Week of September 29- October 3

Dear parents, 

This week in first grade we are working with our apples during math. So far we have counted the red and green apples we brought in with tally marks, made a bar graph, and measured the girth of our apples. Most students were able to weigh their apples using a pan balance. Tomorrow we will finish weighing them and then cut them open and count the seeds inside.

We began taking a math assessment for unit one today in small groups.  We will finish the assessment tomorrow. 

A letter for unit 2 will come home later this week.

In reading, we have read the book When I Was Little by Jamie Lee Curtis.  We worked on making text to self connections with the book, we also wrote our connections in our readers notebook. 

We began reading groups. I have five groups to meet with each week. Some days I will see three groups, some days I'll be able to work with all five.  Books come home after a story has been read twice.  Books will begin going home tomorrow.

The popcorn words this week are: in, it, is, if, me and mom. We worked on using one of those words to read and write a new word- like using in to write pin.

In writing this week, we are writing stories and stretching words. We will practice writing longer words "the best we can" and just keep going. Some students will ask me to spell for them, I tell them to stretch it out and write the sounds they hear. I will also be giving students an alphabet chart to keep in their writing folder, this tool will help them when they stretch words.

Tomorrow I'm sending home a permission slip for the outdoor center field trip.  I would like to have 5 chaperones to go on the field trip with us.  Please send the permission slip and money in by October 15th. The cost is $11.00 for students and $11.00 for chaperones.

Enjoy the photos below of students working on writing!

Thank you!

Mrs. Scheck

Week of September 22-26

Dear parents, 

Hello! This will be a busy week in first grade.  As a reminder this week there is no school on Thursday, September 25th.  Picture day is tomorrow, Wednesday, September 24th.

We are reading the book Stellaluna by Janell Cannon.  We read the book to introduce the strategy "look for a part you know." We practiced taking apart words together.  We also are reading the book to discuss the character trait "courageous" because the main character was courageous when he saved the baby birds at night.

The popcorn words this week are: a, as,  at, am, and, I.  We will practice in class and students should have brought the words home last night. 

In math, we have been working on writing numbers, playing top-it in a small group and number stories.  Monday of next week we will be ready for our first unit test.  Also students received their everyday math online log in. Please take some time to go onto the website www.everydaymathonline.com and practice a few games with your child.

In Social Studies we will be reading and learning about Rules.  We will discuss the concept of fair and unfair.

In writing, we are working on stretching words and writing the sounds we hear.  We read a book yesterday by Donald Crews called Trucking and we practiced labeling our pictures.  We will begin using a letter chart to help with writing the sounds and letters in the words we don't know how to spell.

Please look for a note asking parents to send an apple to school next week for some fun Apple Math!

Thank you,

Mrs. Scheck

Week of September 15-19

Hello parents!

Last night I was able to meet many of you at the first grade curriculum night! Thank you for coming to meet me and learn about first grade. If you were unable to attend, I sent home a copy of my presentation with your child today.  

This week in first grade...

We have been reading the book If you Give a Mouse a Cookie. We have used this book to locate periods at the end of a sentence. We have also been learning a reading strategy called "Go back and reread", when it doesn't make sense. If you child reads something and it is not right say "that didn't make sense, go back and think about the story. Reread from the start of the sentence." Always offer a strategy before telling your child the word. Encourage him or her to attempt to fix it on their own. 

In reading workshop we are continuing to build stamina in our reading, we are up to 10 minutes of reading to ourselves and 8 minutes of reading to someone.

We have begun a fall writing assessing called the DWA today.  Students are writing about a favorite animal. Their writing will be used to help me focus my lessons to meet the needs of the students. We will continue the assessment tomorrow.

Today in math we leaned how to make tally marks. We learned a poem to help us...

1,2,3,4

Number 5 shuts the door.

6,7,8,9

Number ten draws the line.

Tally marks can be used for counting and keeping score during a game, let your child practice tally marking at home.

In Social Studies tomorrow is Constitution Day.   We will watch a video and learn about the Statue of Liberty.

We will have a home link tomorrow night. Please watch for it in your child's folder.

Thank you, 

Mrs. Scheck

First Grade - first two weeks

We are off to a great start in room 109 at Wixom Elementary! 

This week in first grade we are continuing to learn all the routines and structures that we need to have in place in order to begin Reading Workshop, Writers Workshop and Math.  

We have been working on having a routine for the morning that will help us begin our day.  Students are learning to use breathing techniques to help themselves be calm everyday and ready to start learning! We have practiced the pretzel, the drain and today we learned how to do the "chef." Ask you child to show you how they do these to get calm!

In reading workshop, students are learning the components of The Daily Five. 

We have practiced the first two components, read to self and read to someone. The first step to these we're building our Book Boxes.  The student selected "Just right books" for their book boxes.

The students helped me write out the expectations for these two components.  Then we began trying to build stamina, reading a few minutes longer each day. We will eventually be reading for 20 minutes!

Below are a few pictures of students doing read to self and read to someone!

In writing we have launched Writing Workshop! We have talked about how writers write what they know. We have also been stretching words to hear the sounds and then writing what we hear. 

In math we have learned two new math games! We played Top It and Bunny Hop. Today students got math tooI kits and explored with a pattern template.  We went over some of the rules for using math tools and practiced using a tape measure.  Math home work will begin after curriculum night, which is Monday September, 15 at 7:15 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. I hope to see you there!

Please begin reading at home at night to your child and having your child read to you!

Have a great week!

Mrs. Scheck