1A Classroom Update 5
November 11, 2016
Dear 1A Families,
Writing
In Writer’s Workshop, we have been working on writing the ending to our small moment story while adding actions and descriptive language to it to ensure that our readers feel as if they were there with us from the beginning, middle, to the end. As the writing of our small moment ends, we have dived into the editing world! King How also came back from the Land of Questions to ask us how we can edit and proofread our work. When editing and proofreading, King How introduced us to think of the strategy COPS, where we focused on capitalization, organization, punctuations, and spelling. This week, we tackled editing our words by using the word wall (we made our own personal word walls too!) to make sure that sight words on the word wall match the ones in our writing. We also went through our writing to make sure that a period, exclamation mark, or question mark goes at the end of every thought we have. We will be continuing to edit our writing and are looking forward to publishing our writing pieces!
Reading
In Reader’s Workshop, we continue to make connections in our books with Ms. Garcia’s twin sister, the fortune teller. After making some meaningful text-to-self connections, we delved into another concept of making text-to-text connections (connections between the plot or characters in two books they have read). We read Three Billy Goats Gruff and discussed how this book reminded some of us about how in The Three Little Pigs, there were also three characters and a villain that tried to eat the three characters. What was different however was that one text had goats and a troll, and in the other text, it had pigs and a wolf. As students read other books on their own, they shared other text-to-text connections. One of our friends pointed how Owen and his fuzzy yellow blanket in Owen reminds him of Trixie’s stuffed animal Knuffle Bunny in Knuffle Bunny because both characters wanted to go wherever their blanket/stuffed animal went. At home, encourage your child to talk about other books that they have read that they can make connections to!
Math
We have been hard at work in Math the last few weeks. Since discussing how we can use counting on and counting back to find the difference, we've also been exploring the relationship between addition and subtraction. We've been using snap cubes to prove and show the different ways in which a math problem can be represented by both addition and subtraction number sentences. We also talked about how we can use what we knew about family facts to solve math problems (e.g. Since we know that 7+3=10, then 10-3=7 also!) In order to continue to build on this concept and increase our friends' math fluency with number facts, we encourage you to work on mental math problems at home with your child. For example, you can play a game of how to quickly add numbers between 1-20 or subtract numbers between 1-10.
Inquiry
In Inquiry, our 1A friends have continued to explore the differences and similarities of families across cultures. We discussed who is in our immediate and extended family, what our neighborhoods look like, who lives in our home, and some special foods that we eat with our family. We've also begun to compare and contrast what our family looks like compared to one of our peers in the classroom and we cannot wait to share what we found out with you at the Curriculum Share!
Important Dates and Announcements
Important Dates
- Friday, November 18: Fall Curriculum Share @ 9 - 10:15AM (more info below)
- Monday, November 21: Thanksgiving Recess Begins
- Monday, November 28: Classes Resume
- Wednesday, November 30: Parent-Teacher Conferences Begin (more info below)
- Friday, December 02: Last Day of Parent-Teacher Conferences [NO SCHOOL]
Announcements
- We sent home yellow take-home folders the past week. Please make sure to send your child back to school with these folders by Monday so that we can send home other important flyers or student work on Friday.
- 1st grade will now be at Fort Greene park from 9:45 - 10:30 am on Fridays starting Friday, November 4th. This change will allow students to have Lit Block on Fridays when they return to school. If you are available, please consider signing up as a chaperone and we thank you in advance for being an extra set of eyes for our class!
Curriculum Share/Family Potluck
This term, our 1A friends have explored the differences and similarities of families across cultures. We thought it would be a great idea to incorporate what they have learned into our Curriculum Share by having a Family Potluck. In addition to showing you what they have been working on, we would love to end our Curriculum Share with a Family Thanksgiving Potluck!
We have been talking about special foods our friends eat with their families on special occasions or on a daily basis. All families please feel free to bring in food to share (please be mindful that food needs to be nut free, and if it is not, should be EXPLICITLY labeled so) on this day.
Our Curriculum Share is scheduled for Friday, November 18 from 9-10:15am. Due to the impending holiday, why not have everyone in and make a whole party out of it?!?!!?
We hope that you can all join us for a fun 1A family feast. We can’t wait to see you all here!
Parent Conferences
Parent Teacher conferences will be held on Wednesday, November 30th through Friday, December 2nd. While we will have regular school days on Wednesday, November 30th and Thursday, December 1st. There will be no school on Friday, December 2nd. Please make childcare arrangements for your student(s) on that date.
To sign up for conference, please use the link below:
Then, insert your classroom’s entry code:
1A | NXF1126095
Read! Read a Book!
As part of our Anytime Anywhere reading experience this year, we will be traveling in time through our reading. Each 1st grade should be reading at least 15 minutes per night (independently or with an adult). Students will be filling out reading response sheets to show what they have learned through their reading and to fuel our travels. Each student will be required to fill out one reading response per week and hand it in on Mondays in their take home folder. The sheets are designed to start a conversation between you and your child about what he/she is reading. Please complete it any night that you have time (during the week or weekend) as long as 1 is returned filled out each week on Monday.