Dear Families,
Here is our week in review:
This was Ms. Clark’s first solo week. She did an outstanding job as our lead teacher. We are so proud of her and grateful for her work, insights and positive energy in our classroom. Ms. Clark will continue as our lead teacher again next week. I will be supporting her and the students.
It has been great to connect with families online for our parent-teacher conferences. Thank you for taking the time to chat and thank you for your continued support of ABS and our learning. We could not do this without you all!
Social-Emotional Learning:
This week we began focusing on the idea of community. One of the walls in the classroom is now our “community wall” where we hang up our community word of the day, job chart, and student artwork which is becoming a class mural! When we all follow the group plan, our class community thrives.
We have also been focusing on “whole-body listening”. Whole body listening means that students show that they are listening when their eyes are looking, voices are quiet, and bodies are calm. The class has been responding quite well to demonstrating whole body listening when Ms. Clark says, “Show me what it looks like to have whole body listening…show me what is sounds like”.
During second step, Ms. Clark led a lesson on diversity lesson on deafness. She read a book to the class about a deaf boy and how his life is different due to his inability to hear. The class then learned to say “hello” in sign language.
Reading:
First grade readers worked hard this week on improving their independent reading. They received new independent reading packets with several reading choices such as reading to a stuffy or being a sentence detective (having to find a question, exclamation, and statement in their books). They seemed enthusiastic about these reading choices as the packets were something new and challenging.
First graders also rotated through guided reading groups throughout the week as well.
Writing:
This week in writing we focused on fiction versus nonfiction writing. The students were taught the difference between a fiction book and a nonfiction book. In the beginning of the week, we read a fiction book about a silly penguin named Tacky and later the students were asked to create their own fiction story about a penguin using their imagination. Because fiction is fake, we discussed how our characters could be fun-silly and creative. They were excited to share their fiction stories with the whole group once they were finished.
Later in the week we read a non-fiction book about penguins and the students were asked to use their good listening skills to pick out 4 facts about penguins that were read by Ms. Clark. They drew pictures or wrote words to represent those facts before putting those facts into a formal writing text. Our next writing unit will start on Monday. This time, the students will learn to write animal reports, reflecting information about their respective animals while also reflecting nonfiction text features, such as captions, glossaries and chapters.
In our conferences, some parents asked me to share the trick words the students are learning to spell in first grade. Here is the first grade trick word list. These words are different from “regular decodable words” for spelling. Trick words cannot be “sounded out” but must be memorized.
First Grade Math:
First grade mathematicians continued practicing their clock skills this week. We began each math class with having our student leader for the day state the date and what time the clock on our clock calendar said along with writing the digital time for it. The students had different clock activities throughout the week such as “time bump” which challenged students to match analog times on one game board to digital times on the other. Students also were given clock packets with different time telling tasks.
First grade mathematicians also continued working on strategies to add 3 one-digit numbers together. We started a new anchor chart in our classroom, illustrating the different strategies we can use as we solve these math problems efficiently. The students are encouraged to “anchor” to 10 first and then add some more. The students are also encouraged to “use what they already know” or find double facts too. The list we have is quite innovative since they all have different ways of solving these three digit math problems. What a terrific group of mathematicians!
Science:
Science this week was tied in with writing as the students were exposed to non-fiction books specifically about penguins.
We also participated in several Mystery Science guided videos, which the students are enthusiastic about. This week we did a guided video and lesson on “Why do birds make nests” and “Why do some animals migrate?”
News and Reminders:
It is very muddy outside on our fields and playground. Please make sure your child comes to school with mud pants, or snow pants, boots and a warmer jacket. It is also a good idea to pack extra socks and pants inside your child’s backpack as it is very uncomfortable to sit in soggy clothes after recess. Thank you.
I have been impressed by your child’s resilience as we switched to “mask optional” at school. There will most likely be changes to guidance on testing, isolation, and response to illness symptoms in the future. I will provide updates as soon as I have new information and I will keep sharing newsletters from our school nurses as these guidelines change. Thank you for reading them and for your continued support in keeping your child home when necessary.
Have a great weekend,
Maria and Zoe
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