December Update!

I hope that you had a wonderful holiday with friends and family! Here's a quick look at our learning in the month of December! We focused on kindness this month and we will continue that focus throughout the school year. If your child has completed Random Acts of Kindness on his/her kindness calendar, please return it to school this week.

Acts of Kindness:

At the beginning of December, we started a tally chart on our whiteboard of acts of kindness that students completed in the classroom. We talked about how simple kind acts can really mean a lot to other people. Some examples of acts of kindness in the classroom included helping someone pick up their supplies, allowing your partner to go first in a game, giving someone a compliment, inviting someone to sit by you, etc.

One act of kindness that we completed as a whole class in December was making cards for troops over seas. We worked together with our fourth grade reading buddies in Mrs. Visger's class.

We also made kindness bookmarks that I will be donating to the Poynette Public Library.

Holiday Crafts and Writing:

December is one of my favorite months for writing projects and crafts. One week, we focused on identifying the problem and the solution in stories that we read in class. Students did some writing about the problem and solution in a fun holiday book titled Mooseltoe. After we completed our writing, students made a fun watercolor craft to go with it. I even shot a quick video of them hard at work!

Students also completed a silly job application to become an elf at the North Pole. Then, we made little elf crafts to go with it!

Literacy:

In the month of December, we reviewed all of our short vowel spelling patterns. When we return to school in January, we will learn about blends and digraphs for three weeks. At the end of January, we will begin to learn about long vowel spelling patterns.

Students also learned about the difference between a complete sentence and a sentence fragment. We worked together to correct sentence fragments.

Students began reading and spelling the second trimester snap words during the month of December. A copy of the flashcards came home in your child's puma packet. Please continue to work on these words at home. These words are significantly more challenging than the first trimester words.

Math:

Here are some of the math skills we worked on in December:
- Counting money using dimes, nickels, and pennies
- Number grid counting patterns - adding ten by moving up or down a row
- Applying a rule to a set of numbers (called Frames and Arrows)
- Finding number compliments (e.g. Finding all of the ways to make 7 by adding two numbers together)

Here's a quick look at a few of the fun centers that we completed:

Working on Christmas themed number grid patterns:

Number sequencing practice:

Fun addition pictures:

Geoboards:

Thank you for taking a look at our learning in December! Have a great week!

November Update!

Wow! Time flies in first grade! I can't believe it's already almost December. I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and were able to spend time with family and friends.

Here are a few announcements/reminders as we begin a new month:

- Square One Art orders can be picked up at school on Tuesday, December 13th from 4:00-7:00 in the art room. This is the same night as the 4th and 5th grade music concert.
- Report cards will come home in your child's folder on Friday, December 2nd. Please let me know if you have any questions when you receive your child's report card.
- During the month of December, we are going to focus on Random Acts of Kindness in our classroom. I will be sending home a calendar of possible activities that your child could complete at home or in the community. Please have your child color the activities that she/he completes and return the calendar after winter break so that we can discuss our random acts of kindness as a class. We will also be doing a few other kindness activities as a class. I will be sending home a note about that soon!

Literacy:

During the month of November, we learned about short u and short e word families. We continued to work on our first list of snap words. This week, students have the opportunity to complete "word work centers" for the first time. Ask your child about some of our new centers! Here is a peek at some of the fun activities that we did to practice our words!

Rainbow Words:

Pyramid Word Writing:

Word Race:

Building words with magnetic letters:

Building words using beads and pipe cleaners:

We also completed a fun scavenger hunt in the classroom. While the students were at their specials class, I hid Short U words around the classroom. Students used clip boards to find all of the words and write them under the matching word family.

One of the students' favorite activities is using the spinning wheel to spin word families. Students each get a turn to spin. The wheel has word families like "at" or "ick" and then everyone writes a word from that word family on their whiteboards.

In November, we learned that nouns are words that are people, places, or things. Students worked in partner groups to look for nouns in the books in their book bins. They wrote down as many as they could on their sheets!

Students worked on their comprehension skills by writing about the beginning, middle, and end of a story that I read to the class. Students made little flip books about the story!

I am always so impressed by how much first graders LOVE to read. I couldn't resist taking this picture of these kids reading after they finished their work!

Math:

Here are some of the key skills that we worked on in November:

- Telling time to the hour (and we recently added half hours)
- Math facts that equal ten
- Skip counting on a number grid
- Basic addition and subtraction
- Counting coins with nickels and pennies (we add dimes soon!)
- Reading graphs and tally charts

 Skip counting on the number grid:

Number sorting activity:

Roll and Add Thanksgiving page!

Writing numbers before and after:

 Number grid puzzles:

New tangram game on the ipads:

Making Thanksgiving graphs:

Science:

In science, we finished learning about air and weather. Students observed the clouds and the wind outside. We put a rain gauge in the school garden so that we can measure rain fall. We tested wind speed and direction by using bubbles. Here's some pictures of the kids using their bubbles to learn about wind.

During the 2nd trimester, we will learn about Balance and Motion in science. I hope that you enjoyed this peek into our classroom! Please let me know if you have any questions!