First Grade News

Dear Parents,
    We concluded our Nursery Rhyme unit this week! The children continued to work on various activities with different nursery rhymes. They also had fun at the end of the week writing and talking about their favorite nursery rhymes with their classmates.
    In phonics, the children had fun playing picture lotto. In this game the children matched pictures of words that had the same ending sounds. We then worked on identifying the beginning and ending sounds of words. Working on identifying these sounds helps children to monitor their reading as well as their spelling of words. We then continued to work on having the children listen to parts in words. The children practiced saying the first and last parts of words. Then they practiced saying the words smoothly. By doing this, the children can analyze the parts of words and then blend them together.
    For our comprehension program this week we focused on the story, Matthew and Tilly. After reading this story the children were able to make a text-to-self connection to the plot or characters in this story. By doing this, the children are better able to naturally make sense of the text by making a connection to something personal.
    We continued with our vocabulary program this week. We read the story, Mole's Hill, which is a story about a fox that wants mole to move so a new path can go right through her home. Mole's solution to prevent this is to plant flowers and grass on top. Because this makes the burrow beautiful, Fox asks Mole to dig a tunnel for the path underneath it instead. Our words for this week were quivered, strolled, and compromise.

    In math, the children have worked hard at telling time to the hour. This will help to get them ready for when we begin to tell time to the hour and minute. The children also spent time this working with rulers and counting pennies. Next week the children will begin to work on counting nickels and exchanging pennies for nickels.

    The children are having fun with the Seasonal Change science unit. We discussed the size of the earth in relation to the sun. The children made circles (earths) on a diagram of the sun. This means it would take 108 earths to fit across the surface of the sun if it were flat. Very interesting!!

 

** Reminders **

1. October 8: Walk to School Day ~ We will all meet at Proesel Park in the morning and then walk to school together.
2. October 9: No School

I hope you enjoy your weekend!!!

Ann Melissaratos