Math - We worked on some more (adding) and some went away (subtracting) stories.  We learned about fact families.  Example - the numbers 2, 3, and 5 - The four equations with those numbers are
1.  2+3=5
2.  3+2=5
3.  5-3=2
4.  5-2=3
We have also been talking about squares, triangles, circles, and rectangle - learning about how many sides and angles they have.  We spent some time working in centers while I did some individual assessing.

Reading - The word work center for these two weeks is rhyming.  The students have many center choices that all have to do with rhyming words - puzzles, cut and paste sheets, plastic eggs, flashcards, etc.  During daily 5 I meet with the reading groups.  We read poems, stories, and reading selections at their level.  We work on phonics strategies, reading strategies, comprehension, fluency, etc.  While I am meeting with the reading groups, the students are doing one of their centers - read to self, read to someone, listening, work on writing, and word work.  

Religion - This week we worked out of our Religion text book.  We are reading about God's creation.  We also worked out of our Promise Paper workbooks.  We read about promises and chose the best choices.  On Friday we read our Promise Paper.  The Promise Paper is our newspaper that tells about the weekly Gospel.  We even got to play a fun game.  We used the dice on the SmartBoard to play our game.  The back page of the paper had a church search.  I emailed a picture of it to Brother Jacob and he told us he will lead us on our very own church search one day this week.  :)

Phonics - We are continuing to work on the digraphs sh, ch, wh, th, and ck.

Science - We are learning about thermometers.  We practiced reading real thermometers.  We colored in some thermometers and had to decide on the correct temperature.  It was a little tricky - and fun!

Spelling - This week we are starting spelling for the first time.  (I am sending home a note today explaining how we do spelling and where the lists come from.   Look for it in the BEE Binder.) There will be two lists each week - either a phonetic list or a high-frequency word list.  (High-frequency words are sight words/trick words.)  Your child will be studying from one list.  We will do a pre-test on Mondays to determine which list your child will be practicing for the week.  I will send home the lists on Mondays.  We will have spelling tests on Fridays.  I will also post our spelling lists on our blog.  This weeks spellings lists are -

Phonetic List - Digraphs

such

thin

fish

rich

thud

shop

quick

dock

thick

shock

High-Frequency List - Words 11-20

he

for

was

on

are

as

with

his

they

at

Spelling City - A fun website the students can use to practice their spelling words is Spelling City.  The website is www.spellingcity.com.  When you get to the website you can find our page by -

1.  Go to search

2.  Search by school.  Put in Holy Cross Green Bay.

3.  When you get to the Holy Cross page, click on Jodi Sullivan.

4.  Then you can find the list that your child is on.  This week the list will either be called digraphs or 11-20.

5.  Once you find the correct list, you can play games.

All of the games have our spelling words on them.  :)

A Few Reminders -

*Thursday, October 4 - Blessing of the pets - 2:15

*Friday, October 5 - Shrine field trip

Have a great week!  :)

We had a great week in first grade!  Here are a few things that we did -

Math - We finished the first ten lessons and had our first test.  We have been learning about place - first, second third, middle, between, last, etc.  We have started basic addition and subtraction stories.  We have worked on sorting.  We also worked in some math centers while I did some individual assessing.  The students loved working in math centers! 

Writing/Handwriting - So far we have worked on three uppercase and lowercase letters out of our book - Ll, Ii, and Tt.  This week we will start a new set of letters.  In handwriting we work on forming the letters the correct way, putting the letters in the correct spaces, and writing neatly.  We work on writing in many different ways in Daily 5 - writing in journals, squiggles, sticker stories, hand art, card writing, letter writing, etc.  We also do a mini writer's workshop - more of that will come later in the year.  Right now we have a sheet that gives us a choice of what to write about.  This last week the choice was your favorite bug.  The choices were a beetle, caterpillar, lady bug, or grasshopper.  The students had to finish the sentence starter and then add their own sentence.  They also had to draw a "wow" picture - A picture that adds color and details.  In sentence writing we are working on putting capitals only where they belong, using punctuation, using finger spacing, spelling words correctly, and writing neatly.

Phonics - Last week we finished a unit and had a unit test.  Now we are learning about digraphs - ch, sh, wh, th, and ck.  We have learned how to mark digraphs and how to tap them out.  We are getting new trick words and new word of the day cards and adding them to our student notebook.  We are practicing our skills with magnetic tiles as well as white boards.

Religion - Last Friday we had our first Promise Paper.  We will read out of the Promise Paper each Friday.  The Promise Paper is the K and 1 version of The Gospel Weekly.  It's like a newspaper for kids.  Each paper is centered around the Sunday Gospel.  We read over the Sunday Gospel from the Bible and do the activities that go with the paper.  There is also a workbook that goes with the series that we will be working out of this year.  The kids are loving the Children's Bible.  This week we read the story of Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors.  The students then colored their own Joseph coats.  We also watched a short video of the Joseph story from the Beginner's Bible.

Reading - Running records are finished and we have started having reading groups during our daily 5 time.  Believe it or not - even with 12 students - we are going to have four reading groups.  :)  During reading time the students either work in one of the daily 5 centers (read to self, read to someone, listening, work on writing, word work) or they will be meeting with me in their reading group.  In their reading group we will be doing guided reading.  The guided reading stories and activities are all at their particular reading level.  Every two weeks I will change out the word work center.  For the next two weeks the word work activities will all have to do with rhyming.  The biggest challenge of daily 5 is working in a quiet voice.  The students have been building stamina and working so hard to do this correctly!  I am so excited and how well this has been going!  

On Fridays we meet with our fourth grade reading buddies.   Here are a few pictures from reading buddies.

A few recess pictures -

Indoor recess on a rainy day - Dancing to Go Noodle

Finley hanging upside down

Bennett swinging back and forth on the monkey bars.  I think it looks like he's flying!

*Tuesday, September 25,  first grade has their reading MAP test.

*Friday, September 28, is a half day.  

*Permission Slip - Please return the permission slip for the October 5th field trip to The Shrine.

Have a great week!  :)

We had a great week in first grade!  Here are a few things we did.  :)

Math - In math we have been working on the correct way to form and write all the numbers. (0-9) We learned about some shapes - squares, circles, rectangles, and triangles.  We worked on graphs - We made our own pictograph.  It's like a bar graph, but it uses pictures.  Today we worked on greater than and less than.  We talked about when adding two numbers you start with the bigger number to count on.  We are also practicing our doubles facts from 1+1 to 10+10.  We learned a fun  Doubles Rap.  Click on it an check it out!  :)

Handwriting - We are working on forming the letters correctly and putting the letters on the correct lines.  We are also working on writing neatly.

Phonics - We are starting to get trick words.  Trick words are words that you can not tap out or words that have something tricky in them.  Every time we get a trick word we add it to our student notebook in the trick word section.  We are making our own dictionary in our student notebook.  Our first tricks words are a, the, is, his, and of.  We also will work on word of the day cards.  The word of the day cards are words that have something to do with what we are studying.  Currently we are working on C-V-C words so our first word of the day card was fix.  We have been practicing dictation both in our composition notebooks and on dry erase boards.  We have also started working on our magnetic letter boards to spell out sounds and words.

Science - We are learning about weather.  We learned about wind.  We have a graph that we are doing for a week to chart the wind.  Our choices are no wind, some wind, and strong wind.  Today we started learning about thermometers.  We learned that in the United States we measure in Fahrenheit.  We are practicing how to read thermometers on a big class thermometer.  We will also be using real thermometers to practice reading the temperature.  We are also doing a weather calendar each morning during our calendar time.  We are charting the cloud cover, precipitation, and the wind.

Religion - We are continuing to work out of our Religion  books.  We are discussing the sign of the cross and the prayer The Our Father.  Today we read out of our Children's Bible.  We read the story of Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors.  Then we watched a short video of the story of Joseph.  This week Friday we will do our first Promise Paper of the year.  The Promise Paper is a newspaper and activities for children about the weekly Gospel.  I like to read the Promise Paper on Friday to prepare the students for the Gospel reading they will be hearing on Sunday at Mass.  Most of the students are finished with their Creation books.  They are beautiful.  They will be coming home some time this week.

Reading - Wow!  That's all I can say!  Wow!  Daily 5 has been nothing short of AMAZING!!!  I have been testing the students for their reading level by doing Fountas and Pinnell running records.  I have one more to do tomorrow and then I have read with every student!  After all of the students have been tested I can put the students into reading groups.  The groups are made by putting students in like levels together.  When they are in reading group they will be reading stories and doing activities at their reading level.  While I am teaching the reading groups, the rest of the class is doing Daily 5 - which is what we have been practicing.  We are building our stamina!  The Daily 5 centers are read to self, read to someone, listening, work on writing, and word work.  The students need to be able to do their centers independently and quietly to make Daily 5 work.  They have been doing such a fantastic job!  I am so proud of them!  Here are a ton of pictures from working in Daily 5.

Friday we have reading buddies.  Last Friday we read a great book called What A Wonderful World with our buddies.  First we read the story and looked at the beautiful illustrations.  Then we talked about how this book is actually the words to a song by Louis Armstrong.  Then we "read" the book one more time - this time by listening to the song.  It was beautiful.  The students loved the vibrant illustrations and the song!  

We have been talking a lot about kindness, being a friend, and filling each other's buckets.  I have to tell you that my heart and my bucket were full on Friday.  During Daily 5 time, as two students were working together, they decided that they wanted to take a moment to stop and pray.  They asked me if they could go over by our class crucifix and pray for the hurricane victims and the people of Guatemala.  (I was wondering about Guatemala - Mrs. Anderson later filled me in that there was a speaker last school year that told the students about Guatemala.)  These two boys then knelt down under the crucifix and just started to pray.  It was an absolutely beautiful moment in our classroom!

One more story - In my family there are four people.  Myself, my husband, and our two boys.  My husband is a high school football coach.  He coaches at De Pere.  My son Garrett is a freshman at De Pere and plays football on the freshman team.  My son Zak is in 6th grade.  He plays football for De Pere Youth Football.  Well, there are a lot of sports fans and a lot of football fans in this classroom.  When we have sharing time I have been sharing about my family and football.  I have to report the games and the scores.  :)  The students have taken it upon themselves to write about football during Daily 5 work on writing.  My boys have been getting cards written to them about their football teams, as well as some pretty awesome illustrations.  Some students wanted to make a banner for them - and here it is!  Love it!

Have a great week!  :)