Day in the Dark

We had a wonderful time on the darkest day of the year! Our entire day was spent in the dark with only our special lights lighting our way. We searched for words and math equations with our flashlights, worked on two art projects, and read books in the dark room. We ended the day with the 3rd and 4th grade chorus performance. Ask your child to tell you more!

Word Detectives

The first graders have had been using their word detective skills to solve tricky words. We have been getting tips daily from a mystery "Word Detective Agency" and Friday we received a final assignment to use what we have learned to solve a series of word clues. The words contained a message that led us to Mr. Hennessey's office for a special reading certificate and bookmark. The children were so excited to solve the clues and complete our word detective work! Great job word detectives!

 

Curriculum Updates!

We have been learning so many things in first grade!

In writing, we completed a mini unit on writing informational "how-to" books. We published one last Friday and will share them with each other tomorrow.  This writing focused on explaining how to do something with clear steps and diagrams. This work will support our next unit on writing informational teaching books.  The children will look at how nonfiction books are organized, and the specific text features that are found in them such as headings, captions, and side bars. They will then use these examples to write their own books. The children chose their first topics today!

In reading, we continue to be "word detectives" to help us solve tricky words. We recently discussed and practiced breaking long words into smaller parts, looking for "vowel teams" (ee, ea, ou, etc.), and breaking the ending off of a word (-ing, -es, -ed). The children are working really hard at reading independently! We continue to build reading comprehension by talking and writing about what we read  independently or listen to during whole class read alouds.

Our math focus has been on building quicker strategies for solving equations such as using doubles and friendly 10 numbers. For example, we discussed how if we know 10 + 5, we can solve 9 + 6 by adding one to the 9, and subtracting one from the 6. We have also been telling time to the hour, and learning about 3D shapes. Today the children had a 3D shapes hunt in the classroom. We took pictures of shapes and labeled them in Seesaw. Be sure to check it out!