Friday, October 21, 2016

We had a special guest reader this week!  Coach Consiglio volunteered to come in and read "The Great Fuzz Frenzy" by Janet Stevens!  We had such a great time listening!  Thanks, Coach!

Our learning this week:

Reading:  This week in reading we talked about a few different ways to figure out tricky words when reading.  We learned that a lot of words have endings (for example:  s, ed, and ing). When we see a tricky word that has one of these endings, we can take off the ending and see if we can figure out the main word first then add the ending on to make it "make sense" when we're reading.  We also learned that when we come to a tricky word, we can break it into parts to figure it out.  We can use a finger or a little slip of paper to cover up part of the word so it isn't so overwhelming with longer words. 

Math:  We have been working on subtraction in math and this week we learned several strategies to help us subtract with word problems.   We learned how we can draw a picture to help us find the answer, we also used the part part whole model to help us subtract.  Lastly, we learned about fact families.  We can take three numbers like 7, 3, and 10 and make two addition and 2 subtraction sentences using only those numbers.  We will be learning about time in our next math unit.  First graders learn about time to the hour and half hour.  

Writing:  We are getting close to the end of our personal narrative writing unit.  Writing a "seed" story can be very tricky for many first graders... however, it has been so fun to see the growth of these writers since the beginning of the year!  We have a couple more topics to cover in this unit.  We worked on opening sentences (lead) this week and will be working on closing sentences (ending) next week.  I can't wait to share your child's writing with you at conference time!

Science:  Our new CPS zoo animal this week was a camel!  Did you know that camels have two rows of eyelashes?  Also, did you know that camels spit when they feel threatened?  These are just a few of the facts we have been learning about camels! 

Important Dates:

Friday, October 28th - Fall Party (2:30-3:10)

Monday, October 31st - No School (Teacher Workday)

Monday, November 7th - Parent/Teacher Conferences
please see your child's Friday Folder for more info.

Tuesday, November 8th - No School (Election Day)

Thursday, November 10th - Parent/Teacher Conferences
please see your child's Friday Folder for more info.

Friday, November 11th - No School (Teacher Workday)