Happy 99th Day of School!
Look at these 100 year olds getting ready for the 100th day of school! :)

 

Spelling - Vowel Teams - ai, ay, ee, ea, ey, oi, oy

main

paid

say

tree

green

seat

key

foil

join

toy

Spelling City did transition to Vocabulary a-z (a Raz Kids partner).  To access the new spelling city, your child will go to https://www.vocabularya-z.com/#!/member-home.  It will look just like Raz Kids.  Click on kids log in.  I believe the first time logging in it will prompt you to ask for a teacher.  My teacher username is jsullivan174.  From there the students will select their name.  Their password is the apple.  Each week that we have a spelling list I will put in their weekly list.  When they click on the list, they will have three choices - spelling, vocabulary, or phonics.  They can go to any of them.  All of the activities will be about the weekly spelling list.  

Your child can now go between raz kids and vocabulary a-z by clicking change teacher on the first page.  If they would like to go to raz kids they will pick jsullivan 100.  If they would like to go to spelling city they will pick jsullivan174.

Phonics - We have been working on vowel teams.  This last week we did a lot of work on the vowel teams ai, ay, ee, ea, ey, oi, and oy.  This week we will start working on the vowel teams oa, oe, and ow.  Here is a list of all the vowel teams we will be learning in first grade.

Reading - Each day we continue to work in our guided reading groups and daily 5 centers.  Each group is reading stories at each student's level.  We continue to work hard in daily 5 in read to self, read to someone, listening, work on writing, and word work.  We are continuing our word work theme of compound words.

Writing - We are continuing to work on our non-realistic fiction stories.  We read the mentor text Giraffes Can't Dance.  We worked on brainstorming our ideas.  We thought up characters, powers they could have, possible settings of our stories, and how we could give human like characteristics to objects.  This week we will work on developing characters and settings.  

We also continue to work on writing in daily 5, as well as work in our January journals.

Handwriting - We did finish our first handwriting book. Last week we started working on book 2.  Book 2 focuses on writing words and sentences - now that we have worked on individual letter formation.

We worked on letter Aa.

Math - In math we worked on adding two digit numbers with regrouping, telling time to the half hour, dividing shapes into fourths, and adding ten to a number.  We continue to work on place value - tens and ones, as well as the doubles plus one addition facts.

Science - We had two more experiments with our solids.  We tested the hardness of our solids.  We then put our solids in order from hardest to softest.  We also tested to see if our solids would sink or flat in water.  We found out that some did both!

Religion - This week we learned about some of Jesus' miracles.  Brother Jacob came in and tied the miracles to our virtue that we have been working on - Generosity.  He read the generosity card that discusses sharing food with those in need.  He then discussed the story of the feeding of 5000 - the loaves and the fishes.  

During our Religion time we also continued working on social-emotional learning.  This week we learned about the unthinkable Blurting Bob and the thinkable Zip-It Zack.

100th Day of School - The 100th Day of School is coming up on February 1st!  We are so excited!  There are 2 things we would like you to do at home.  

1 - Work on a 100th day project.  

2 - Make a collection of 100 small things.  (10 groups of 10 different small items.)  Please put those items in the bag provided and return them to school for a project.

100th Day Projects -

The collection of small items will be glued onto a poster.  Please make sure the items you send will be able to be glued onto this poster.  

Have a great week!

 Spelling - We will not have a spelling list this week.  Over the weekend, Spelling City transitioned to VocabularyA-Z.  Vocabulary A-Z is a partner with Raz Kids.  I will need to go into the new website and play around with it to figure it out.  Then I will share the new website with the students.  

Phonics - We are working on words that are closed syllables, closed syllables with the suffix s, and vowel teams ay, ai, ea, ee, and ey.  

Reading - Each day we work in daily 5 centers and guided reading groups.  Our current word work focus is compound words.  Compound words are words made out of two words.  For example, cup + cake = cupcake.  In guided reading groups we work on stories, poems, and reading concepts at each groups reading level.

Writing - We are just starting a new writing unit - stories that are non-realistic fiction.  They will be stories that are fiction - and they can not really happen.  So far we have researched examples by reading mentor texts.  Our first mentor text was Creepy Carrots.  Tuesday our mentor text will be Little Red Writing.  This week we will be brainstorming ideas.  The students also continue to work in their January journals to practice their writing, as well as writing centers in daily 5.

Math - We worked a lot this last week on place value.  We are working on the ones place and the tens place.  We practiced adding 2 digit numbers without regrouping.  We also worked quite a bit on our current math facts - doubles plus one facts.

Handwriting - We finished all the letters in our first handwriting book!  This week we will start our second handwriting book.  This book will focus on writing more than just the letters.  It will focus on writing words and sentences.  We will continue to work on forming the letters correctly, writing the letters on the correct lines, and using good spacing.

Science - In our solids and liquids unit we used our solids to experiment with rolling and stacking.  After our experiments, we worked on sorting the solids into categories - solids that roll, solids, that stack, and solids that do both.  Another day we used a pile of books and a ruler to make a ramp.  Then we placed solids on the top of our ramp and watched to see if they would roll.  We had fun with the different types of balls.  We found out that the weight of the balls played a roll in how fast and how far they would roll.  

Religion - We discussed the Bible story of The Good Samaritan.  We continue to work on our virtues and values.  We are still reading and learning about generosity.  Friday we had adoration.  We are also using our Religion time to work on some social-emotional learning.  This past week we learned about expected and unexpected behaviors, following the group plan vs. following your own plan, and the     

SuperFlex characters Rock Brain and Rex Flexinator.  We call Rock Brain the unthinkable.  Rock Brain is when you get stuck on only doing what you want to do and not compromising.  Rex Flexinator is the thinkable.  Rex Flexinator helps you to think of others, be flexible, and follow the group plan.  

Have a great week!