Language Arts
This week we had Iliana team teaching with me as she prepared herself to take over the class next week. We focused a lot of time into doing Leer 5 so that Ms. Iliana could read with each student this week, to understand at which level all the students are at.
We also started our new reading unit this week. This unit will be about different animals. This week we read about raccoons. We had the students compare and contrast raccoons from themselves. They had so much fun discussing and writing about the raccoon’s diet compared to theirs. Ask them to share with you what they learned about raccoons this week!
The students this week also wrote me gorgeous little notes saying goodbye which I will cherish forever. I wish I could post all of the notes on drawing here because they did such a fantastic job on their sentences and spelling.
Our high frequency words this week were contra (against or versus) and gran (great). Contra was a particularly difficult word to wrap our heads around. We really had to be careful to use the words against as in versus and not as in lean against. Try to have your student use the word contra with you at home to practice it’s meaning.
We also had Elsa, my dog, visit us in class this Thursday. The students were beaming with excitment all day! It was great fun to watch them read with her and talk to her in Spanish. Even with this distraction in class the students were still very focused on their class work and I am so proud of them for that! Doggy hugs are a lot of fun but getting our work done is more important!
Math
I
n math this week we took our unit test. This test was much longer than past tests and it was very complicated. I am so proud of all the students for persevering and doing such a good job on them. Everyone understood the concepts, it was really just making sure that they knew what the question was asking of them.
Next week Iliana will being working on ordinal numbers with the class in their new unit. We have seen that they already have a lot of prior knowledge about ordinal numbers which will be a great foundation to build upon!
This was my last week at Spanish with Sarah teaching this amazing group of first graders. I just wanted to say thank you to all the parents for giving me the honor of teaching your student. They are such a joy and always found new ways to impress me with their knowledge and capabilities. Although, I am sad to go I know that they will have a wonderful first grade year. Again thank you.
Social Studies & Science
class!
In social studies we wrapped up our discussion on the Islam. We finished filling in our World Religion chart which compared and contrasted the three religions that we have been reading about. On Thursday Laura McBride came into the class and did a wonderful presentation on special holidays and customs in the Catholic religion. We had some thoughtful questions and comments by the class. I am still looking for someone in the Muslim community who might like to come into the class to also do a presentation, so if someone you know might be interested in doing this please let me know and I would be happy to contact them. Thank you!This week we did not get new sorts but instead we were focusing on our spelling within our writing. The class is paying special attention to word wall words to make sure they are consistently spelling these correctly in their work. Everyone worked very hard on their animal book reports this week. They first had to choose an animal that they wanted to write about, then read a book on the animal several times and then write several drafts for the report. The reports are the first big writing project that we have done so far this year. I was proud at the amount of focus that these first graders put into them and impressed with the end results . If you didn’t get to see your child’s report during conferences, please look for them in the hall on our bulletin board.
Art
The first graders looked at photos of snowmen and learned how to draw simple snowmen with hats, scarves, and buttons. After outlining the snowman with black marker, the students learned how to wet the background with water, add paint, and then sprinkle with salt to get a snowy texture. Their wonderful snowman pictures needed to dry so I will send them home next week.
A NOTE ABOUT ART GRADES: I use art grades to let you know what topics in the curriculum we’ve covered and not as an indication of skill, since all children have wonderful creative abilities.