First Grade Math - This week we finished unit 2 and we are now moving on to unit 3.  We are working on finding the missing partner in the equation.  We are doing this by using math mountains, circle drawings, and writing out the equations both horizontally and vertically.

First Grade Phonics - This week we finished unit 3 and we are now moving on to unit 4.  Unit 3 focused on digraphs.  We even made some cute digraph spiders.  :)  Starting today we will be learning about bonus letters.  Bonus letters are the letter f, l, and s.  When word is one syllable, has a short vowel, and it ends with f, l, or s, usually you double the final letter.  (Ex. mass, cuff, ball)

Reading - We are now into our second week of Daily 5 and reading groups.  It is going great!  Right now we currently have four different reading groups.  I meet with each group at least every other day. When the students are not with me, they are in their Daily 5 centers - Read to Self, Read to Someone, Work on Writing, Word Work, and Listening.  They may also work on Odyssey at this time.  The Word Work focus changes every two weeks.  Currently we have Halloween Word Work.  We learned some Halloween poems.  The students are putting the poems in order on note cards or they are filling in the missing words in a cloze activity.  Next week Word Work will also include making a Halloween book.  During the Halloween season, I've also added Halloween sticker stories to Work on Writing.  The students may choose up to 5 Halloween stickers and use them with an illustration.  Then they write a story about their picture.  This has been a popular center.

Writing - We have been writing in our journals.  Next week we will also be doing a pumpkin story and art project.  The following week we will be starting writer's workshop.

Handwriting - We are plugging away in our books.  Each time we have handwriting the first graders work on one letter and the second graders work on two.  The focus is always to have the students form the letters the correct way and put the letters in the correct spaces.

Religion - This week we finished chapter 3 in our book.  The first three chapters all dealt with creation.  We have been making these beautiful creation books.  We are almost done.  Each week we also read a Promise Paper.  The Promise Papers go through the weekly Gospel and then there are activities that focus on the Gospel message.  On Fridays Ms. McAllister has been coming into our classroom to share a Religion lesson with us.  She has been teaching the students about the Bible and Pope Francis.

Science - In science we are learning about weather.  This week we had a lesson where we had two different water temperatures - hot and cold.  We put thermometers in each bowl and read the thermometers.  The students loved watching the mercury go up and down quickly as they switched which bowl the thermometer was in.

Mass - We were scheduled to have the Mass on October 22,  Due to the Diocesan Mass on October 21, we are not going to have Mass at Res on the 22nd.  Our next Mass will now be on December 17.

Art - We continue work on our STREAM mosaic bird baths. Kids are doing great so far on this project. We also read a book called, ART. This is a story about a boy named ART who loves ART, and uses all different types of lines to create his ART. At the end of the story his mom hangs his ART on the refrig because she loves ART. We practiced a variety of these lines on large paper and will be using this paper for the background of another project at a later time. We will be looking at master art work to see how artists use lines in their ART.


Gym - We are working on racquet skills with high bounce foam balls.  Occasionally, they will be also working on upper body strength with scooters.