Valentine's Day Family Project

Valentine's Day is right around the corner and we will be celebrating on Friday, February 13th!

First, your child has a FUN family project to complete at home... the task is to construct a Valentines mailbox!  There are a plethora of ideas online, but I found some great examples:
14 Creative Valentine Box Ideas
20 Valentine Card Holders
Puppy Dog Mailbox
Valentines Mailbox
Cereal Box Valentine Holder

This project will take some time but it will be worth it! :)  Get creative and have some fun!

A note is also going home explaining the project, with a list of names for our classroom on the back.  Your child may address Valentine's for all the students in our classroom - what a great way to practice writing names with a capital letter at the beginning and lowercase for the rest! :)


Your child needs to bring his or her mailbox & valentines to school on or before Friday, February 13th.  Happy constructing!

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a joyful and restful holiday season!  Thank you to everyone who attended and supported our holiday party, and thank you for the wonderful gifts!

Minute to Win It!

Getting Crafty!

COOKIES!

It is a new year and a fresh start for us in First Grade, and it's great to be back.  We have spent some time making new year resolutions.  We learned that a resolution is a promise you make to yourself to make yourself better.  So we thought about what would make us better First Graders in 2015.  Ask your child about his/her resolution! Take a look at some:

We are off to a great start!  Here is what we have been working on:

MATH

Before the break and this we have been working on subtraction strategies:

*Use manipulatives to model subtraction.  With this, we really worked on arranging the number we were taking away from in easy-to-understand representations (for example groups of 2, 5 or 10).

Groups of 5

Groups of 5

Subtraction Grab

Groups of 5 was popular!

*Counting back when subtracting small number (i.e. To do 15 - 3, count back 3 in your head.  So 14, 13, 12 using fingers to track the 3). We played subtraction races to practice this skill:

We checked our work using the number line:

* Doubles Subtraction: We learned that if we know the addition doubles fact, it helps us mental do doubles subtraction. So we practiced building the doubles addition fact using 2 different colored squares.  For example, 7 + 7 = 14, so we showed 7 yellows and 7 blues.  Then we took away one group of 7 so see the other group of 7 remaining. So 14 - 7 = 7.

We practiced this as well with our "Doubles Aren't Trouble" game.  Students rolled a dice and doubled that number by building with squares.  Then they crossed the sum off of their board and practiced the related subtraction fact by writing it on the board:

* Think Addition & Fact Families:  We spent a lot of time this week thinking about how addition and subtraction are related.  We built addition facts and then practiced taking away different parts to see that the other part remains.  We learned that 3 numbers can work together in a family to represent addition and subtraction. We used dominos and number bonds to understand this part-part-whole relationship:

Don't forget our math talk:

Next week, we will work on subtraction problem-solving.  We will practice using these strategies to solve word problems along with our problem-solving steps.

WRITING

In December, we learned how to write letters.  We learned that letters have important parts: greeting, body, closing, and signature.  We will use this as a part of an opinion letter writing unit.  We have been learning to form opinions and to support our opinions with strong reasons.  We will use this skill to write letters in order to persuade others.  This week we formed an opinion: Would you rather go sledding or swimming?  And we brainstormed strong reasons to support either opinion.  We also leaned to close our opinion by stating our opinion again.  Next week, we will write persuasive letters using to express our opinions.

READING

This week, we began a new unit introducing Non-Fiction or Informational reading.  We looked at the difference between fiction and non-fiction books and learned that informational readers learned new things about real information while reading.  We also learned to preview the cover, title, and important text features (table of contexts, headings, labels, captions, etc.) in order to understand how the book is organized and to predict what we will learn about the topic before we read.

While you are reading at home, make sure you are bringing in some nonfiction books!

WORD STUDY

We are continuing to work with our Dolch Words on a daily basis.  Keep practicing at home!  Remember, to visit our Literacy page for new ideas for how to practice at home.  There were no Words Their Way word sorts this week nor will there be next week.

The new Dolch Volunteer Sign-Up is up and running!  Please click here to sign-up.  It can also be found in the sidebar under Parent Links.  It would be wonderful if we could get the calendar signed up in advanced, so it doesn't become something I am worried about filling each week.  I appreciate your support!

SCIENCE

We have been continuing to study the lifecycle of Darking Beetles.  We have observed the body structures and behaviors of the larva stage (mealworm) and the mealworms have started to transition to their pupa stage.  We are anxious to see the change from pupa to adult darkling beetle!

Other News:

* We have a new student who has joined our classroom - Welcome Nnamdi and Family!

* NO SCHOOL Monday, January 19th for MLK Day.