Welcome Back!

Hello Amazing First Graders and Awesome First Grade Families!

Welcome back and Happy New Year!  Can you believe 2011 is here???  I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing break!  The kids were happy to be back and to share their adventures from break with each other.

Reminders:* If you have not done so already, please send in an empty plastic water bottle with your child.
* If you have not done so already, please send in a plastic hanger with your child.

This week we are learning about weather!  Today we learned the elements of weather and the definition of weather.  The kids began a story about weather.  This is a story that we will work on all week.  The kids will work on editing to make their stories great!  The kids all received a weather journal today.  Each day they will be responsible for recording the weather in their journals.  On Tuesday we will learn about the three basic cloud types (cirrus, cumulus, stratus) and we will observe the clouds to see what kind we see.  On Wednesday we will review cloud types and create a weather related glyph.  On Thursday we will practice identifying and describing cloud types and we will read a wonderful story, "The Cloud Book."  We will make a cloud mobile with each type of cloud.  On Friday we will learn about how clouds are created and we will even do a neat science experiment to make a cloud!  The kids will also write a silly story about having their heads in the clouds.

In writing we are working on adding detail and editing.  We are also working on poetry.

The kids came home with Rainbow Words and they are due tomorrow.  This semester the spelling words also include a more difficult word and it is a bonus word.  The kids are all invited to try to spell it correctly on the test but it will not count against them.  This week in making words we are working on the chunks "igh" and "ou."  We will also work on words that have the "bossy r."

The kids had fun in our weather related centers!  The centers for the week include:
1.  Listening - The kids listened to "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs," and they completed a Somebody - Wanted - But - So chart.
2.  Science - The kids made tornadoes out of water bottles, food coloring and glitter.  The kids had to predict what kind of food coloring would work best for their tornadoes.  These are really neat!
3.  Writing - The kids worked on weather related acrostic poems.  They had their choice of writing an acrostic poem on any of our weather spelling words.
4.  Math - The kids worked on subtraction practice to 20.  They colored a space picture according to an answer code.  They love these types of practice pages!
5.  Reading - The kids read 1:1 with me.  We worked on asking questions about the story.

We began chapter 11 in math today.  Your child brought home a parent letter.  This chapter focuses on ordering numbers to 10.  This can be a difficult concept, so please be sure to ask your child about this!

The kids had fun in computers today!  If you'd like to see what they did, please click on the posting directly below this one, "Computers, 1/3."

Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston