Weekly News

WORD WALL WORDS:        am             and            can            see       to

This week, we continued our exploration of short vowel sounds, starting with short a. We also began to study Word Families of at, an, and am. For example, if we can read “at,” we can also add and change beginning letters and read more words, like cat, hat, chat, mat, pat, etc. We will use Word Families a lot this year to go along with our Word Wall Words and Literacy Centers.

SUMMER LEARNING

I have been asked to remind families of summer reading and math packets. Many families that completed this work, have already turned it in. However, this is the final week to return any work done over the summer. This can be done in the form of the summer reading list, summer math calendar or other documentation of learning over the summer. If you are new to Devotion School, or did not complete summer work, no problem. It is encouraged but not required. The final day to turn in any work is this Friday, October 19^th.

MATH

This week, we are wrapping up our beginning of the year unit on shapes and patterns. We will continue to work with shapes and patterns throughout the year, but our focus will begin to shift to number sense. We will look carefully at numbers, beginning with the number 5. We will look at all of the ways to make 5, what happens when we take different amounts away from 5, and other characteristics of 5. We will eventually label addition and subtraction, however, in the beginning  (and beyond) our goal is for children to develop a deep understanding of numbers and the actions, rather than focusing on the rote addition and subtraction facts.

COMMUNITY

We continue to work on ways to be a good friend. We have talked this week about how to help friends and how to make things better if someone’s feelings get hurt. We talked about going beyond “I’m sorry.” Sometimes, saying “I’m sorry” doesn’t fully fix someone’s hurt feelings. As a class, we thought of things we could say or do to make someone feel better, ways to let them know that they are our friend and that we care about them. For example, we could say “Next time, I will...,” give a compliment,  let someone go first, or include someone in a game or activity. This is similar to the “you broke it, you fix it” approach, which works great and is easier to understand for objects and messes. It’s a bit trickier of a concept for feelings and friendship. We will continue to work this year on going beyond, “I’m sorry,” to actually helping to make a problem smaller. It’s a work in progress, and we are looking forward to the opportunity to build an even stronger classroom community.

SCIENCE

Following our discussion on scientists and how to look carefully at objects we observe, we began to explore tools that scientists use to observe. This week, we used magnifying glasses to “zoom in” and take a closer look at apples. We will continue to learn about different tools that we can use to observe. We also learned about the life cycle of apples and apple trees. We read about how apple trees change in different seasons.  We looked at, labeled, and created our own cross-section diagrams of apples. We identified the parts of an apple: skin/peel, flesh, core, stem, and seeds.

APPLE WEEK

This week, we focused on apples and the yearly cycle of the apple tree. We have read many apple books, both fiction and non-fiction. We are doing a number of activities relating to apples, including observations, stamping, diagrams, poems, stories, apple farm maps, taste tests and cooking apple sauce. It has been a wonderful way to do some cross-curricular, cooperative, hands-on learning.

HALLOWEEN

We will celebrate Halloween and fall during the week of October 29- November 2^nd. Similar to Apple Week, during Fall Festival week we will address literacy, math, science and community through these Halloween Centers. We will not be sharing candy or bringing in costumes, however, children will have the opportunity to draw their costume and talk about costumes.

*Following Trick-or-Treating, please do not send any candy with your child for lunch or snack. These treats should be saved for home to avoid any hurt feelings and to keep the focus on healthy eating at school. Thank you so much for your help with this.

SNACK

Please check in with your child regarding snack and lunch times. Some children are growing or using more energy at school and end up quite hungry during the day. We really try to encourage children to eat all of their food at lunch and snack, but some children are still hungry. Feel free to send a sandwich or something else substantial for snack, as it is a very long time to go from 8 am to 12:40 when we eat lunch.

Also, we are running low on our class supply of plastic-ware, specifically plastic spoons. If you pack yogurt or fruit cups for your child, please send them with spoons and forks. There is a supply in the cafeteria for lunchtime, but we do not have the same supply in the classroom.  

FIRST GRADE WISH LIST

We welcome donations of the following items for our classroom:

·      Legos, old ones that your family is no longer using.

·      Plastic Spoons

ASK YOUR CHILD…

These questions can be conversation starters to discuss the week in school.

·      What are some words in the “at” word family?

·      What kind of apple did you like the best in our Apple Taste Test?

·      Can you make a circle out of squares? What shapes can you make with squares?

·      What did you like about the Art Barn play that we watched on Friday?

·      What was your favorite Apple Week activity?