Week of October 27-31

Dear Parents, 

Today was our field trip to the Walled Lake Outdoor Center.  The students attended four different classes: camouflage, spiders, making soil and the insect class. In each class students worked on something hands on.  We camouflaged a potato then hid it for another group to find. We learned how important spiders our to the environment. We made soil from organic matter and used screens to grate it. We learned how insects see by putting on special insect glasses with many screens to see through.  

It was a great day! See pictures below!

In reading this week, I will read several Halloween stories and pumpkin books.  We will read a non fiction pumpkin book and I will teach the students non-fiction text features.  We will use the book to help us during "pumpkin math."  

Popcorn words this week are:no, not, ran, run, we, with.

In math we will be wrapping up unit two with lessons on subtraction number models and addition with three numbers.  We will have a test on Thursday. The test will cover, using a number grid to count up and back, time to the hour, counting pennies and nickels, word problems (number stories) with addition and subtraction.  I will also be doing pumpkin math. It is similar to apple math but I will supply one pumpkin for the whole class, we will cut it open on Friday to count the seeds!

This week in Social Studies we will begin to work on mapping, we will map the playground and classroom together. We will study maps.  I will present the following new terms: natural environment, human-made, pollute, map, may key or legend, bird's eye view.  An at-home project will be sent home on November 3rd and it is due on November 10th. Students will make a map with a map key of a room in your home or their bedroom.

On Friday we will have a Halloween parade and party at 2:45 p.m. Students need it bring, not wear, their costumes to school. We will change into our costumes before the parade.  After the parade we will come back to the room for Halloween Bingo and a treat.  Parents are welcome!

Savannah finds a spider!

Sophie learns how to make soil from organic matter!

Iris learns about what honey bees do in the winter!

Lucas learns how to use a magnifying glass!

I will post more pictures soon!

Week of October 20-24

Hello parents,

This week in First Grade we are learning about money, making text to text connections in books and learning about man made versus nature made things in our environment.

In reading we have read Chrysanthemum and  the book The Name Jar.  We learned how to make text to text connections.  We have discussed how the stories both have characters that were teased.  We learned that readers can make connections from one story to another story.

In writing we have begun a new unit called Small Moments. In this unit writers are taking one small moment and zooming in on just that moment to write about. We read the book Salt Hands and saw how the author stayed focused on one moment. We have practiced making ourselves the star in our writing and setting the scene for the story.  

In  math we have worked on the penny and the nickel the last two days. Today we will play the penny nickel exchange game.  Practice counting coins at home and expect a homelink tomorrow, Thursday.

In social studies we went outside to explore the natural environment. We sorted items into man made and nature made.  We will begin a mapping unit later this week.

We are looking forward to our field trip on Monday, October 27th!

Have a great week, 

Mrs. Scheck

Week of October 13-17

This week in First Grade we will be beginning unit 2 in math.  Students will learn how to tell time to the hour, learn the minute and hour hands on a clocks and make a clock with both hands.

We will read the books Matthew and Tilly and McDuff and the Baby.  We are learning that readers make connections to the characters in the story. We call it a text to self connection.  Today we talked about making connections. This week we will write about making connections text to self and we will look for connections in our reading.  

Our popcorn words went home last night. As students work on learning the popcorn words, they are placed on our word wall. Students are responsible for writing the word wall words correctly during writing workshop.  Please continue to practice the new and old words at home.

This week we will work in Phonics on digraphs. Today we worked on sh  and ch, two letters working together to make one sound. We noticed words that have sh and ch at the beginning or ending.

In Social Studies, we are learning about consequences.  We will read The Story of Ping. In the story a little duck named Ping finds himself last to return to his owners boat and rather than face a consequence, he hides! This leads to another problem and illustrates how consequences happen.

Field trip money is due tomorrow. 

Have a great week!

Mrs. Scheck

Week of October 6-10

Hello parents, 

This week is Fire Safety week! We went to an assembly today presented by the Wixom Fire department. This Saturday they have an open house.  The fire department has a free hot dog lunch and lots of fun for families! I hope to be there with my boys!

This week in First Grade we are working on starting Unit 2 in math.  Last night a homelink was assigned and students brought home their Unit 2 Family Letter. The letter explains what we will be studying for the next unit in math.  I am sending home the unit one assessment tonight.  Parents please look over the assignment and then sign the attached note stating you've looked the test over.  

Practice skills at home such as number writing, counting by fives and counting back by ones.  

In math this week we are working on using the number grid effectively. Student learned how to count up and back on the number grid and played a game called "Rolling to 50."  Students learned how they can count up by one by moving their finger one space forward and they can also count up by 10 by moving their finger down one whole row.  

In reading we read the book It's Mine by Leo Lionni.  We are working on stopping to to turn and talk about the story to check for understanding. We discussed the following vocabulary words: quarrel, trembling, quibbled, and subsided.  

Popcorn words this week are: go, get, got, can, cat, be, but.

In writing we have moved on to writing longer stories that take more than one page. We are stretching out our stories over three pages.  Today we discussed when to use a period. We worked on putting periods at the end of complete thoughts. 

In social studies, we are still working on rules and what is fair and unfair. We will read this week about Martin Luther King and discuss how laws can be changed.

Our field trip to the outdoor center will be on October 27th.  Please send both the permission slip and $11.00 by October 15th.  

This Friday we will be taking a new state required on line assessment for math.  It's called "I ready."

 Please have your child at school on time that day, ready to take the assessment. 

Our PTA Walkathon is next Friday.  Students are being asked to raise money for the school.  The student who raises the most money receives a $200 gift card to Target!

Our character quote this week is "Today is a good day to try" from Walt Disney.

This weeks star of he week is Ayveri and next week Hope will be the star of the week!

Have a good week!

Mrs. Scheck

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