Weekly Update, September 4 - 7

Hello Spectacular First Graders and Super 1st Grade Families!

Welcome back from the long weekend! I hope everyone had a great time and enjoyed the extra day off. I was SO impressed with what a wonderful job the children did today (especially after being gone an extra day!). The kids were so focused and worked so hard. Way to go!!!

This week we are doing a social studies, guided reading and writing unit on mapping. Today we learned what maps are and how they help us. We went on a search of the room to find the map in our room! Kids - see if you can find a map at home! Tell someone at home how maps help us. Tomorrow we will be learning about the elements of a map and on Thursday and Friday we will be creating a class map.

The children are really doing well working in centers. The centers for the week include:
1. Listening - The children are listening to "A Bargain For Francis.” They complete a sequencing page to practice identifying what happens in the beginning, middle and end of the story.
2. Science - The children are working with texture words. There are eight cards with texture words (bumpy, smooth, rough, etc.) and the children need to find items in our room that match those textures.
3. Writing - The children are writing about the best birthday party ever. They get to pretend that they can plan their perfect birthday party; they write all the details down for their special party.
4. Math - The children are working with unifix cubes. They explore different ways to make 5 and then write the addition sentences down for their findings.
5. Reading - The children explored the bee quiet corner to learn how to find books at their “just right” level.

In reading we are working on understanding and independently using reading strategies. We are continuing our work with sequencing.

We practiced our new spelling words. The children came home with Rainbow Words for homework and they are due tomorrow. This week we are working on the ap family. The children learned about homophones and what it means for words to be homophones (two or more words that sound the same, the words are spelled differently and the words mean different things). This week's ap family words include the homophones rap and wrap.

Today in math we did a house glyph. The kids are really getting great at following multi-step directions and correctly completing their glyphs. During the week, the children will practice collecting data from the glyphs in small groups. This will help them work on the skill of collaboration!

Reminders for the week:
1. Kids - please bring your homework folder to school every day. Remembering to bring your homework folder helps you follow our class rule of being responsible.
2. Library is on Wednesday.
3. Our zoo field trip is Thursday, September 27. If you would like to come on the trip, please let me know!

Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston