Calendar

January 28 - Box Tops Drive BEGINS
January 28 - Talent Show Registration BEGINS
January 29 - PTO Meeting in the Library (6:30-7:30 pm)
January 30 - Late Start Day 2-Hour (11:05 am)
February 1 - Yearbook Orders DUE ($13)  -- Order Online  OR Order Form
February 2 - All-District Elementary Choir Concert @Logan Univ. (3pm)
February 4 - Science Project DROP-OFF from 8:30-9am
February 4-7 - Science Project Celebration Week
February 4-8 - National School Counselor Appreciation Week
February 6 - Last Day to Register for GlobalHack 2019
February 7 - Science Project Celebration/Viewing Night (6:30-7:15 pm)
February 8 - 2nd Grade Field Trip
February 8 - Box Tops Drive ENDS
February 8 - Talent Show Registration ENDS
February 9 - All Parkway 4th Gr Strings Day Concert @West High
February 9 - PTO Trivia Night @CBC (6pm)
February 11 - Six Flags "Read to Succeed" Forms DUE
February 11 - Project Parkway Mtg @North High (6:30 pm)
February 14 - End of 2nd Trimester
February 15 - NO SCHOOL - Records Day
February 18 - NO SCHOOL - Presidents Day

Social Studies

Students are traveling in the afternoon to Ms. Baum's room for Social Studies. The students are studying American symbols and are working on constructing their own book of symbols they are learning about. Through the recognition and celebration of special days in our country, students will develop an awareness of the national symbols of our country including the Statue of Liberty and our Nation's Capitol. Students will also describe the contributions of non-Missourians including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr.  As compared to previous years, a new direction for this unit is a focus on the character traits of leadership. Instead of just focusing on facts about famous leaders, students will use the lives of others as case studies on leadership in general.The EQ's for this unit are:

What makes a good leader?
What do symbols tell us about our country?

Reading

We continue to work on story elements this week! Students are working to identify the elements that make up a story: setting, characters, problem, and solution. They are also paying close attention to these various elements to see when and how they change and how that affects the story. This unit really focuses on the comprehension of texts so we are doing many activities as a group, in partners and on their own to think about the events in the story on a deeper level. We have started reading notebooks where students are doing some story mapping and responding to questions about a text. Later this week we will dive deeper into character analysis and discovering character traits and comparing different characters.

Word Work

Week of	Chunk	Accountable words
1-22	-ake	Day  play
1-28	-ay	Do  her
2-4	-ide	His  as
2-11	-ine	Look  love

Math

We continue to work on place value concepts. This week students are counting tens and ones to find a two-digit number, working to construct numbers with blocks that represent tens and ones, use tens and ones to make numbers in different ways.

Students will begin physically manipulating two digit numbers and groups of tens and ones to see how the number 42 could be made in different ways. Example:

Tens	Ones
4	2
3	12
2	22
1	32

This idea really causes many students to reach to fully grasp.

We will continue to work on solidifying these concepts through math games and applying them through story problems.

Writing

In writing this week we are working on poetry! Did you know first graders could write poems and songs? We are learning about the characteristics of poems, different types of poems, and then trying our hand at several kinds. Students have started a poetry notebook which is a combination of poems we have read together and their own original creations. Ask your child what a poem is!

Essential Questions:
How can I study published songs and poems in order to notice what other writers do? How can I try some of those things in my own writing?
How can I write lots of songs and poems—writing about things that matter to me?
How can I show my thoughts and feelings in my poems?
How can I make my songs and poems longer and then get them ready for publication?

Here are some skills they will acquire during this unit:


-Immerse themselves in many types of songs and poems
-Notice the structural characteristics of songs and poems (ie: white space, line breaks, rhyme, repetition)
-Turn an original poem into a song by adding their own made up tune
-Turn an original poem into a song by using an existing tune
-Craft songs that teach (ie: counting songs, alphabet songs, how-to songs)
-Write with purpose
-Convey their thoughts and feelings through songs and poems
-Compare to convey feeling (ie: He was as happy as a car at a gas station)
-Make their best work better, writing with attention to detail
-Think about words, letters, and punctuation (ie: using all caps, end mark, comma, no punctuation)
-Read and sing with expression
-Share writing with an audience

A Message From Mr. Augustin

Hello 1st Grade Parents,

Dr. Seuss Night is coming up next month on February 26 from 6:15-7:30! It is a tradition at Shenandoah Valley that the 1st grade students perform pieces from Seussical the Musical that evening for the school community in celebration of Dr. Seuss. Parents and families are invited to attend both the event and performance. Dr. Seuss Night will begin at 6:15 with reading activities, crafts and cookie decorating.  The students will begin lining up for the performance at 7:15 pm in the Shenandoah Valley Gym. We look forward to seeing you there!

A List Poem by Our Class

Winter

Cold

Sledding

Fire

Snowflakes

Fun

Birthdays

Hot cocoa

Snowball fight

Snowy

Ice skating

Snowmen, Snowwomen, Snowchildren

Snow fort

Snow mountain

Igloo

Hockey

Skiing

Sickness

Holidays

Icicles

Coats, hats, gloves, scarf, snow pants, earmuffs

Extra socks

Boots

Snow baord

White

Soup

Ice

Ice cubes

Love

Blankets

Warm bed

By: Mrs. Koenig’s First Grade Class

January 2019

Kids Code

Science

We had a little bit of time between our last science unit and the beginning of our social studies unit so we took this opportunity to squeeze in our optional coding unit in science. The students are very interested in coding and it is a wonderful opportunity to practice a variety of skills from tech skills to listening, speaking, turn-taking, cooperative problem-solving, etc. Students are creating animated stories by giving the program step by step instructions (code) to follow. Students are using the Scratch Jr. application. This is definitely NEW to me so we are learning together!

Six Flags Read To Succeed

REMINDER THAT SIX FLAGS READ TO SUCCEED FORMS ARE DUE IN 1 MONTH! 

Don't forget, you may use the reading minutes from each evening's homework.

Habit 4 refresh

This month the school is doing a refresh on Habit 4. I am excited work some more on this habit with the kiddos. Habit 4 is "Think Win-Win". There are many real-life applications within our classroom and hopefully they can make connections to home as well.

Reading

In reading we are in our Story Elements unit. Story elements are: characters, setting, problem and solution. We have been talking some about the elements of a good story in writing, so this is a great place to make connections.

Last week we learned about each of the elements and did some overview as we practiced identifying them together as a class.

This week we are taking a closer look at setting and characters. We have begun using a reading notebook to do some journaing about our reading.

Comprehension skills are a large focus during this unit. Here are some questions we may ponder whole group, small group, partner, and individually:

-How could we describe characters?
-How are the characters interacting?
-Why do you think the characters are behaving that way?
-How do the characters' personalities shape the turn of events in a story?
-How do the story elements affect the way the story unfolds?
- How would changing some elements of the story change the outcomes?
-What might you do differently if you were in the character's shoes?
-Describe how the settings/characters change in the story.

Math

We have begun our place value unit. This work really lays the ground work for math in upper grades. During this unit, students will know:



-expressions and equations can represent real-life situations.
-our number system has structures based on groups of 10.
-the sequence of numbers follows a predictable pattern.
-the names of numbers within 120.
-a ten is a bundle of ten ones (unitizing).
-multiples of ten (10, 20, 30..,) represent groups of tens and 0 ones.
-a digit in the tens place represents bundles of ten and a digit in the ones place represents loose ones or singles.
-the digit in the tens place is more important for determining the value of a two-digit number than the ones place.
-how to make sense of quantity and be able to compare numbers.
-the meaning of the symbols >, =, <.
-the equation must have the same value on both sides of the equal sign.
-the terms bundle, column, compare, compose a ten, digit,  greater than/more than (>), hundred chart, less, less than/fewer than (<), ones, ones digit, row, tens, tens digit

This week we will be reviewing counting by 1's, 5's, and 10's using the 100 chart and the 120 chart. We will be using the number charts to see patterns as we count. We will also use an open number line to represent counting tens and ones and count objects by tens and ones.

We will play games throughout this unit to help with the concepts of place value. You may see some of these come home. Feel free to use them for additional practice at home if you wish.

Word Work

Week of 1-7: -ate    for/came
Week of 1-14: -ame   of/make
Week of 1-22 (No school 1-21) -ake  day/play
Week of 1-28: -ide  his/as

We have all kinds of great things going on with word work and it's all differentiated based on need. So, during word work time you might find us doing any number of activities from this chunk work to accountable words, short/long vowel work, building words/taking them apart, handwriting/letter formation...... the list goes on.

Writing

We have 6 more days in our Telling Good Stories unit. Students are doing a wonderful job stretching out their stories to make them more developed and interesting for readers. Students have studied mentor author texts and enjoyed teacher modeling to identify details in others' stories.

As always, we continue to work on punctuation and capitalization and will re-visit this formally next week during our editing stage. While this is improving, it is something we are all working to master consistently.

Our next writing unit is a Poetry/Song-writing unit. It's really so much fun!

Welcome Back!

The kids seemed excited to be back in action! Can you believe the school year is nearly half-way over? Here are the essential questions we are working on currently:

Writing:
What makes a good story?

Math:
How can understanding place value help me solve problems?
How are addition and subtraction related to counting?
How can I communicate my math thinking?

Reading: 

What makes a story?

How do readers use story elements to stay engaged with the text?

How do changes in the story elements influence the story?

Science:

How do I construct a set of statements that will provide the computer with step by step instructions for displaying a story?

What does technology let me do that I cannot do without using technology?

What strategies can I use so that I don't become frustrated if my program isn't working right?