Weekly Update, September 12 - 16

Hello Super First Graders and Stupendous First Grade Families!

Reminders:
*The ice cream social is this Thursday, September 15 from 7:00 - 8:00.
*Our zoo field trip is Friday, September 23.  Please have your child wear our blue class t-shirt (your child will receive his/her t-shirt later this week).  Please send in a completely disposable lunch with your child.
*Please turn in your paper for our class directory.  Thank you!

We had a fun day learning about the grain food group to kick off our science study on nutrition! Today we learned about grains and the kinds of foods that are in the grain group. We even learned a fun song to sing to help us remember the foods in the grain group. Kids - can you remember the song and sing it for your parents? This week we are going to be restaurant owners! We will create our own menu with foods from each group. Today we completed the grain portion of the menu. This week we will learn about vegetables, fruits, meats and dairy, and each day we will complete a new section of the menu.

The kids loved centers today! The centers for the week include:
1. Listening - The children listen to "More Spaghetti, I Say!"  They complete a story map with the name of the book, characters, setting, their favorite part and any new words they learned.
2. Science - The children complete a food group graph. Students group the foods from their dinner into the correct food groups. Students answer questions about the food groups.
3. Writing - The children choose from a word bank of different foods to complete a story about lunch. The children write about the lunch.
4. Math - The children work to figure out how many ways they could order ice cream. There is a plain cone or a sugar cone, and there is mint, blueberry and grape ice cream. The children work to put different scoops on different cones to figure out how many choices there are in all.
5. Reading - The children learned how to play spill and spell.    Letter dice are "spilled" onto the table and they spell as many words as they can make before the timer runs out.  This was a lot of fun for them!

We practiced our spelling words. The children came home with Rainbow Words and they are due tomorrow. This week we are working on the "in" family. There are also three tricky homophones: are, hour and our.  Because there is only room for 10 words, the children can write these on the back of their Rainbow Words.

This week in reading we are continuing to focus on independently using reading strategies.  It is so neat to watch the kids use these strategies on their own!  We are continuing to work on "tricky" letters and pairs, such as tricky c, bossy r and vowel combinations.  The kids have made SO much progress in reading!

We finished chapter two in math last week and we began chapter 3, a subtraction chapter.  The kids will use manipulatives and color to practice horizontal and vertical subtraction.  We will also complete a food group glyph.

In computers we will practice finding the blog, commenting on the blog and going to Raz-Kids.  Raz - Kids. The kids had a great time exploring the site and reading!

Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston