Myself, Others & A Caring Community

What a fun and productive week we've had in first grade!! We began this week with instructions for our centers on Monday.  The children were great listeners and had to pay close attention in order to follow the directions correctly. We did some brief mini-lessons to review the short a sound, abc order & vowels and consonants. This week we attempted 5 independent centers a day for a total of 15 independent centers by the end of the week.  They followed their tic-tac-toe boards that consisted of word work, writing & reading centers. Then a teacher worked with individual students for sight word testing.  The transition went smoothly and we hope this will get even easier as the weeks progress.

Drawing People

Journal Writing....I love First Grade because....

Albert hard at work on his abc's

Destiney making short a words with beans then writing them down

Color words & colors

Listening center and follow up activity

building short a words with magetic letters then writing them down on a dry erase board

Putting the words in ABC order with the "at" family then writing them down

ABC order on Learning Planet with the computers

Coco reading in the phone to herself

Ryann working on her Phonics pages

Rocket Speller ap on the iPads

Sorting sentences on paper plates....does the sentence need a question mark at the end????

TNT--"Try New Thing"s Working on our All about me shoe posters

In Social Studies on Monday, we played a game to help build our classroom community with a hula hoop.  The object of the game is to get the hula hoop all around the circle... but you can't let go of your hands.  So, we had to all work together as a class to make this happen.  We did it!!!

On Monday, Mrs. Sansale read the story "Even Steven & Odd Todd."  We have been working on learning our even and odd numbers.  We know that even numbers have a buddy and a pair.  Mrs. Sansale also taught us the EVEN & ODD song to the BINGO song.  Ask your children to sing it to you. 

On Tuesday, Miss O'Connor introduced a new math tool-- the number line! She read Ready, Set, Hop while students used their number lines to solve the problems within the story.  Number lines are a great tool for your children to use in solving addition and subtraction problems. The ones pictured below are available at http://www.reallygoodstuff.com

On Wednesday this week Mrs. Sansale read the story Tally O'Malley and the kids learned all about tallies.  We learned that tallies are a learning tool that help us count objects and data. Next week we will be going on a class math scavenger hunt to tally up what we find in the classroom.

 On Thursday, Miss O'Connor taught the children all about Friends of Ten.  We really want them to know their friends of ten to help their number sense in first grade.  For Example, 10+0=10, 9+1=10, 8+2=10, 7+3=10, 6+4=10, 5+5=10. The chilldren played a fun Make Ten Memory Game with a partner.

Make Ten Memory

 In Hands on Science with Miss Fate & Mrs. Waller, we learned about the word Attribute and we went outside to sort items into the categories: pointy, rough, tiny, smooth, and light. We came inside and put everything out on trays to see.  Then, the kids voted on which group had which attribute.

Computer Lab: with Miss O'Connor & Mrs. Lorfing: Sight word bingo & marble math addition on www.abcya.com 


REMINDERS:
***The first graders in Mrs. Sansale & Miss O'Connor's class have been doing an excellent job on bringing in their take-home folders each day. We are working on our life skill of responsibility and they have shown a tremendous effort by returning their folders each day!


Scholastic Book Orders (Online only) are due on September 27th.

Labor Day, Monday, September 1st-- No School

Lower School and 6^th Grade Home Room Teachers:

Lego Robotics starts the week of September 8th.  I am looking to get the word out.  We will be working on a wide variety of great builds this term.  We have also been invited to compete at a Lego Robotics Rumble event in mid December with a number of other area independent schools.  Please mention this opportunity to any kids in your classes that might be interested and/or add to your blogs on Friday.  The Robot Club is broken up into two sections 1^st – 3^rd and 4^th -6^th. 

For your  blogs:

SPEDS Lego Robotics starts up again the week of September 8th.  We will explore some great new builds this year.  In addition, we have been invited to compete in a Lego Robotics Rumble event with a number of independent schools in mid December.  Space is limited so contact Karen McDonald as soon as possible: Kmcdonald@speds.org 

Thanks for the help!

Kevin

Kevin Christensen

*Thank you for coming to curriculum night last night. Enjoy your long weekend!
Love, Melissa & Maeve