Reptile Guy

Here's some snapshots from our party!

Thank You

Parents,

 

I would like to thank you for your extremely thoughtful gift.  You are very thoughtful and generous individuals.  I am blessed to be working with such an amazing group of families.  Thank you for your generosity, and thank you for allowing me to work with your children to support them in their learning and goals.  I hope you all enjoy the holiday season, and I look forward to the new year!

December 15-19

Happy Holidays, First Grade!  This first half of the school year has been packed with a lot of learning, fun, and hard work.  Take a look at what we've been up to as we wrap up our final week before Winter Break:

Reading
We are continuing to navigate our nonfiction books by...

• Letting our questions and new learning lead to new questions
• Identifying a main topic
• Identifying key details
• Reviewing nonfiction text feature

Question:  Which text features can help you identify the main topic?

Writing
This week we are wrapping up our Small Moments Unit by...

• Revising
• Editing
• Peer Editing
• Publishing
• CELEBRATING!

Question:  What makes a small moment?  What are a couple writing skills you have put into your published small moment book?

Math
After ending our measurement and data, students began to explore combinations of 10 by learning these new games...

• Make 10
• How Many Am I Hiding?
• Counters in a Cup
• Tens Go Fish

Question:  What are all the combinations of 10 you can make by combining 2 numbers?

Science
We are coming to an end in our Balance and Motion Unit.  This week we wrapped up our unit by investigating...

• Wheels and axles
• Rolling cups

Question:  How can you get a cup to roll straight?

Coming up...
Winter Break- 12/22-1/2
Late Start-  1/7
Abra-kid-abra Math Residency Program- 1/12-1/14
FGIF Event- 1/16

Zoomers!

The Cheetahs investigated how to spin and rotate zoomers today.

December 8-12

Even while I was out on Monday and Tuesday, the Cheetahs remained very busy throughout the week!  Check out all of this week's learning...

In reading we continued with our non-fiction texts unit.  We explored:

• The purpose of labels, charts and diagrams
• Schema (what we know before we read)
• Reading for a purpose
• Thinking about what we've learned as we read 
• Using the table of contents
• Reading to answer questions

Question:  How does the table of contents help a non-fiction reader prepare to read a book?

In writing this week we...

• Re-read our writing
• Added dialogue
• Added hooks 
• Revisited show not tell descriptions
• Added endings

Question:  How did you add dialogue to your story to make it more real?

In math we wrapped up our measurement and data unit by...

• Reviewing time to the hour and half hour
• Reviewing analog and digital time
• Completing a summative assessment of learning
• Introducing combinations of 10

Question:  Can you name all the combinations of 10?  

Our first grade scientists continued exploring balance and motion by completing...

• The pencil trick
• Exploring tops
• Exploring zoomers
• Creating mobiles
• Reviewing terms such as counterweights, balance, stability, and motion

Question:  Which trick from this week was your favorite and why?

Coming up...

12/19 Winter Party 2:45-3:45

12/22-1/2 Winter Break

1/7 Late Start

1/12-1/14 Abra-kid-abra math residency program

Twin Day 12-12-14

Twin Day is this Friday!

Balance and Motion

Check out our scientists hard at work creating mobiles and performing the pencil trick!

December 1-5

The first graders are back on track with a week filled with new learning.  Here's what was happening at Barretts this week...

Reading
This week we started the Nonfiction Reading Unit.  We are navigating through the text features of a nonfiction book!

• Compared nonfiction stories to fiction stories
• Learned about Headings and Subheadings
• Learned about Table of Contents
• Learned about Glossary and bold words
• Learned about Illustrations and Captions

Question:  How does a Table of Contents and Glossary help you decide what to read in a nonfiction text?

Writing

We continued our small moments writing unit by diving into...

• Making our stories real by bringing our feelings from the inside out
• Adding dialogue to our words
• Adding speech bubbles to our pictures
• Adding sound effects
• Creating a class anchor chart of all the skills we have learned this unit.

Question:  What are some of the skills you learned in this unit?  Which skills did you put into your story?

Math

We are learning to tell time!  

• How much time is a second, minute, and hour?
• Kinds of clocks
• How to write the time 
• Time to the hour
• Time to the half hour

Question:  What time do you get up in the morning?  Show me that time to the hour on the homework clock.

Science

We started a new science unit - Balance and Motion.  Students have really enjoyed investigating how to balance objects.

• Explored concepts of balance
• Explored concepts of counterweights
• Explored concepts of stability
• Balanced a crayfish, triangle and arch
• Solved problems of balancing through trial and error

Question:  How do you balance a crayfish?  How do counterweights help?  

Reminders

12/19 - Holiday Party (2:40-3:40)

12/19-1/5 - Winter Break

Balance and Motion

The Cheetahs have been exploring the concepts of balance, balance points, counterweights, and stability!