Affirmations

Starting something *new* in our classroom. I've been practicing positive affirmations in my own personal life and thought it could be a powerful thing to share with the kiddos! I found a super list of affirmations for KIDS. Each week we will practice one. This week's is:

I am safe

Word Work

Our chunks this week are:

-in
-it

Accountable words:
will    if

Dates

November 20 - Project Parkway Mtg @ West High School (6:30pm)
November 22-24 NO School - Thanksgiving Break
December 1 - KDG Oral Spelling Bee (9:10 am)
December 1 - 1st Gr Oral Spelling Bee (12 pm)
December 4 - 2nd Gr Oral Spelling Bee (9:10 am)
December 6 - Late Start Day (11:05) (Drop off Begins at 10:45)
December 6 - Board of Education @ Central Middle (7pm)
December 7 - 3rd Grade Field Trip
December 8 - Family Dance Party  (6:30-8pm)
December 11 - 3rd Gr Oral Spelling Bee (9:10 am)
December 12 - 4th & 5th Gr Oral Spelling Bee (9:10 am)
December 13 - 4th & 5th Gr Choir Concert (6:30 pm)
December 14 - Science Fair Project "How To" Night
December 18 - Central Area Art Show @ Central High (6-8pm)
December 20 - Winter Party (2:55-3:55pm)
December 21 - Half Day
December 22 - January 3 -- NO School / Winter Break

ABCDE Letter Days for the WEEK
(Mon = B) (Tues = C) (Wed = No School) (Thurs = No School) (Fri = No School)

New Non-Fiction Reading Unit

This week students have begun our new non-fiction reading unit. We are excited about this, as it is part of our new curriculum and the unit is more robust and thorough than we've had in the past. This unit builds on a child’s natural curiosity to learn about the world.   It supports first-graders as they learn all they can learn from their books and share their learning with others.  This unit focuses on comprehension strategies, such as previewing the text, predicting, noticing text structure, and synthesizing information from multiple sources (the picture, the print, the text boxes).  With a continued emphasis on comprehension and basic reading processes, there is also a spotlight on vocabulary.  First-graders will develop good habits for decoding unfamiliar words and for working to understand new vocabulary.  This unit also supports building fluency and studying craft, teaching students how to revisit texts to reread in smoother voices, to sound like experts, and to notice craft moves authors make that they also can make and discuss. 

Non-Fiction Writing Unit

We started a new writing unit this week. This unit prepares children to write informational texts of all sorts across the school year.  Students will build from Kindergarten, where students wrote teaching books such as, “All about Soccer.”  This unit will show kids how to write towards a more focused topic, such as “Scoring Goals.”  The reading and writing connection is strong in this unit.  Students will read informational books and apply craft moves.  Writing informational books also strengthens nonfiction reading skills, helping kids understand the purpose of headings and other nonfiction features. The connections will be easily made because our new reading which we begin this week also focuses on non-fiction text. The unit begins with instruction in how to make a basic type of information book, a picture book, and ends with children creating multiple information chapter books, filled with elaboration, interesting text elements, and pictures that supplement the teaching of the words.

Grade Level Project

Dear First Grade Families

We recently finished a unit in Social Studies all about Culture. We had some wonderful discussions around our various cultures and what makes us who are are! One topic we talked about that allowed us to get to know each other even better was different types of foods we all like to eat. We are so lucky in that so many different backgrounds are represented in our grade! We thought it would be neat if everyone could share a special family recipe so these could be compiled into a book. What a fun way to celebrate our differences! If you are interested in contributing, please submit a favorite family recipe to your child's teacher by Tuesday, November 21. It can be attached to this form or e-mailed. Please be sure to include your child's name on the recipe and if applicable, the country the recipe comes from originally. A book will be given to each student. Thank you so much for your help with this fun project!

Sincerely,
First Grade Teachers

Updates From Ms. O. :0)

Hello Everyone,

What a week it has been! I hope everyone enjoyed the festivities this week, it was great seeing all the kids dressed up on Tuesday! I have officially taken over all of the subjects! I apologize for not sending an update sooner, but Mrs. Koenig has sure kept me busy! :) Below is some more information on what we have been learning this week, and will dive into next week! Have an wonderful weekend!

Writing: We are finishing up learning how to become better writers by adding details, adjectives, and verbs to our writing! We practiced adding adjectives to our writing when creating our silly pumpkin patch earlier this week! Hopefully you all had the chance to pop your head in and see the pumpkin patch, it looks great! Next week we are jumping into publishing a story! The students will chose one story of their liking, and practice revising and editing to publish a wonderful story!

Math: This week we finished up topic three, which taught us all about addition facts! We have learned fun games, and activities to go along with practicing our math facts. Keep practicing those math facts at home too! Next week we are starting topic four and changing gears a bit. We are transitioning from addition over to subtraction, so we will be learning all the different strategies to solve subtraction problems. We have some fun stuff planned!

PMI / Word Work: This week our two word chunks were SH and ASH. We spent the week practicing the chunks, and brainstorming different words with the chunks. The accountable words for the week were get and tell. This next week our two chunk are ET and ELL, and went and best for accountable words.

Social Studies: We finished our unit on cultures and traditions and have transitioned back to our families now and then unit. We wanted to start our unit including Thanksgiving until November started so what we are exploring is fresh and new! We have read different books explaining what Thanksgiving is (Check out the book Thanksgiving is, the students loved it) and the importance of Thanksgiving in our history. Today we took a virtual field trip on the Mayflower. The students LOVED this even more! We put on our Pilgrim hats, packed our bags, and boarded our virtual ship and learned about the journey that was taken years ago.

 Reading: We have some word detectives on our hands! We have continued our word detective unit and learned more strategies that will help us decode and figure out unknown words. This week we have learned about blends and digraphs, which will help us read words that we may not know. Next week we will continue our word detective unit, and hopefully receive a new mission from the agency! Fingers crossed!