Adventures from the week of 1/17/23

Week of Jan. 17, 2023

We began our week by honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. by learning about being a peaceful and kind person and treating others in a kind peaceful way.  We read a couple of books about being a peaceful person,  learning that it begins within ourselves, and we can then spread it to others.  We made “Peacemakers” to represent this idea. 

During reading, we began a new unit that will focus on nonfiction or informational books.  We read two books which both had the same animals in them, one was fiction and the other was nonfiction.  We then compared and contrasted them to start learning about the differences between the two. 

We continued working on our “How To…” books and are getting ready to share our writing next week. 

During Guidance class this week Ms. Spaulding taught us about listening to the clues your body gives you for how you’re feeling.

During Word Study, we learned the “FLOZ” rule!  This is a rule that helps us know when to double the final letters in a short vowel, one-syllable word (-ff, -ll, -ss, -zz). 

We are now using our doubles facts, and partners to ten facts as we learn strategies for solving equations that have 3 addends (look for doubles or tens facts first, then add the third number).

 

Adventures from the Week of Jan. 9, 2023

 

Week of Jan. 9, 2023

Reminder: There is no school for students on Monday, January 16th.

A big focus for us over the past week has been learning what it means to have a growth mindset.  We read many books, had some fantastic discussions and seem to have developed a great understanding of what a growth mindset is as opposed to having a fixed mindset.  We realized that this is a lifelong skill to always be striving for. And our favorite mantra now seems to be “I can’t do it YET”!  “Yet” is a very powerful word! 

During writing, we continued to work on our “How to…” books learning how to write an introduction as well as a conclusion to our books. We also practiced writing the “Magic c” lowercase letters, trying to remember to always “start our letters at the top”.

Solving problems with multiple solutions and practicing our partners to 10 were the focuses during math this week.  Students learned 3 different strategies to solve this type of problem: think of “random” combinations, do the “flipflop” equations, or try to do it in an organized way and use a “T-Chart”.  Learning the partners to 10 is a very important skill for students to have so any extra support at home with this is greatly appreciated.  The flashcards that we sent home, work very well for this!

Did you know that when two vowels go walking, the first one (usually) does the talking?  First graders focused on vowel teams (just for reading, not for spelling) and had fun singing some songs to help them understand the concept (2 vowels go walking, and when two vowels go walking).  We also learned six new power words and learned how to break off suffix endings to help us decode new words!