Dear Families,
Here is our week in review:
Social-Emotional Learning:
This week, the students continued their collaborative work on how to be an active and engaged listener while showing respect to others. We continued practicing patience, whole body listening and turn-taking.
The students also participated in more targeted lessons around mindfulness. We reviewed how we use our Peace Corner to take an appropriate break with the ultimate goal of returning to our expected school work as quickly as possible. We learned that it is okay to feel frustrated, upset, sad and even angry. We learned that we have many different strategies at our disposal when we feel these strong feelings. This week, the students learned specific mindful tracing activities to use in these situations. We also practiced taking a rest at our desks and visualizing something beautiful while calming our breathing down. The students did an amazing job! Next week, we will learn some yoga and focus on mindful breathing while listening to calming music.
Reading:
We continued meeting in our guided reading groups this week. Guided reading groups provide an opportunity for the students to participate in targeted reading instruction addressing reading accuracy, fluency and comprehension. They received new books and some new writing activities for sight words. We hope the students will read the books sent home daily. We also hope the students will continue to read on raz kids. This week, they were all assigned a book to read online.
We continued our author study. This week we read the books about Bink and Gollie by Kate DiCamillo.
Writing:
Ms. Shelby continued her work on “All About” writing. The students are writing amazing “teaching stories” about legos, action figures, baking and taking care of pets! This week, the students practiced transition words, adding headings and labels to their pictures.
Next week, we will start revising and adding glossaries.
First Grade Math:
In math, the students continued learning about parts of numbers. This week, we primarily focused upon number bonds. Number bonds provide a way for students to visualize the relationship between addition and subtraction. The most challenging part is to “see” this relationship while keeping the parts the same! For example, if we know that 5+4=9, we also know that 4+5=9, 9-5=4 and 9-5=4 (These connections are different from, let’s say 6+3=9 and 7+2=9) Knowing these relationships between parts of a whole will help young mathematicians make stronger connections between concepts. Ms. Shelby and the students practiced this online this week! It was great to see all the students participate fully online!
We also continued our work on story problems. Next week, we will start looking at subtraction problems.
Lastly, we learned about a new way to show math relationships. We showed math expressions using greater than, less than or equal to. We learned to use the symbols >, < and =.
School-wide celebration:
The students at ABS filled the BeeHive again for being safe, kind and responsible. This time we celebrated by making paper airplanes and flying them outside (and inside). Here is a video we used to learn how to make a paper airplane if your child wishes to try again at home and teach you how to make them.
News and Reminders:
Please help your child get on our google meets no earlier than 8:20. We have noticed that some students are already on the link when the teachers get there. Children should not be on this online link before a teacher gets there. Thank you for supporting this at home and helping us be responsible online learners!
We will resume our optional snack chats again next week. They will follow our whole class morning meetings so if your child wishes to join us, he/she can simply stay online with us for a snack and a read aloud or share.
Our EA rotations switch again next week. We will have PE on Mondays and Tuesdays. We will have Enrichment on Thursdays and Fridays.
As the weather changes and gets colder, we want to remind families that the Physical Education staff is planning to be outside with PE classes as a first priority. PLEASE DRESS APPROPRIATELY FOR THE TEMPERATURE AND CONDITIONS... (jackets, hats, gloves, etc). A reminder from PE: We recommend bringing in or keeping a few extra pairs of socks, gloves, or mittens in a cubby or backpack. Additional layers (snow pants or boots) would be acceptable for PE if needed. If younger students need snow pants for recess, they should wear snow pants to PE. Fresh air and movement is good for us all; let's be safe and prepared for the weather!
Ms. Shelby has completed her internship with us. Her last day was today. We celebrated in many different ways with her and we will miss her very much. We hope to see her soon.
December 23rd-January 1st-No School (Winter Break)
January 18th-No School (Martin Luther King Jr. Day)
Here's a link to this week's Bell.
Have a great weekend,
Maria
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