First Grade Math - The students are reviewing the concepts they learned in kindergarten...and expanding a little bit - math mountains, tiny tumblers, partners, switch partners, and break aparts.
First Grade Phonics - We reviewed all of the letters, keywords, and their sounds. We took a test on all of the letter sounds. We reviewed tapping out c-v-c words.
(First grade stays in our room for math and phonics. Second grade goes to Mrs. Van Zeeland. When Mrs. Van Zeeland gives me updates for second grade I will post those on the blog as well.)
Writing - We have started writing in our journals. It is so cool to watch the second graders become the olders! They have been such a great help to the first graders with spelling words in their journals!
Reading - We are starting the Daily 5 process. Daily 5 consists of read to self, read to someone, listening, work on writing, word work, and meet with teacher. To make Daily 5 successful, you need to do A LOT of practicing...A LOT! :) Each day we pick one of the concepts and work just on that concept. So far we have gone in depth with read to self and read to someone. We made charts of each of them, learned about each bullet point, and practiced, practiced, practiced! By practicing, we are building our stamina.
Science - We are working on the weather Einstein kit. So far we have only gone through the first two lessons - sharing what we know about weather and observing the weather.
Handwriting - We have been practicing our letters. The goal of our handwriting is to form the letters correctly, write the letters in the correct spaces, and to write neatly. The first graders work on one letter each time. The second graders work on two letters at a time. After the second graders have reviewed each of the letters, they will start learning how to write in cursive.
Religion - This year we are in the A year of multiage. That means we are working out of the first grade Religion series. (Last year we did the second grade series.) We read through the first chapter in our book. The first chapter talks about the story of Creation. After we read the chapter, we found the book of Genesis in the Bible and we found the Creation story. Then we read the story out of the Children's Bible. We are now creating our own Story of Creation books.
The rules - We have spent a lot of time going over classroom rules, expectations, whole body listening, etc. We review this information every day! This year we will also use PBIS faith shields again, as well as class dojo. For the new families, class dojo is an app. It keeps track of student behaviors - positive and negative. I can go in and see how they're doing by the day or by the week. Each Friday we do a check in. If the student has at least 60% positive for the week, they'll earn Friday Fun Time. (The percentage will get harder as the year goes on.) Friday Fun Time is simply free time - the last 20 minutes of the day. They can use ipads, play games, color, etc. The kids love it! If a student is below 60%, they do not earn Friday Fun Time that week. Instead, they talk with me. We figure out what went wrong, how to change it into a positive for next week, and they write out their plan.
Read-Aloud - We are reading the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.
Book Orders - I will do my best to get our first book order out some time next week.
Each of the students traced their hands and decorated their hand prints. We then put all of the hand prints together to create this beautiful piece of artwork!
Every time I post on the blog it should go right to your e-mail. If you ever want to check out the full website, it is www.ressullivan.blogspot.com. You'll be able to see all of the previous posts, pictures, etc. When you get the e-mail it's just black and white. When you go to the website, it's all pretty. :)
Check it out sometime.
Have a great weekend!
