Weekly Update, February 7 - 11

Hello Awesome First Graders and Amazing First Grade Families!

Yesterday's writing workshop was great; I missed my busy bees and I am glad to be back!  I can't wait to share some of the new things I learned with my writers!  Mrs. Hicks enjoyed her time in our first grade class!

Love of Reading
* The Love of Reading Month is off to a great start!  The kids read 79 books last week!  Way to go!
* There are hearts attached to the reading logs so the kids can fill them out when they're reading at home.
* Kids - you're doing an awesome job reading!  I am so proud of you! 
* Kids - let's be really responsible with our library books.  If every single person in our class brings their books back, we will get a prize during library from Mrs. Elder!  We haven't had a week like that yet...let's do it this week!


Valentine's Day
* Kids - you can bring in your valentine boxes any day this week!  You can bring in your cards for your friends, too.  Remember to bring in a valentine card for each friend in the class.
* Our party is Monday, February 14.  We will have 4 centers in the morning; it will be a great day!

After a fun week of conducting our science experiment about the frequency of M and M colors, we are ready to put our project together!  The kids absolutely LOVED doing the experiments and they look forward to putting our project together.  We have a tri-fold board and we will work collaboratively to construct it to display all the elements of our project.  We learned a lot of great new scientific vocabulary.  Kids - be sure to share what you learned with your parents.

After we finish our science fair project we will study about Abraham Lincoln whose birthday is February 12.  On Thursday we will learn about Lincoln's life and characteristics.  On Friday we will learn about why he was important.

In writing we are focusing on word choice and using explicit nouns and strong verbs.  We will write about Abraham Lincoln to practice this kind of great, detailed writing.

In making words we are working on recognizing words that end in y.  We will also review words with the "bossy r."

The kids are doing a great job with their Abraham Lincoln centers!  The centers for the week include:
1. Listening - The kids listened to "A Picture Book of Abe Lincoln," and completed a story map to identify elements of the story.
2.  Social Studies - The kids wrote 5 questions they would like to ask Abraham Lincoln.  They colored and cut a picture of Lincoln and glued it to their questions.
3.  Writing - The kids used the story starter, "One day I found a magic penny..." to write their own story.
4.  Math - The kids practiced addition patterns with 2 and 3.
5.  Reading - The kids read various Lincoln books and then shared what they learned with their center group.

We are making great progress with our money study!  The kids really love a money bingo game (thank you to Mrs. Thacker for letting us borrow it!) and they are getting great at using money to shop and make different amounts.  They got some great practice with money yesterday in computes.  We continue to practice doing math facts quickly and increasing doubles skills. 

Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston