Weekly Update, February 6 - 10

Hello Awesome First Graders and Amazing First Grade Families!

Love of Reading
* The Love of Reading Month is off to a great start!
* 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 Tuesday, 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 objects sinking or floating in water, oil and honey, we are ready to put our display board 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 do a Presidents' Day study to learn about Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.  We will learn about their lives, characteristics and why they are 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 reading and making words we are working on recognizing words that end in y. We will also review words with the "bossy r." We are also learning about what letters make the “oo” and “ew” sounds.

Your child came home with Rainbow Words and they are due tomorrow.

The kids are doing a great job with their Abraham Lincoln/George Washington centers! The centers for the week include:
1. Listening - The kids listened to "Let's Read About George Washington" 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 and Washington books and then shared what they learned with their center group.

We are making great progress with our money study in math! The kids  are getting great at using money to shop and make different amounts. We continue to practice doing math facts quickly and increasing doubles skills.

We have a fun activity planned for computers this week. If you’d like to see what the kids will do, please check the blog on Friday for a posting called “Computers, 2/10."
 Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston