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 19th.
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 2nd. 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?
