often become bedtime favorites and re-reading them is a good way to build fluency. We will not often use a patterned text for retelling purposes. We will read the West African folktale The Great Rope Tug and diagram the story together using a Flow Map to highlight the beginning, middle, and end. We will continue to encode and decode single syllable words with short vowels (a, e, i). We will listen to rhyme, movement, and rhythm in poetry.

In Social Science we will look briefly to the original people of Australia and learn that a tradition is a special way of doing something. often repeated annually that becomes part of a people's culture.

For discussion: What is a tradition? What traditions does your family share?

For Math we will continue our exploration of addition.

In Science, we will continue our exploration of matter. We will focus on solids by identifying various properties of solids.

In PE we will continue with balance.

Thirteenth Day of School

Today we learned two tested concepts. The first was a Social Science and Science combined concept of wants vs. needs (tested). We discovered that in order to survive, humans (and other living creatures) need in this order:

• Air
• Water
• Food
• Shelter
• Clothing
• Companionship

In Science we learned that there are are 3 forms/states of matter:

• Solid
• Liquid
• Gas

We learned that one form can be transformed into another form by adding or removing heat (tested).

We listened to the fable Town Mouse and Country Mouse whose moral was that everyone has different preferences.

We read a fantasy called Pam and Sam and learned that our abilities are a part of what makes us unique.

In Writing, we began the drafting process of our first personal narrative (CCSS 1.W.3). Next week we will begin the revision process.

In P.E. we practiced techniques of handball.

In Math we reinforced the idea that numbers can be deconstructed in more than one way. We did not take home homework.

Next week we will take our first publisher's math test.

Unit One Week 1 Preview

As a part of our theme: What Makes Us Special, our focus questions are: What do we like to do, and how do the things we like to do make us special? We will discover that the things we like to do help to make us who we are. Our vocabulary words for the week are cheerful, interest, unique, prefer, and genuine. We will analyze story structure for the beginning, middle, and end (comprehension strategy). We learn that this is the way that most realistic fiction stories are structured and that good readers pay attention to these parts (R 1.3.1). We will also pay special attention to the characters and setting of stories (comprehension skill). In phonics we will blend words and identify rhymes with short 'a' and short 'i'. Our reading sight words for the week are jump, not, up. In grammar we will discuss how a sentence tells a whole idea. We will continue with our Unit Project. We will analyze the structure of the fairy tale, The Princess and the Pea. We will analyze how an author develops character by what they say and do. In writing we discuss and practice how using describing words adds detail and interest. We will listen to the fable, Town Mouse and Country Mouse, and discover how preferences make characters unique. We will read an informational text and use structure to deduce main idea.

In Math we will continue with strategies for addition and model making (CCSS 1.OA.1 & 2)

In Science we will make a connection between what we have been learning in music and what we know about Alexander Graham Bell and discuss the discipline of acoustical science and engineering. In life science we discuss basic needs of people and animals using the vocabulary: shelter, energy.

In Writing we will continue with ways to come up with a topic as well as how to plan a personal narrative.

In P.E. we will work on balance.

• How are you different than other people in your family/class? How is your family different than other families?
• What are the states of matter?
• What does an animal need in order to survive? 

Eighth Day of School

In Math, the important concept was that the equals symbol (=) means: the same as (CCSS 1.OA.7). Additionally, students should also understand that a + b = c can be stated as c = a + b and because of the commutative property a + b = b + a (CCSS 1.OA.3).

In P.E. we learned basic handball rules.

Seventh Day of School

On the Math homework, have your child create their own part-part-whole (PPW) model for question number 7.

In P.E. today, we finished learning our first class dance.

Fifth Day of School

Thanks to those parents who have returned their homework already. I will speak more to that tomorrow evening. Reminder: Folders and Memorable Moment Lists are due tomorrow.

Today we discussed the structure of narratives. We learned that most narratives have a beginning (which often answer the questions of who, where, and when), a middle (containing the basic plot or conflict/problem), and the end (resolution).

We continued work on our Unit Project.

There was homework tonight. Students are to complete the reverse side of the classwork. The last question should be answered in a complete sentence.

We completed our 4th violence prevention lesson today.

In P.E. we worked on moving in open space and maintaining personal space. We moved in high middle and low space in 3 speeds using different locomotion.

Reminder: Tomorrow night is Back-to-School night.

Second Day of School

Today we continued with letter formation and began phonics review. We have begun our initial battery of reading tests. Soon we will begin Math and Writing assessments. We began our first Unit Project which will be to author a book about ourselves.

In Math we worked on another constructed response. A larger number of students were able to accomplish this task with greater success. the question was:

There are 3 students sitting at a table. How many fingers do all of the students have in total. Show how you arrived at your solution . Write a math equation.

We continued our violence prevention training. In P.E. today we learned the beginning of our first dance for the year.

You should should find in your child's possession a yellow folder with which to complete the 2nd parent homework assignment.

Thank you to those parents who were able to complete the numerous forms brought home yesterday. All of the forms were returned by a majority of the students. Thank you as well to the parents who have already donated supplies to the classroom.