Fabulous Community Helpers!

Can you believe it's almost October??  Our sweet first graders were using their best handwriting this week to write an important title and we could not believe how much their handwriting has improved!  Mrs. Waller was doing number corner this week and we couldn't believe how much their mental math computation skills have improved!  Ms. Lorfing was out on the playground and when the whistle blew she heard so many kids saying, "Great game!", "You played so well today!", "You are really good at going across the monkey bars!" and we couldn't believe what great friends everyone has become and how much they've already grown!  To summarize,

 WE ARE SO PROUD OF THESE FIRST GRADERS!!!

  We can't wait to show off all their amazing skills to you in just a few short weeks at parent/teacher conferences.

In the meanwhile, take a peek at just a bit of all the great learning your children have done this week!

 In language arts we focused on words ending in -ck & -k.  We also reviewed compound words and had lots of practice reading, reading, reading!  We continued to work on summarizing a story focusing on identifying the beginning, middle and end. We have also introduced the word: COMPREHENSION-to understand. We have checked your child's comprehension in many ways.  We also created complete sentences using a portable word wall!

We made a class compound words book...water+fall=waterfall.  Great illustration!

Raquel is using an app on the iPad called "Sock Puppets" to record herself singing the COMPOUND WORD BOOGIE.  "You take the word rain and the word bow, put them together and get RAINBOW!"

Abby is practicing her reading skills with the BIG books.

We built words in small groups using letter cards and listened to Ms. Lorfing's clues to make new words

Making friends of 10 snakes!  These snake friends are taking over our classroom!!

Griffin and Raquel are playing a rhyming word game together.

Joshua is doing the pancake flip activity.  He has to flip the pancake over with the spatula, read the word aloud, and record it on his sheet.

Reviewing the short "u" sound!

 In math our focus this week was to master our friends of 10.  We created a chart to help us learn the different combinations that when added together equal 10.  Then, we practiced friends of 10 with ten frame flashcards, we found missing addends that equaled 10 and we used our unifex cubes to illustrate our friends.  We also introduced the apps: Quick Images and Friends of Ten to help master this concept. Take a minute to ask your child to recite to you all of their friends of ten! 

Campbell and Lila are playing the 10 frame game.  Campbell flashes a ten frame with some of the squares filled in.  Lila has to tell her how many more it would take to fill up the ten frame.

Asa quickly flashes this card up for Griffin to identify how many more make 10.

Jake is using unifex cubes to build 10.  Each of the 2 colors represent the addends.

Finley records his friends of 10 equations.

Julian is playing a friends of 10 app on the iPad.  He must identify how many more it takes to fill the 10 frame.

Elianna is practicing building 10 and friends of 10 skills.

Lila is writing in the missing friend of 10.

Maddie is becoming a friend of 10 expert with this activity.

More friends of 10 practice for Asa.  He had to scan a QR code first to get to this website.  Another important skill that is useful when using iPads!

Happy 1st graders who know their friends of 10!!

In social studies we presented the information each child brought in to share how they got their names.  The class has enjoyed learning new, interesting information about their friends.  We love using all of our fun different applauses to celebrate each child's excellent presentation.  Ask your child to show you what the "Firecracker" and the "Lookin' Good" applauses look like! We also continued learning about the difference between a rural, suburban and urban community.

Joshua and Finley shared how they got their name as well as all the others in our class.

Alex and Lila are showing their title they created to display above the typed version of how they got their names.  These all will be displayed in our room to see so please stop by and check them out!  They are all so fascinating!

We took turns sorting pictures into categories according to the correct type of community.

Hands-On Science this week was a nail biting experience!
We continued our study of surface tension with a penny, an eye dropper and water.  The experiment was to see how many drops of water would stay on a penny without it falling off the edge.

This took extreme focus!!

Looks like Jake's tension on his penny finally broke but looking at his smile there was no tension about it from him!! 


Today, please look for an October newsletter and a note about spelling tests coming home in your child's backpack folder.  Our first spelling test will be NEXT FRIDAY!  As of today, your child will be bringing home a list of new spelling words every Friday for the following week.  The children are so excited about these tests starting!  They feel like such BIG kids.  Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Spelling words: 
Week #1 Phonics skills: short "a" and Phonograms -ap,-at,-ag,-and
can, had, at, as, and, tap, hat, hand, bag, sat 
Challenge words:
community, addends, friends, October
SURPRISE THE TEACHER?????

*Upcoming Events:
October 3rd-- Buddy Run &, Our first Spelling Test!  End of our first theme!
October 8th-- Pumpkin Patch Field Trip- your child must have a disposable sack lunch with a drink

Have a beautiful fall weekend!
Sara and Carey