Thirty-Fifth day of School

For the first time we recorded in our Sort Journals today and took a dictation test on 'long-a' spelled 'a_e'

The Math homework was optional tonight. Some students who were originally not going to take the homework changed their minds when they were aware that parents would be told about it. Interesting.

In Writing we brainstormed settings for our realistic fiction pieces. We began the slow process of digitally processing our personal narratives from the last unit. This is where our flash drives come in handy.

In Science we observed a collection of 7 liquids and generated a list of properties for liquids. Among our vocabulary were: bubbly, viscous, translucent, and opaque.

We listened to a selection on the life of Alexander Graham Bell. We generated several questions based on the reading:

• What was Alexander Graham Bell known for?
• Why was he interested in studying sound?
• What were some things he attempted to do when he was young?

Soon we will record our interviews about the 2 famous people we have studied.

Thirty-Fourth Day of School

Students will be bringing home their word study collections today. Your child's collection is based on their individual spelling ability levels. If you like, the words can be recut at home and y our child can show you how they sort the words into their respective categories. The words may be kept at home.

A Scholastic article is being brought home with notes taken in class. Your child should be able to retell the selection by reading their notes.

In Writing today we started our own list of problems our realistic fiction characters might have in our stories we will write.

Thirty-Third Day of School

You should find a packet of ungraded personal narrative writing work from the last 5 weeks of school being sent home. Things to look for as you review work:

• Stories with a clear beginning which tells who, where, and when
• A story which tells two or more details of a single event being told in a logical order
• Stories with closure
• Time order words (next, then)
• Black ink writing with blue revisions and red ink editing (some children may have chosen blue or red pencil)
• Punctuation at the end of sentences and personal pronoun 'I's' and proper nouns capitalized.

For Health we discussed making wise decisions. The criteria for making a wise decision :

• Is it healthful?
• Is it safe?
• Does it follow laws?
• Does it show respect for others?
• Does it follow family rules?
• Does it show good character?  

Homework Reminder

As discussed at Back-to-School, homework will not be returned unless corrections need to be made. If this is the case, have your child make the necessary corrections and return the corrected homework to class.

Thirty-First Day of School

Today we took our personal narrative Writing test. Our next writing unit will be realistic fiction.

Unsatisfactory notices will be sent this week. This notice is for parent information only. It does not need to be discussed with your child. The good news is that for the first time ever, no notices will need to be sent for the subject of Math. Keep in mind these notices are only for those subjects which have been assessed to date (Writing, Reading, and Math). Bear in mind, the reading notification is for measurements which do not necessarily reflect instruction for the present school year. They are basically an indication of where your child may be beginning the year relative to beginning of the year standards for first grade. You will receive an unsatisfactory notice for your child's reading scores if they performed below standard on 2 or more beginning of the year reading assessments.

We began word sorting exercises today based 3 different student ability levels. We also took an in-depth look at the 'long-a' sound spelled 'a_e' (bake, take).

In Music, we discussed the elements of a song with an emphasis on beat (rhythm to be discussed soon).

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.

Twenty-Ninth Day of School

In Writing today we began "publishing" our best personal narrative.

New Reading logs were sent home today.