Week of October 12-16

Dear Parents,

This week in First Grade we have been busy learning and working!

We learned a little about Columbus on Monday. We learned over 600 years ago he sailed for two months and bumped into the Americas! We read a book together and colored the book to read in school.

In reading we read the book Matthew and Tilly. We read this story to discuss how reader's make text to self connections when they read. We will read it again tomorrow and write about our connections to the book. We have new popcorn words: go, get, got, be, but, can and cat. We played a game today to practice segmenting the beginning and ends of words like this plate "pl - ate."
This helps students hear word parts when they write and read.

In math, we have begun a unit 2. We learned a new rule called the "turn around rule" for adding. We learned the rule means you can add 2 + 1 = 3 and turn the numbers around so that  1+2 also will equal 3. We also worked with all the ways to make 10. A home link will come home today to work on addition. It is due Thursday. Today I introduced 10 frames. We will be using ten frames for counting, adding and subtracting. Students were familiar with them from Kindergarten. We will play 10 frame top it tomorrow.

In Social Studies we are wrapping up Rules and have been discussing the concept of Fairness. Tomorrow we will finish reading Happy Birthday Martin Luther King! We will discuss how unfair laws can be changed and how Dr. King was able to change laws when he was a leader during the civil rights movement.

In writing, we have begun a new unit call Small Moments. This unit focuses on taking one small moment and zooming in on it. We will work on Small Moments for the next several weeks. Our class loves to write! I am seeing great work from all the children.

Have a great week!
Mrs. Scheck

Walkathon!

Here we are in our new shirts the PTA gave us! 

Week of October 5-9

Dear parents,

This week in First Grade...

In reading we have learned all five components of the Daily 5: read to self, read to someone, word work, work on writing and listen to reading.

The class has been working on using a task board to know which part of the Daily Five they are doing. Today we learned the final component, Listening to reading.

Next we will begin Reading Groups. Soon students will be bringing home a reading bag. Each book needs to be read at home and returned the next day to school. Students will read the book twice in their reading group before bringing home a book.

We read the book Owen by Kevin Henkes. We talked about the story and what connections we could make to the book. We will focus on these new vocabulary words this week from the story: essential, vinegar and handkerchief.

In writing, we have chosen a piece of writing to "fancy up" for publishing. We are getting close to wrapping up our visit writing unit. We have learned this week that there are different purposes for writing. We can write to tell stories, write letters to send a message or we can make lists!

In math, we are reaching the end of Unit 1. A homelink will come home Thursday night. We will begin a two day written assessment tomorrow. The assessment will be kept at school.

Friday is the Walkathon! You are welcome to come and walk with us at 2:30 p.m.

Have a great night,
Mrs. Scheck

Week of September 28- October 2

Dear parents, 

This week in First Grade we have begun Star of the Week! Torino is our star this week. He shared his poster and 8 pictures with the class. He is the line leader all week. Next week the star of the week is Brynlee!

In reading I have introduced the comprehension strategy Text to Self connections, we read the book When I was Little by Jamie Lee Curtis. We made connections to the book about when we were little. We wrote about our connections. 

In writing we have learned how to say words slowly and write what we hear, then move on to the next words. We used letter charts to help us find the sounds in words. We shared our stories in class.

In math we have begun tally marks. We learned a poem to help us remember when to draw the line. 

1,2,3,4 number 5 shuts the door. 6,7,8,9 number 10 draws the line.  We had explorations today with get boards, pattern blocks and base 10 blocks.

In social studies we read the book Oliver Buttons. We discussed rules that are fair and unfair. We sorted things that are fair and unfair. 

We will read the book Ruby Bridges later this week. It is a true story about a girl who was one of first children to begin integrating at an all white school in the 1950's. We will discuss that when laws are not fair they can be changed through peaceful ways.

 We are beginning Math and reading testing on the computer this and next week!

 

Have a good day! 

Mrs. Scheck 

Pattern blocks

Read to someone

Read to someone 

Read to someone

Pattern blocks

Bunny hop

Pattern blocks

Reading together

Ma

Week of September 21-25

Dear parents, 

Thank you to the many parents who came to curriculum night. I enjoyed sharing all that your child will be learning this year!

In reading this week we have learned the strategy "go back and reread when it doesn't make sense." We practiced this during readers workshop in class, it is the first strategy to use when your child is stuck.  We read the book The Big Bed. I modeled going back to reread. 

In writing we are well into the writing workshop. We are writing for 20 minutes independently.  Students are using materials independently too. They've learned "when you're done you've just begun!" They have been trying their best at drawing and writing even if it is hard. Today we will read Donald Crews book Freight Train to see how authors label their picture and try it in our own writing.

 

In Social Studies we are learning about rules. We discussed when a rule is unfair.  We will sort pictures of things that are fair and unfair.

In math we compared numbers playing top it and we played bunny hop! Student hopped their bunny on a number line. We reviewed making tally marks and talked about when we tally mark to show points in a game or to keep track of data. Students practiced counting animals with wings and without wings and tallied their results. We will have a homelink tomorrow night. 

Tomorrow is popcorn day, it's one dollar for a bag at lunch time.

Have a great day! 

Mrs. Scheck

Week of September 14-18

We have been busy this week in First Grade! 

We have begun readers workshop! The students have been practicing reading to themselves for a set amount of time and reading to a partner too.  I begun assessing students in reading. We have learned the following reading strategies: cross checking and one to one match. We read the book Stellaluna this week and learned the character trait, brave.  We found evidence in the book to show how Stellaluna was brave.

In writing we have learned how to write using the materials in the room independently.  We shared our stories with the class. We learned what to do when we are done... We can add more to the picture, add more words, or start a new piece.

In math, we discussed estimating.  We counted objects using different strategies: counting by 1's, 2's, 5's, and 10's.

We learned new math games. We played monster squeeze and the penny dice-game.

See you on Monday at 7:15 for curriculum night!

Mrs. Scheck

First week of school 2015-2016

Dear parents, 

We are on off to a great start in room 109!

On the first day we got to know each a little bit. We played a fun name game in the morning. We read the book First Day Jitters and The Night Before First Grade.  We wrote about our feelings on the fisrt day. We had snack and got our pictures taken!

In the afternoon we had an assembly and Mr. Bender talked about keeping Wixom Elementary safe!

We did a project the with our names.

On Wednesday, we began our day learning the School Family Song with sign language.

We began our first unit in math. We started Writing Workshop. The students brought home a letter about math unit 1. Parents have a little homework to do tonight, a survey about their student!

We are going to have so much fun this year!

Mrs. Scheck