Myself, Others and a Caring Community

What a great week of learning and FUN in 1st grade!  One thing these fabulous first graders have been doing since the beginning of the year is learning the "Pledge of Allegiance".  We stand and salute the flag in our classroom every morning to recite the pledge.  We thought you'd like seeing them show how much pride and respect they have for our country by watching them in action with the video below.

ENJOY! 

One skill we focused on in language arts was compound words.  Mrs. Waller shared a fun song that showed putting the 2 words together to make each new word.  Then, the class had the chance to come up to the board and put together their own words.  They are pros!!

Mrs. Waller needed Maddie's help to hold the book and help  the class find all the compound words in this GREAT big book called, "EEK! There's a Mouse in the House".

Julian worked on sentence building skills that had a word with the short "i" it.

Lila is drawing a wonderful picture of her family and her home where they live.

David knows his phone number!

We read "The Big Hit" this week on Starfall.com and focused on words with the short "i".

Evan is practicing his handwriting skills with the "Handwriting Without Tears" app.

Everyone had the opportunity to work on rhyming words this week by making a rhyming words book.

Campbell is looking for words written on each part of an egg to make compound words.

She found base and ball to make baseball.

Jack is making -at, -ag, -and, &-ap words.

In guided reading Mrs. Waller worked on reading skills and decoding words.  Using the "phones" help to hear the words we're reading aloud without disturbing our neighbor.

Tracking our Words

Gearldine the Giraffe helped us this week review our short "i" sounds.

We took turns building words for the class on the white board with the short "i" sound.

 In math this week we had a lot of fun working together in cooperative groups.  We're learning that with teamwork, everyone achieves more!  The class focused on making sure to tally in groups of 5 and crossing that last tally across to make a bundle of 5.  We played a fun tally game where each small group took turns making a tally and the goal was to see how many groups of 5 they could make before the buzzer sounded.  As each round concluded the teams worked on strategies to help them go faster during the next round.

Our tally groups....

Another focus was on reviewing even and odd numbers.  We read a book called, "Even Steven and Odd Todd" and then played the Even/Odd game.

If you are EVEN STEVEN then you get to move if the die lands on an even number. If you are ODD TODD then you get to move when the die lands on an odd number.

We also focused on what is a pair and where we find them in our world.  Then, we made our own class book of pairs.

Brainstorming different pairs we find in our world.

Raquel is making a pair of beautiful earrings.

In social studies we worked on teamwork as well.  We read a story called "The Gigantic Turnip".  In this story the farmers could not get the huge turnip out of the ground so they called on the farm animals to help.  It took everyone working together including the smallest animal of all, the mouse, to finally solve their problem.  We, as a class, brainstormed problems we have in our class and ways we can solve them.

The class brainstormed ideas about common problems that might occur in a classroom.

Now, we're writing down 3 solutions to one problem we brainstormed. 

TNT- "Back to School Jingo"!

We practiced our great listening skills with this fun game!  Mrs. Waller read a clue and then we had to find the school-related object that fit the clue.

In Hands-On-Science, the scientists experimented with a paper clip, a bowl of water, a pencil eraser and one piece of tissue paper.  Ask your child if they were able to get their paper clip to float.......we learned about surface tension and the cohesion of water molecules, while having a blast!

It's floating!

What happens if we use tissue paper to try to help us?

 Computer Lab

Students got to try a new program called Kidspiration. They classified groups of objects by looking for the things that were alike and different and then moving them into the appropriate boxes.  They had to use many different computer skills including typing, clicking and dragging, and printing. Wait until you see them come home today!

REMINDERS:

Family Collages & How I Got My Name Projects are both due Monday, September 15th.

School Pictures for us are on Tuesday, September 16th. Please return your picture pass or packet if ordering.

The Pet Blessing is also on Friday, September 19th on the upper field at 8:30am. If you are bringing a pet/pets they must be brought by an adult to the upper field prior to 8:30.  Your child will join you once the class has arrived on the field.  Please make sure your child returns to the class once the blessing is over so we know where everyone is before returning to our classroom.  Thank you!

Have a beautiful weekend with your family and friends!  We are having so much fun with your children and always anticipate seeing their sweet smiles return to us on Monday!

Sara and Carey