Update ~ September 19-23

Hello! It’s another busy week in first grade!  We have our routines down in all subject areas are now digging deeper in all of our units.  Thank you for your support at home in the first couple weeks, especially helping to make checking planners and reading at night a habit!  I hope to see many of you at Family Night on Thursday.

Upcoming Events:
September 9-23:Safety Week
September 19: PSC Meeting
September 22: Family Night: Hot Dogs and How to Help 5:30-7:00
September 28: Homecoming Parade

The NDLC online store is open until Sept 25. There are sample sizes in the office. They will be out during our family night as well. The code is NDLCSpirit and the link is: https://eaglegraphics.itemorder.com/

Reading: We have been doing an amazing job of establishing strong reading habits. Check out our chart to see some of the strategies we are using!

This week we will be focusing on habits for figuring out hard words. The strategies we will practice are: sneaking a peek at the pictures to figure out the words, looking at all parts of a word, and using meaning to figure out words. We’ll be trying to drop our bad habits for figuring out works (mumbling, freezing, saying the wrong word and not checking back) and practice using these good reading habits.

Writing: We finished the first part of our Small Moments and had a mini celebration noticing how much we have grown already as writers. This week we will be working on bringing our small moment stories to life by unfreezing our characters (making them talk and move), telling stories in itsy-bitsy steps (telling all the small actions), and bringing what’s inside out (making our characters think and feel).

Word Work:  We are continuing  to review our kindergarten word wall words as well as focusing on a  “Student of the Day.” We are learning so much about each other! We write what we learn and are displaying them in our classroom!

Math: Math routines have been well established! This week we are working on partners up to 10. For example, the partners of 7 are: 0 + 7, 1 + 6, 2 + 5, 3 + 4, 4 + 3, 5 + 2, 6 +1, 7 + 0. As we study the partners, we are noticing patterns to help us add and subtract within these numbers. We are using tools including ipads, stair steps, number cards and activity pages to help us learn these partners.

Content: We have started our organism unit! We’ve investigated and planted seeds. Now we will be observing how they grow. We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our moss and seedlings to add to the terrariums we will be assembling. This is a high interest, hands-on science study!

As always if you have any questions, let me know!

-Samantha