This {last} week in First grade....

Congratulations everyone!! You made it through First grade!! It was a great year. We made a ton of memories and had a good time learning along the way! I'm so proud of all of your children! They each brought a uniqueness to our class and their personalities shined through! They learned so much! I will miss them greatly! This last week... Monday- Regular day! Tuesday- Regular day! Wednesday- Reader's Theater presentation at 9:00am in our classroom. End of the Year party at the Oak View park 10:00am-1:00pm Thursday- {Mrs. C's last day with the students} Autographing memory books Finishing memory book and letters Taking home all of our "stuff" Friday- Ms. Burns will be my sub. Games in the morning. Your child is welcome to bring games, toys and electronics Movie in the afternoon!! Report cards come home! No Word Work In Reading and Writing Workshop we will work on finishing our First grade memory book! We will also complete our letters to the Future First graders. We will write a letter to their second grade teacher. I will save a copy of these and give them to their teachers on the first day of school next year! In Math we will work on a cummulative review of all of the skills we learned this year. It will be a great snap shot assessment to see what everyone retained! In Social Studies we will finish our First grade timelines! Have a great week! Mrs. C

This week in First grade {May 14th-18th}...

Work Work: No spelling this week! LANGUAGE ARTS: This week in writing workshop, we will be working on our First grade Memory Books. We will write about fun things and our favorite parts of First Grade! We will also write letters to the future First graders of Mrs. C's class! The students will focus on giving the new kids advice for their first grade year. In reading workshop, we will continue working on building our stamina for reading. The expectation for silent reading time in second grade is 30 minutes! We will continue to have Read to Self and Read to Someone time each day. During Read to Someone the students discuss the genre they are reading, characters and a quick book review/summary of the story. MATH: It is time for our estimation and probability unit, which is always a big hit with the students. We will be practicing our skills with estimation and probability through games each day. Students will begin by estimating and graphing, and reviewing <, >, = signs while recording their estimations and comparing these to their actual findings while they play games. They will come to a deeper understanding of probability by guessing what the odds are that a certain outcome will occur, then recording and graphing the actual results. We will be doing a lot of comparing, contrasting, and analyzing data during this part of the unit. Science/Social Studies: We finish journal with our bean plants. We concluded that our beans were duds because only one out of 20 grew! We are going to plant grass seed for the last couple days of school and watch it grow! In Social Studies we are working on creating a timeline. On Monday we brainstormed a list of things we've learned about or special days we've had in First grade. The students will choose at least five and make a timeline. IMPORTANT DATES AND REMINDERS: May 25th - Last Day of School Thank you again to all of you for a fabulous Teacher Appriciation week! Thank you to... Lisa Mayo and Gina Johnston for being fabulous homeroom moms!! Mr. Score for being our computer lab dad! The Score family for taking care of stuffing Tuesday folders for the last 3 months!!!

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This week in First grade {May 7-11}

Word work: Red Group: Homophones blue, blew, there, their, they're, rose, rows, knight, night, sea, see Blue Group:-s, -es (plural) shoes, shoe, try, tries, week, weeks, plant, plants, toe, toes Green Group: -er, -est (suffix) big, bigger, great, greatest, run, runner, best, better, small, smallest Language Arts: This week in writing workshop, we will continue our attention on the revision part of the writing process in our stories. Our focus will be on adding dialogue, revising by taking away some and adding words. Your child will continue to share published papers on Fridays in our Author’s Chair and completed stories will go home in the Tuesday folder. Please remember that each child will complete the process at different levels and speed so there may be some weeks you won’t see a completed piece of writing in your child’s Tuesday folder and other weeks you may see more than one. The children have really grasped the concept of inferring and visualization as an important skill for comprehension. So this week we will work again on summarizing. The students will be writing summaries in their Reader’s Response Notebooks. MATH: We will complete our unit on subtraction strategies on Monday and Tuesday and move into our unit on, Probability. The children will explore and share information about everyday experiences and realize they can be collected, organized, and used. They will also realize that some events are possible while others are certain. This is an extremely fun unit with lots of games and hands on activities that the children always love! SCIENCE: We will continue our unit on seeds and plants. We will read literature and learn about how seeds travel, talk about what plants need in order to grow and learn about the plant parts and their functions. IMPORTANT DATES AND REMINDERS: May 7th – Deadline for turning in Optional Parent Input Form May 7-11th - National Teacher Appreciation Week May 9th - Natl. Walk & Bike to School Day May 11th – School Supply Order Forms Due May 11th - Field Day *Picnic lunch outside *Bring a change of clothes, socks, and a towel. *Please apply sunscreen at home. * bring a reusable water bottle filled with ice and water. FIRST GRADE WILL BE PATICIPATING IN FIELD DAY FROM 8:20-11:30. This includes the picnic lunch. May 15th - 7:45 Breakfast honoring all parent volunteers May 25 - Last Day of School

This week in First grade {April 23-27}...

Word Work: (Bossy R)= ar, or, er, ir Red: forget, quarter, sport, short, sparkle, scar, sister, first, vampire, tiger Blue: farm, bark, yard, smart, star, fork, corn, sort, short, horse Green: fort, port, sort, for, horn, cart, tar, bar, park, hard *Bossy R words are R controlled vowels. The r make the vowel (vowel+R) say a different sound Language Arts: This week in writing workshop, we will review small moments and introduce “Tiny Moments”. Your child will continue to share published papers on Friday in our Author’s Chair and take them home in the Tuesday folder. Please remember that each child will complete the process at different levels and speed so there may be some weeks you won’t see a completed piece of writing in your child’s Tuesday folder and other weeks you may see more than one. For reading workshop we will focus on the comprehension skills of inferring and visualizing as we read poetry. My goals for this week are for your child to understand what is means to infer, infer the meaning of poems by merging their background knowledge with clues from the text, and grow to cherish the sound of words and the rhythm of language in poetry. Silkworms: It looks like we may have silkworms who are bums! We are still in need of Mulberry leaves for our little guys. We started with about 40 worms and I believe we are down to 7-9. We don't have any that have spun their cocoon yet so we'll go observe other classes to see the change. MATH: We are continuing our unit on subtraction strategies. This unit introduces the “THINK ADDITION” strategy for the Count On Subtraction facts. The facts covered in this strategy are related to their partner facts covered in the Count On Addition strategy. Each Count On Subtraction fact and its Turnaround subtraction fact form a fact family with their addition partner fact. This unit also reinforces the Addition Count On strategy and the Addition Use Doubles strategies that the children have already learned. For example: Addition has turnaround facts such as 2+6=8 and 6+2=8, subtraction has partner facts such as 8-6=2 and 8-2=6. Addition facts and subtraction facts that involve the same parts in total form fact families. This unit will continue for several more weeks as we dive into more complex thinking strategies and problem solving associated with subtraction strategies. SCIENCE: This week we will study birds, mammals, reptiles and fish. We will discuss their body parts, what they eat, how they move, their life cycles, and how they are dependent on their environment. All work will be recorded in their science notebooks in class. IMPORTANT DATES AND REMINDERS: Tuesday: Library day. Please remind your child to return their library books so your child can check out a new book.* · April 26th – Field Trip (please bring an all disposable lunch to school) · April 24th – 26th – STAAR Testing – No visitors allowed in the building · April 27th - 6-7pm Family Fun Night · May 2nd - Early Release Day 12:45pm · May 7-11th - National Teacher Appreciation Week · May 9th - Natl. Walk & Bike to School Day · May 11th - Field Day Have a great week! Mrs. Caballero

Earth Day!

Recycled hat parade!