A Few FYIs -

First Grade Math - We have been working on place value.  They have been learning about ones and tens using "sticks and circles" for drawings.  We have also used ten sticks.  We are using our math boards to learn methods to add two digit and one digit numbers together.  Today we learned about the symbols for greater than and less than.  (> and <)  The first graders are also learning how to tell time.  Time isn't until the second half of our book and I figured they could do it - and boy are they!  We started with :00 and :30.  Now most of the first graders can even tell time to the :05 - some kids even to the minute!  Also - continue to practice those math facts!

First Grade Phonics - The first graders are learning about basewords and suffix s.  Today we also had a discussion about punctuation while reading our phonics story.  We learned about quotation marks and apostrophes when words are contraction words.

Reading - We have Daily 5 every day.  Each of our groups is working on different things - depending on their reading level.  When not in group, the students are in Daily 5 centers.  This week our writing center has the students making turkeys and writing on them things that they are thankful for.  Our word work center has them making words out of the letters in Thanksgiving, working on Thanksgiving activities such as a word search and a word mix-up, completing a November calendar, and practicing spelling words, among other things.  I downloaded a new app for listening called Epic.  The students love it!

Science - We are getting close to the end of our weather unit - and our solids and liquids Einstein kit arrived this week...so we'll need to start that soon.  This week in science we learned about the water cycle.  We are currently in the middle of an experiment with a puddle.  We have a puddle in a pie tin.  We're recording what it looks like every day.  We're checking to see how long it takes to completely evaporate.  Today we had a lesson about rainy day fabrics.  We tested four fabrics to see which would be the best to wear on a rainy day.  We tested cotton, cotton-polyester, wool, and nylon.  We found out the nylon would be the best out of those four fabrics.

Handwriting - We continue to work on our handwriting skills - writing the letters in the correct places and forming the letters the correct way.  The second graders are super excited because this week we started cursive.   So far they have learned the lower case i and the lower case t.  They are finding out it's a little harder than it looks.  :)

Writing - We are fortunate to have two fantastic grandma helpers.  Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Kelly have been volunteering in our classroom for years!  They just returned about four weeks ago.  So far when they have been here the writing assignments have been pumpkins stories, Halloween stories, turkey stories, etc.  This week, for the first time, we used our writer's workshop notebooks.  Writer's workshop is the writing process.  The steps are -
1.  Make a web
2.  Write the rough draft
3.  Edit the story
4.  Rewrite the story with corrections
5.  Publish  (Have your story typed, bound, and then you illustrate)

This is a big process!  The second graders are the experts since they worked on this last year as well.  Since yesterday was the first time for the first graders, they were paired up with a second grade helper.  The outcome - amazing!  The second graders were such great helpers for the first graders.  I had to snap a few pics of the kids working together.

At the end of writer's workshop we always share what we worked on.  All of the partners went up to share together.  It was beautiful.  Then, Monika shared.  She worked with our Grandma helper Mrs. Kelly and she asked Mrs. Kelly to sit with her when she shared.  It was so cute.

Reminder - Tomorrow is a Res Spirit Dress Down Day.

Have a great night!