The Bear Cave

Reading

In reading this week, we will be looking at theme and inferring with two stories by Patricia Polacco. The students will be asked some higher level questions with each of these stories in which they have to infer answers to those questions. They will also be looking at the story elements in those stories, as well as reviewing cause and effect again. One of the stories that we will be reading this week is perfect for cause and effect.  If you would like to read more about Patricia Polacco, please visit her website by clicking here.

In phonics this week, we will continue to work with the vowel dipthongs /au/ and /aw/ and discuss the sound that can be made from those dipthongs. The students will also be introduced to the prefixes /un-/ and /re-/ this week and we will talk about what clues those two prefixes give us when we are reading. The students will also take their final phonics assessment of the year this week in which they will be able to showcase what they have learned in phonics this year.

Math

In math this week, we will work with the following concepts in Unit 10: solving comparison number stories in which they will be finding change; reviewing What’s My Rule tables and Number Grid Puzzles; reviewing the names and characteristics of polygons and 3-D shapes; and reviewing reading temperatures off of thermometers.  Please remember to continue working with What’s My Rule tables. Click here for a template of What’s My Rule? tables.  Remember that you can see your son/daughter’s short cycle assessment results on Progress Book. With it being the beginning of the fourth quarter, please take a moment to check out the fourth quarter secure and developing skills for math by clicking here.

Writing

In writing this week, we will be wrapping up our Poetry Anthologies. Most of the students are finished with typing and have printed their poems. Some of the students have chosen to add illustrations to their poems, so they will need to work on that as well as their covers this week. In addition to poetry, we will be working on animal fantasy fiction stories this week. This will be the genre for the students’ last writing assessment of the year as well.

Other

The students will not be checking out library books this week. They will just be returning the books they checked out last week.

Track and Field Day has been rescheduled for Wednesday of this week due to the rain that has been forecasted for tomorrow. Please remember to send your son/daughter to school in appropriate clothing for the day (gym shoes). Also, a water bottle and sunscreen would be a good idea as well.

Reminders

We will have a Fire Drill this Friday. I would assume it will be the final drill of the year.

Report cards are available online. Please let me know if you have any questions after reading over your son/daughter’s report card.

Please remember to check out the first grade calendar for important dates.

Please remember to bring back those library books on Tuesday. If you happen to forget, please remember that each book is 5 cents for each day that it is late.

Reading

We will be exploring a few stories by Patricia Polacco this week that have animals as main characters. We will be looking at retelling these stories this week by focusing on the important events and making sure that we sequence those events correctly. The students will also be extending their understanding of the story events this week by responding to the story that we will be reading later on this week. We will be looking at making sure that we are supporting our opinions with evidence from the story as we respond to the story. If you would like to read more about Patricia Polacco, please visit her website by clicking here.

In phonics this week, we will introduce the students to the vowel dipthongs /au/ and /aw/ and discuss the sound that can be made from those dipthongs. We will also begin talking about using what we know about vowel patterns from this year to spell compound words with those irregular vowel patterns. Finally, we will be reviewing rhyming words and compound words.

Math

In math this week, we will work with the following concepts in Unit 10: writing time in digital notation; reviewing What’s My Rule tables and number stories involving fractions; showing money amounts with coins and solving number stories that involve money; and solving comparison number stories that involve money.  Please remember to continue working with What’s My Rule tables. Click here for a template of What’s My Rule? tables.  Remember that you can see your son/daughter’s short cycle assessment results on Progress Book. With it being the beginning of the fourth quarter, please take a moment to check out the fourth quarter secure and developing skills for math by clicking here.

Writing

In writing this week, we will continue working on our poetry unit of study. The students are doing an excellent job as they are publishing some of their favorite poems in Google Docs. We talked about how they can either illustrate their poems with their own illustrations, or they can search for images that go with each of their respective poems. Most of the students are very excited about inserting images in their poems and they are finding excellent photos that represent their poems well. I hope to finish typing poems by the end of this week so that we can focus on any illustrating that we need next week.

Other

We are keeping the darkling beetles around for now, but we are basically finished observing the beetles. I have lost out to the other first grade teachers, so it looks like we will not be getting a second insect to study with all of the things we have coming up in May.

Also, this is the last week to check out library books at school.

Reminders

I will be at District Office on Tuesday and Wednesday for Curriculum Mapping. There will be a sub for both of those days. Please contact the office if you need to get a message to the sub.

We have started Junior Achievement this week. Natalie’s grandma has graciously volunteered to teach our class this year. We are very excited and grateful to her for this awesome experience.

Report cards are available online. Please let me know if you have any questions after reading over your son/daughter’s report card.

Please remember to check out the first grade calendar for important dates.

Please remember to bring back those library books on Tuesday. If you happen to forget, please remember that each book is 5 cents for each day that it is late.

Reading

We will be exploring a few stories by Patricia Polacco this week that will help us understand main idea and supporting details better. One of the stories this week will talk about a family quilt that is passed down from generation to generation in Patricia Polacco’s family. We will also be reading a story about how a meteor landed in Patricia’s town when she was growing up. The people in the town thought that the meteor gave them all magical powers. The students will be writing about what powers they would want if they were able to touch this magical meteor. If you would like to read more about Patricia Polacco, please visit her website by clicking here.

In phonics this week, we will introduce the students to the vowel dipthongs /oi/ and /oy/ and discuss the sound that can be made from those dipthongs. We will also begin talking about suffixes this week and focus on the suffixes /er/ and /or/ and what those suffixes mean at the end of words. We will also spend some time reviewing antonyms this week as well.

Math

In math this week, we will review concepts that were introduced in Unit 9, as well as beginning Unit 10. In Unit 10, we will discuss the following concepts: creating and interpreting information from graphs, as well as reviewing number stories and fractions. Please remember to continue working with What’s My Rule tables. Click here for a template of What’s My Rule? tables.  Remember that you can see your son/daughter’s short cycle assessment results on Progress Book. With it being the beginning of the fourth quarter, please take a moment to check out the fourth quarter secure and developing skills for math by clicking here.

Writing

In writing this week, we will continue working on our poetry unit of study. We will be writing our final poem of the year this week. The students will be writing bio-poems about themselves. There is a template that they will be following to help them with this poem. The students have also begun selecting their two favorite poems from each type that we wrote to publish in their poetry anthologies. I hope to begin typing some of these poems later on this week. This will depend on the availability of the computers on those days, however.

Other

The darkling beetles are emerging like wildfire in Room 16 this week. The students were very excited to see these new insects and would anxiously check their individual vials when they came into the classroom each day. We all observed a darkling beetle on Friday and recorded what we observed in our journals. We talked about how the beetles have all of the body parts that make it an insect and we also talked about how darkling beetles are different from some of the common beetles that we are used to seeing like lightning bugs and ladybugs. The students also had some great questions about mealworms and darkling beetles that I still have to Google to try and find out.

Reminders

We will be starting Junior Achievement this week. Natalie’s grandma has graciously volunteered to teach our class this year. We are very excited and grateful to her for this awesome experience.

Report cards are available online. Please let me know if you have any questions after reading over your son/daughter’s report card.

Please remember to check out the first grade calendar for important dates.

Please remember to bring back those library books on Tuesday. If you happen to forget, please remember that each book is 5 cents for each day that it is late.

Reading

After reading about the relationship of Richie and Trisha last week as young children, we will get a glimpse of their relationship as older children this week. I think the students are going to find that there has not been much that has changed in the big brother ways of Richie. We are going to continue making connections with this story, as well as looking at which events in the story are important and which events are just funny. We will also be comparing and contrasting the two stories that have Richie and Trisha as characters. Towards the end of the week, we will read a different story by Patricia and talk about the different settings that were in the story. We will also be talking about using adjectives to describe those various settings. If you would like to read more about Patricia Polacco, please visit her website by clicking here.

In phonics this week, we will continue talking with the students about the vowel dipthong /oo/ and discuss the two different sounds that can be made from the dipthong. In addition to some review with pronouns, we will also be working on making new words this week by adding and removing phonemes at the end of words. We will also talk about adding endings to base words that have a silent /e/ at the end. We will also be taking one of our quarterly phonics assessments this week.

Math

In math this week, we will talk about the following Unit 9 concepts: understanding fractional parts of the whole, reviewing digital time and writing subtraction number stories, comparing fractions, and talking about equivalent names for fractions.  Please remember to continue working with What’s My Rule tables. Click here for a template of What’s My Rule? tables.  Remember that you can see your son/daughter’s short cycle assessment results on Progress Book. With it being the beginning of the fourth quarter, please take a moment to check out the fourth quarter secure and developing skills for math by clicking here.

Writing

In writing this week, we will continue working on our poetry unit of study. The students continue to do an excellent job with their poetry writing and sharing. They are also doing a great job of helping each other come up with ideas for parts of their poems when they are stuck. This week we will be concluding our poetry writing by working on acrostic poems and bio-poems. We will also be working on a fourth quarter writing assessment this week. The students will be writing question sentences that they have about second grade and trying to answer some of those questions.

Again, with each type of poem that we write, I will start with examples from past students, then we will write a poem together. Next, the students will have the opportunity to write on their own, and finally we will share some of our poems that we wrote that day.

Other

The mealworms continue to be an exciting part of Room 16, for most students that is. It seems that Room 16 has the slow changing mealworms, as every other classroom has beetles at this point. I am hoping that by Monday we might have a few beetles of our own. As I have mentioned to the students, just like people, insects grow and change at different rates and speeds. We talked about the pupa stage last week and how we do not have to worry about feeding the mealworms when they are in the pupa stage. The students found it interesting that some of the mealworms were still moving a little when they were in the pupa stage. We also talked about how we have to be very careful with the mealworms when they are in this special stage. Again our observations are focusing on anything that has changed with our mealworms, as opposed to writing the same observations each week.

Reminders

This Wednesday is a Delayed Start. Students may arrive at 9:30.

Report cards are available online. Please let me know if you have any questions after reading over your son/daughter’s report card.

Please remember to check out the first grade calendar for important dates.

Please remember to bring back those library books on Tuesday. If you happen to forget, please remember that each book is 5 cents for each day that it is late.

Reading

While we will be spending a bit of our reading comprehension time these next few weeks on poetry writing, we will also begin our next author’s study. We will begin reading our final author of the year, Patricia Polacco. If you are not familiar with any of Patricia’s stories, you should consider checking a few of them out from the library. She has wonderful messages throughout all of her stories and the students are able to make excellent connections with the characters and events in the stories. The students also enjoy how most of her stories are based on events from her own childhood, or events of people in her family. If you would like to read more about Patricia Polacco, please visit her website by clicking here.

This week, we will be reading a story about a rotten older brother who is always trying to do things better than Patricia. The students enjoy the sibling rivalry humor in these stories and find it very easy to make meaningful connections with the characters and events. We will also be reviewing story elements with this story and focus on how thinking about what Patricia did to try to outdo her brother will help retell the important events in the story.

In phonics this week, we will continue talking with the students about the vowel dipthongs /ou/ and /ow/ and discussing the different sounds those dipthongs can make. We will also be doing quite a bit of work this week with changing the beginning or ending sounds in a given word to create a new word. This is a great activity to help them start to notice similarities in words, which is one of our fundamental reading strategies. The students will also be introduced to pronouns and how good readers and writers use pronouns correctly. We will also be reviewing identifying the number of syllables in words as well this week.

Math

In math this week, we will talk about the following Unit 9 concepts: solving number grid puzzles; reviewing telling time and what’s my rule tables; adding and subtracting 2-digit numbers; and engaging in explorations that will involve capacity, symmetry, and heights.  Please remember to continue working with What’s My Rule tables. Click here for a template of What’s My Rule? tables.  Remember that you can see your son/daughter’s short cycle assessment results on Progress Book. With it being the beginning of the fourth quarter, please take a moment to check out the fourth quarter secure and developing skills for math by clicking here.

Writing

In writing this week, we will continue working on our poetry unit of study. The students really did a great job before the break with taking risks with the poems that they were writing. After reviewing list poems, which we did not get to spend a lot of time with before break, we will introduce the students to the following poems: If only or I wonder poems, in which the students pretend to talk to something in nature and ask it questions; 5W poems, in which the students have a line for the poem that follows the format who, what, when, where, and why; and then animal parts of speech poems, in which the students think of an animal and write words for the various parts of speech that pertain to that animal.

Again, with each type of poem that we write, I will start with examples from past students, then we will write a poem together. Next, the students will have the opportunity to write on their own, and finally we will share some of our poems that we wrote that day.

Other

The mealworms continue to be an exciting part of Room 16, for most students that is. Many of the students were very concerned because their mealworms were not very active during our observations before break. In fact, many of the students were under the impression that their mealworms were dead. I reminded the students of what a dead mealworm looks like and told them that we would have to wait and see what happens after break. I anticipate that most of our mealworms will be in the pupa stage. Two of our scientists noticed that their mealworms were already in the pupa stage, so we talked a little about that stage in case we missed it over break. I do not anticipate any adult mealworms yet, but there is always a possibility. More on that to come! Again our observations are focusing on anything that has changed with our mealworms, as opposed to writing the same observations each week.

Reminders

I hope that everyone enjoyed their Spring Break as much as we did. We spent a lot of time doing some yard work and cleaning around the house, as well as spending lots of time with family. We also found some time to take Gavin on his first trip to the bowling alley where he bowled a whopping 54 without gutters! We also managed to pick one of the coldest days of the year to head down to a Reds‘ game, but it was well worth it when the Reds won in walk-off fashion and Gavin was able to run the bases on the small ball field outside the stadium.

Report cards are available online. Please let me know if you have any questions after reading over your son/daughter’s report card.

Please remember to check out the first grade calendar for important dates.

Please remember to bring back those library books on Tuesday. If you happen to forget, please remember that each book is 5 cents for each day that it is late.

Reading

We will be concluding our fairy tale unit of study this week. We will be reading Jack and the Beanstalk and talking about the story elements and plot of the story, as well as looking at the characteristics of a fairy tale and determining which characteristics we can find in the story. Towards the end of the week, the students will be working on a star job in which they pick a fairy tale that we have read to create a brochure for. They will be including the characters in the fairy tale, as well as a retelling of the important events from the beginning, middle, and end of the story. Also, we will be completing our unit of study by creating fairy tale character riddles and trying to solve each others riddles.

In phonics this week, we will be talking with the students about the vowel dipthongs /ou/ and /ow/ and discussing the different sounds those dipthongs can make. We will also be doing quite a bit of work this week with changing the beginning or ending sounds in a given word to create a new word. This is a great activity to help them start to notice similarities in words, which is one of our fundamental reading strategies. We will also begin looking at words that end in a consonant + le and talking about what those words have in common.

Math

In math this week, we will begin by reviewing the different concepts that we have been learning about in Unit 8. We also have to finish up our latest explorations that we did not get finished with towards the end of last week. We will also begin Unit 9 by talking about the following concepts: counting by 1s and 10s on the number grid and adding and subtracting by 10s. These two lessons in Unit 9 help the students begin to become proficient in adding and subtracting 2-digit numbers.  Please remember to continue working with What’s My Rule tables. Click here for a template of What’s My Rule? tables.  Remember that you can see your son/daughter’s short cycle assessment results on Progress Book. With it being the beginning of the fourth quarter, please take a moment to check out the fourth quarter secure and developing skills for math by clicking here.

Writing

In writing this week, we are beginning our Poetry Unit of Study. Since April is National Poetry Month, the students in first grade are going to become immersed in poetry writing. We will be talking about many different types of poems and the students will be writing their own poems. We will be working towards creating a poetry anthology by the end of the month, in which the students will be publishing at least one poem in each of the different formats/types that we will be talking about.

We will be starting this week by introducing the students to poetry and talking about what they already know about poetry. Then we will expose the students to free verse poems and show examples of free verse poems that have been written by other first graders. We will be concentrating on using less words to say more, ending our poems with a bang, and thinking of engaging titles for our poems. Towards the end of the week, we will be working on Awesome Adjective/List Poems, in which the students will think of an item that they can list a lot of something with (pizza for example) and then many different adjectives that they can use to describe that item.

With each type of poem that we write, I will start with examples from past students, then we will write a poem together. Next, the students will have the opportunity to write on their own, and finally we will share some of our poems that we wrote that day.

Other

The mealworms continue to be an exciting part of Room 16, for most students that is. We talked last week about molting, as some of our scientists noticed that there was skin present in their vials. Some of the students thought they added a new mealworm. Unfortunately, we have also had some scientists lose their mealworm to an early death. We have talked about how that can happen when we are investigating living things like plants and insects. We will continue observing our mealworms this week and recording our observations. Our observations are focusing on anything that has changed with our mealworms, as opposed to writing the same observations each week.

Reminders

Our field trip to Children’s Theater to see Rapunzel  was a HUGE success. The students were very well behaved and represented Dulles wonderfully. When we got back to school (a little later than expected due to our buses being one of the last ones called) the students completed comparison webs in which they looked at the similarities and differences of the play and the story. You can see these webs by clicking here.

Spring Break begins this Friday, April 6th. School will resume on Monday, April 16th.

Report cards are available online. Please let me know if you have any questions after reading over your son/daughter’s report card.

Please remember to check out the first grade calendar for important dates.

Please remember to bring back those library books on Tuesday. If you happen to forget, please remember that each book is 5 cents for each day that it is late.

Reading

As we continue our fairy tale discussion in reading this week, we are going to be reading three fairy tales and looking at the characteristics that we find in each of the fairy tales. Rapunzel is one of the stories that we will be reading and we will completing a comparison activity with the book and play after the field trip. The students will also be thinking about the good and evil characters in each of the fairy tales and talking about the evidence they have for considering those characters good and evil.

Since last week was supposed to be a review week for phonics, as it was the end of the quarter, we are going to be reviewing some of the phonics skills that we have been working on the past few weeks.  We will also be working more with long /u/ vowel patterns and talking about the different ways that we can see that vowel sound.

Math

In math this week, we will discuss the following Unit 8 concepts:  beginning to develop and understanding of fractional parts of the whole; finding fractional parts for a collection of things; and explorations involving exploring the relationship between fractions and multiples, naming fractional parts of regions, and practicing math facts . Please remember to continue working with What’s My Rule tables. Click here for a template of What’s My Rule? tables.  Remember that you can see your son/daughter’s short cycle assessment results on Progress Book. With it being the beginning of the fourth quarter, please take a moment to check out the fourth quarter secure and developing skills for math by clicking here.

Writing

In writing this week, the students are going to be working in small groups on adding the words to the wordless fairy tale Deep in the Forest. We will be reading/looking at the illustrations on Monday and then the students will be planning on what they want to write for each of the pages. I think the students are going to be very excited to add the words to another version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Please make sure that you continue to talk with your son/daughter about capitalization and punctuation in their writing. The students do well with these skills early on in their writing, but they often get a little careless with these skills as their writing progresses.

Other

As you may have heard, the mealworms have arrived in Room 16, as well as the other first grade classrooms. We were busy talking about the needs of the mealworms and talking about how we can make sure that we met all of their needs. Each student has been given two mealworms to keep in a vial to observe. While some of the students were not as eager as others to partake in this investigation, we did have everyone hold the mealworm for at least two seconds. Part of the goal of this investigation is to get the students/scientists to realize that insects can be completely harmless and there is nothing to be afraid of. For some of the students, this part takes a few weeks. This week, the students will complete their first official observation and record their findings.

Reminders

Our field trip to Children’s Theater to see Rapunzel is this Thursday (3/29). Please make sure you have your son/daughter pack lunch that day. Also, please make sure your son/daughter is on time that day, as the bus is leaving promptly at 9:10.

This Wednesday (3/28) is a Delayed Start. Students may arrive at 9:30.

Report cards will be available this Friday (3/30). Please let me know if you have any questions after reading over your son/daughter’s report card.

Please remember to check out the first grade calendar for important dates.

Please remember to bring back those library books on Tuesday. If you happen to forget, please remember that each book is 5 cents for each day that it is late.

Reading

In preparation for our field trip at the end of the month, we will begin a Fairy Tale study that will span the next two weeks. In addition to discussing the various characteristics of a fairy tale, we will also be examining cause and effect as it occurs in the fairy tales. This week, we are going to focus our attention on the fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We will be reading three different versions of the fairy tale this week and discussing the characteristics as they occur in those fairy tales. We will also be comparing and contrasting the different versions of the story. Towards the end of the week, the students will be writing their own ending of the fairy tale.

In phonics, we are going to be looking at the suffixes -ly and -ful and talk about what clues those suffixes can give us when we are trying to determine what words mean as we read. We will also be working more with long /u/ vowel patterns and talking about the different ways that we can see that vowel sound.

Math

In math this week, we will discuss the following Unit 8 concepts:  making change by counting up, beginning to talk about fractions with equal sharing of objects, and beginning to develop and understanding of fractional parts of the whole. Please remember to continue working with What’s My Rule tables. Click here for a template of What’s My Rule? tables.  Also, the frames-and-arrow assessment did not go as well as I thought it would last week, so please continue to practice those problems at home as well. Remember that you can see your son/daughter’s short cycle assessment results on Progress Book. With it being the beginning of the third quarter, please take a moment to check out the third quarter secure and developing skills for math by clicking here.

Writing

In writing this week, we will work on the following concepts:  planning details for our stories before we begin writing, a review of capitalization and punctuation in our writing, and reading what we write to make sure that it makes sense. Please make sure that you continue to talk with your son/daughter about capitalization and punctuation in their writing. The students do well with these skills early on in their writing, but they often get a little careless with these skills as their writing progresses.

Other

Our plan this week is to introduce the students to the first insect in our Insects Module that we will end the year with. We will begin investigating mealworms at the end of this week. We will be talking again about what the different things are that all living things need to survive. Then we will discuss how we plan to provide those necessities for the mealworms. This week, we will create our classroom culture of mealworms, and then we will look at giving the students two mealworms of their own to observe and care for during the following week.

Reminders

I have another professional day Monday working with the Common Core Standards in Reading. The students will have a sub that day. Please notify the office if you need to get a message to the sub or your son/daughter.

Remember to turn in field trip permission slips and money by Monday. I will be randomly drawing the two chaperones on Monday as well and will let the two lucky winners know as soon as possible. Thank you to everyone who was able to volunteer their services.

Don’t forget that Tuesday Night (3/20) is our first grade Open House/Grandparents’ Night. The fun begins at 7:00! We hope to see you all there, as we have a lot of hard work to show off to our special visitors.

Spring Pictures are Thursday (3/22).

There is no school on Friday (3/23) as it is a Teacher In-service day. Take advantage of the spring weather!

There is no spelling homework due this week, as it is the end of the quarter Thursday.

Please remember to check out the first grade calendar for important dates. Please remember to bring back those library books on Tuesday. If you happen to forget, please remember that each book is 5 cents for each day that it is late.

Reading

In reading this week, we will continue studying books by Ezra Jack Keats. We will be talking some about making and confirming predictions, as well as answering higher level questions with the two stories that we are reading this week. We will continue to review story elements this week, paying close attention to the details in the story that take the reader from the problem to the solution. We talked last week about how using the story elements can help us a lot when we are retelling the story to someone. We will also begin talking with the student about the theme of a story and how authors are sometimes trying to teach us a lesson when we read their stories. The students will also be completing a few writing extensions this week to help them strengthen their understanding of what they are reading.

In phonics, we are going to be talking more about compound words. In addition to this, the long /u/ pattern is on the agenda for this week, looking at some of the different vowel patterns that result in the long /u/ sound. Finally, we will be reviewing the long /a/ vowel patterns /ai/ and /ay/ this week.

Math

In math this week, we will begin Unit 8 by discussing the following concepts:  practicing counting and exchanging combinations of coins; introducing the students to the dollar and using money to reinforce place value; working with place value to the hundreds place; and solving number stories that involve addition and subtraction. Please remember to continue working with What’s My Rule tables. Click here for a template of What’s My Rule? tables.  Also, the frames-and-arrow assessment did not go as well as I thought it would last week, so please continue to practice those problems at home as well. Remember that you can see your son/daughter’s short cycle assessment results on Progress Book. With it being the beginning of the third quarter, please take a moment to check out the third quarter secure and developing skills for math by clicking here.

Writing

In writing this week, we will work on the following concepts:  making sure that we are using adjectives to improve our writing, writing thank you notes and talking about how they are similar/different to friendly letters, and planning details for our stories before we begin writing. Please make sure that you continue to talk with your son/daughter about capitalization and punctuation in their writing. The students do well with these skills early on in their writing, but they often get a little careless with these skills as their writing progresses.

Other

We have concluded our Solids and Liquids Investigation last week. We will take a brief hiatus from Science, as we prepare for our final Module of the year, Insects. We are hoping to plan our first investigation correctly, and conclude right in time for Spring Break. More on the arrival of our insect friends in the upcoming weeks!

Reminders

This week marks the beginning of that lovely assessment time of the quarter. Over the next two weeks, the students will be taking benchmark assessments in reading, writing, and math. We will also be assessing the students on the spelling words 1-75. This Thursday, I will be completing individual assessments with the students in reading fluency, running records, sight words, and isolated math skills. There will be a sub working with the students on Thursday.

I also have another professional day Tuesday afternoon working with the Common Core Standards in Reading. The students will have a sub that afternoon as well. Please notify the office if you need to get a message to the sub or your son/daughter.

This Wednesday is  Delayed Start. Students are welcome at 9:30.

Thanks again for all your hard work in the Animal Research homework. As I mentioned before, the students did a great job bringing in their research and sharing it with their groups. I do hope you take some time to check out their hard work. We would also like to thank the 4th and 5th grade eKids who helped us with our presentations!

The spelling homework page has been updated for the third quarter. Please remember that you have the freedom to choose any of the spelling or high frequency words to practice for spelling homework. Spelling homework (10 words) is due each Friday.

Please remember to check out the first grade calendar for important dates. Please remember to bring back those library books on Tuesday. If you happen to forget, please remember that each book is 5 cents for each day that it is late.

Reading

In reading this week, we will be wrapping up our non-fiction author’s study. The students have done a fantastic job on their animal presentations. If you have not gotten a chance to check them out yet, make sure and have your son/daughter log into Google Docs and show you their hard work. We will be sharing these projects with the class on Monday, and we also look forward to sharing our hard work with our families and grandparents on Open House (March 20th). We will also be getting together with the other first grade classrooms and comparing and contrasting our animals this Friday. All of the bear groups will get together, whale groups, etc.

Also this week, we will be starting our next author’s study. We will be spending the next few weeks working with books by Ezra Jack Keats. This week, we will be reviewing literary elements, talking about drawing conclusions about what is happening in the stories, making and confirming predictions, and answering higher level comprehension questions. Ezra Jack Keats also has characters that reoccur in numerous stories, so students will also have the chance to make connections as well.

In phonics, we are going to be working with the different long /i/ patterns this week, /ie/ and /igh/ in particular. We will also be talking about the consonant digraphs /wr/ and /kn/ and working with words that have those digraphs in them. Finally, if time permits, we will be introducing the students to homophones towards the end of the week. The students will also be taking a phonics assessment this week as well.

Math

In math this week, we will be working with the following Unit 7 geometry concepts: exploring 3-dimensional shapes and their characteristics; introducing students to the concept of symmetry and identifying shapes and objects that have lines of symmetry; and reviewing the concepts we have covered in Unit 7. As you can see, Unit 7 is one of the shorter units of study in our math program.  Please remember to continue working with What’s My Rule tables. Click here for a template of What’s My Rule? tables.  Also, the frames-and-arrow assessment did not go as well as I thought it would last week, so please continue to practice those problems at home as well. Remember that you can see your son/daughter’s short cycle assessment results on Progress Book. With it being the beginning of the third quarter, please take a moment to check out the third quarter secure and developing skills for math by clicking here.

Writing

In writing this week, we will work on the following concepts:  establishing a setting in our stories, fixing run-on sentences, and capitalizing proper nouns. As I mentioned before, the students did a fantastic job on their fact writing during their word on the animal presentations. Please make sure that you continue to talk with your son/daughter about capitalization and punctuation in their writing. The students do well with these skills early on in their writing, but they often get a little careless with these skills as their writing progresses.

Other

We have concluded our Solids and Liquids Investigation last week. We will take a brief hiatus from Science, as we prepare for our final Module of the year, Insects. We are hoping to plan our first investigation correctly, and conclude right in time for Spring Break. More on the arrival of our insect friends in the upcoming weeks!

Reminders

Thanks again for all your hard work in the Animal Research homework. As I mentioned before, the students did a great job bringing in their research and sharing it with their groups. I do hope you take some time to check out their hard work. We would also like to thank the 4th and 5th grade eKids who helped us with our presentations!

The spelling homework page has been updated for the third quarter. Please remember that you have the freedom to choose any of the spelling or high frequency words to practice for spelling homework. Spelling homework (10 words) is due each Friday.

Also, report cards are now available online. Please let me know if you have any questions after viewing the report cards.

Please remember to check out the first grade calendar for important dates. Please remember to bring back those library books on Tuesday. If you happen to forget, please remember that each book is 5 cents for each day that it is late.