Dear Parents,

We have a had a great week so far in First Grade!

This week we have started some new units to begin our second semester of the year...
In reading, we have started a Non-Fiction reading unit. We started the week with a non-fiction text book called Look Who's Hatching.  The book had clues for students to guess who was hatching behind a flap. We learned how to use clues in the books to help find information. Through out the next few weeks we will learn some of the features of non-fiction books such as: table of contents, glossary, index, diagrams, photographs, captions, etc. Mostly we are learning how fiction and non-fiction are different because all things in a non-fiction book are true!

Visualizing is our reading comprehension strategy that we have been practicing during read alouds. We read the book In The Tall, Tall Grass today and we visualized how tall the grass was then wrote and drew about it.

In writing, we have begun a new Non-Fiction unit on "How To" writing. Today we made butter! We learned how to shake heavy cream into butter. The students loved the little "experiment" and were excited to guess what we were making (it was a surprise!)... some guessed ice cream, cake, cream... After making the butter we wrote about it! Everyone got a small taste with a spoon, a few students loved it! Others were not to sure and did not try it, but it was fun anyway!

In math, we started unit 5 today. We are beginning place value. Students worked to build numbers with base 10 blocks. We have a home link tonight that is due tomorrow.

It was awesome to see all the amazing growth in our class in reading since September. I have completed my individual reading assessments and started up our reading groups this week. Look for a reading book this week and remember to return it the next day.

Have a great night!
Mrs. Scheck