Weekly Update, January 7 - 11

Hello Amazing First Graders and Awesome First Grade Families!

Welcome back and Happy New Year! Can you believe 2013 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.

This week in guided reading, writing and science 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 practice identifying and describing cloud types and even do a neat science experiment to make a cloud! On Thursday, 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 wind, rain and snow. 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. The kids are learning to write strong sentences so that their writing gives the reader a clear picture in his/her head. We are learning how to understand small moments and how to write about them.  We are also working on poetry.  We are also learning about contractions, and this week we are focusing on 'not' contractions.

In reading we are working on reading words with the long i and o sounds. The kids are learning different blends that all make up that sound.

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.

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 we made a weather glyph today in math. We will collect and analyze our data during the week. We will also review even/odd and counting by tens during the week.

There is a fun activity planned for computers on Friday. If you’d like to see what the kids will do, please visit the blog on Friday and read the blog posting called “Computers, 1/11.”

Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston