Holy Cross - First Grade

Math - We continue to work in our groups and centers. The green group is working We partners and totals up to 10. The yellow group is working on adding a two digit number and a one digit number. (Ex. 47+6=53) The red group is working on story problems, deciding if the problem is addition or subtraction, and figuring out where the missing number is going to be. (Ex. 8+7=___, 8+___=15, or ___+7=15) The blue group is working on comparison bars.

We did some graphing of heart candies on Valentine's Day. We found out the the bags had the most purple and green candies. The bags had the least amount of yellow and white candies.

Religion - This week we have been talking about Lent. We talked about Ash Wednesday, Holy Week, Palm Sunday, and Easter. We have a Lenten path that we are coloring in our classroom. We colored some beautiful Alleluia signs - and then we "buried" them. We will get our Alleluia's back after Jesus is risen. :) We think it's pretty cool that the word Lent is inside of vaLENTine!

Next week first grade has mass. (February 22nd) The reading parts went home today. The parts this time are -

Greeters - Aiden, Gabriella, Guadalupe, Mason, Dylan

Introduction - David

First Reading - Aaron, Suzi

Petitions - Alex, Madison, Lillian, Elliot, Canon, Brady, Joah

Bread - Mia

Wine - Emma

Thanksgiving Prayer - Will, Lucy

Leader of the Pack Cards - Johanna

Leader of the Pack Reader - Lizzie

Song Readers Samuel, Jake, Valeria

Reading - We continue to work in reading groups and centers. This week our word work focus is words that are singular and plural. We learned that many plurals end in s. However, if a word ends in ch, sh, x, s, ss, and sometimes o - then you add -es. We learned that when a word ends in y - you change the y, to i, and add -es. We also learned that some plurals are irregular, such as children and feet.

Samuel and Will sorting words into singular and plural

Last week one of our groups worked on a little play in their group. The play was the story of The Little Red Hen. We had the Little Red Hen, a narrator, a cat, a pig, and a dog. Here are the characters -

Phonics - In phonics we are learning about closed syllable words. A closed syllable is one syllable, has one vowel, the vowel is short, and it is closed in at the end of the word.

Writing - Wow! I am blown away at some of the stories that are coming out of writer's workshop! Many students are going from writing a word or a sentence to writing paragraphs! The growth is amazing! We are also working on writing on the lines and working on our handwriting. All of this, together with the writing process, is a big deal!

Science - We learned the words fluid and viscous. Fluid = fast and viscous = slow. We had "drop races" We put our liquids on a tray and then tilted them to race them. We found out that water was our most fluid liquid - and shampoo was actually the slowest. In our next lesson we are going to mix the liquids and see if they have "miscibility" or "buoyancy" (Do they mix or do they float on top of each other?)

We just finished reading Charlotte's Web today. What a great story of friendship! We are going to take some time to watch the movie over the next couple of days. The students voted on watching the newer version. (Both versions are fantastic! The newer version is from the 2000's and has actors. The older version is from the 1970's and it's a cartoon.) We are going to compare and contrast the book to the movie. The next story we will be reading aloud is Flat Stanley.

A few pictures from Valentine's Day! Thank you Mrs. Gelb for organizing the activities!