1A Classroom Update 13
May 18, 2018
Dear 1A Families,
With the weather warming up (and hopefully drying up), hydration is important! We want to encourage you to send your child in with a water bottle. Since the water pressure in our water fountain is not the strongest, it takes a while for our students to fill up their water bottles. We recommend sending a filled water bottle in. To promote cleanliness, they must take their bottles home each night to be washed, cleaned, and refilled. These bottles must be able to be sealed and labeled with your child's name on it. Please let us know if you have any questions and thank you for your cooperation!
- Friday, May 25 - Field Trip to Brooklyn Grange
- Monday, May 28 | Memorial Day | No School
- Thursday, June 07 | No School
- Friday, June 15 | Anytime Anywhere Travel to Dominican Republic
- Monday, June 18 | All School Field Day
- Thursday, June 21 | Spring Curriculum Share (9 - 10:15AM)
- Friday, June 22 | Last Day of School | Half Day
Shoeboxes Needed!
Academics
Our opinion writers have been hard at work expressing their point of views with topics they feel very strongly about. These past couple of weeks they have learned how to “hook the reader” with creative introductions for their writing pieces. They have also learned how to bolster their pieces by comparing their topic to another. For example, some wrote about how they felt Chuck E. Cheese was better than McDonald’s or how dogs were better than cats! Our friends then provided two persuasive reasons to convince their readers about their favorite topic. Next week, we will begin to talk about how to create a strong conclusion and begin to edit and revise our opinion pieces!
Math
1A friends continue to work on mastering the place value strategy and regrouping for addition problems. Friends have been working hard to check the place value of the numbers they are representing in sticks and dots, and keep their work organized. Students have been learning that the ones place can hold numbers from 0-9, but when they have 10 more dots they need to regroup. Check the strategies below, and ask your first grader to solve a problem for you! We have also continued to learn knew aspects of telling time with analog and digital clocks. Friends had a great time playing ZINGO Time which is a play on bingo. Our 1A friends were also introduced to a new type of division word problem that challenged them to solve with a fraction. Once students were comfortable dividing the odd number in half pictorially they were challenged to think more abstractly by decomposing the number in a number bond. Everyone was highly talkative and excited about these new concepts during our closing small group conversations.
Building Time with Playdough
Practicing Adding with Leap Frog
What time is it?
Edward sharing his straregy
Opinionated writers
What does Sam and London feel strongly about?
Working hard to explain their opinion
Using a graphic organizer to brainstorm
ZINGO Time!
Place Value and Comparing with a Friend
Who got the bigger number?
Inquiry
In Inquiry, we are in the midst of exploring some celebrations and traditions that our 1A friends were interested in finding more about. Our first stop was Chinese New Year, the lunar celebration. Our 1A scholars have been busy studying the traditions and the reasons for this holiday. Then we learned about Carnival and Ramadan. Students learned how Muslims celebrate this holiday by fasting for an entire month. They even got to make their own paper masks and Ramadan paper plate decorations, which will be sent home soon! We are so excited to continue our investigation of celebrations from around the world.
CAREFULLY FOLDING AND DRAWING LINES
TIME TO CUT THE SLITS FOR THE LANTERN
CAN'T WAIT TO SEE IT DONE!
Learner Profile of the Month: Balanced
As an IB World School, BPCS strives to foster the growth of students both academically as well as internationally minded citizens who are aware of the world outside of their local environment. To do this, the school incorporates the IB Learner Profiles into the classroom. The IB Learner Profiles describe a broad range of human capacities and responsibilities and, in turn, embody traits of a well-rounded individual.
For the month of April, our school focused on how a person demonstrates they are balanced. Here are examples why 1A friends thought Leo, Sam, Madison, and Axel were balanced.
Leo
- Leo tries his best to not call out on the rug
- I love to play with Leo at recess
Sam
- Sam can balance having fun and learning
- He loves to tell jokes
Axel
- Axel has been more focused on his work
- He is always making me laugh
Madison
- Madison is always trying her best with her work
- She has been getting less reminders to focus
PARK FUN!
Specials Update
A Science Update From Ms. Rosabal!
Hola Familias de 1A
1A is doing a fabuloso job in Español. The past few weeks they have been focusing on learning the names of their favorite food in Spanish and even created their own Menu. Furthermore they learned how to order in a restauran with the phrases like "por favor y gracias". They are currently learning the names of the hobbies and how to make invitations such as, "¿Quieres jugar?, Si gracias or No gracias".
Great job 1A
Gracias,
Maestra Nivia
Music Update!
Hello First Grade families!
In April, First Graders put instruments and creative movements to the folktale “The Bremen Town Musicians.” Every student got to play wood blocks, sand blocks, and triangles to imitate the sounds of the donkey, dog, cat, and rooster in the story. First graders also choreographed animal movements inspired by Eric Carle drawings, and set them to the piece “Japura River” by Philip Glass. Currently, First Graders are playing instruments to the beat of songs like “The Noble Duke of York,” and are learning to step to the beat of folk dances like “Shoo Fly.”