Mrs. Poliszczuk's First Grade Class
weekly update
This week in phonics, students learned to read and write words with the th, ch (tch), sh sounds with a review from last week of wh and ph. These digraphs are difficult for students to differentiate and extra practice at home would be beneficial. You can reinforce these sounds by calling attention to them while reading and asking your child to repeat the sound. Differentiating between ch and sh is especially difficult. Students also learned about closed syllables. Students learned that when a syllable has only one vowel letter and ends with a consonant, the vowel sound is usually short. This is called a closed syllable. This is helpful when reading (or sound blending) multisyllabic words. Students also practiced identifying common and proper nouns with special attention to capitalizing proper nouns. Finally, students learned that at times, -es needs to be added to a noun to make it plural. We add -es to words ending in ch, tch, sh, x, z, or ss.
In reading, students worked in groups to identify text features. Students are learning to use text features to find specific information while researching a topic. We continued to practice taking notes while reading and listening to nonfiction texts. This is very important in helping to remember key details in the text. Students viewed a motivating Brainpop Jr. video which taught students the importance of working collaboratively in a group. We took notes on how to be a good listener and a good speaker.
The students were very excited to have Mrs. Champagne, our STAT teacher, visit our classroom on Wednesday. She taught the students the basics of creating a project in Wixie. Wixie is on online platform that allows students to share what they know and have learned. Next week, students will create a Wixie to show what they learned about Meerkats.
In math, we are continuing to build number sense by finding combinations for a given number. While observing, I made note of how the students found the different combinations. Were they looking for number relationships (2+7, 7+2), noticing patterns or using trial and error. The idea of "missing part" was reinforced through the games How many am I hiding? and Counters in a Cup. These games involve a total and two parts, with one of the parts being hidden. Decomposing numbers can be challenging for students and will be practiced several more times throughout this unit.
We began science this week! In this unit, Creeper and Creature Features, students will be using the Engineer Design Process to create a product for Under Armour that will provide protection from weather and help children be safe while playing outside. The product will mimic a plant or animal. This week, students used on online research tool to identify external parts of animals and how those parts help them to survive. After taking notes, students then had to identify which external part of a plant or animal their product mimicked.
Read to Self-Daily 5
Read to Self-Daily 5
Dot Addition
Other Information
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Thank you in advance for donating the items for next week's Thanksgiving treat.
November reading logs are due on December 1st.
Have a wonderful weekend and thank you for all you do! I hope you can enjoy this beautiful weather today.