What an interesting month we have had! With all of this crazy weather, we have had to do a lot of rescheduling and we have been busy practicing our flexibility skills. The Peek at the Weeks have been a little off lately- but I am sure that you can understand why!
Last week, I had a lovely time with your children when we went to the Sunrise Nursing Home to read to the memory care residents. (I sent some SeeSaw pictures to you all...hope that you had a chance to see them.) This nursing home visit is part of our community service work we do in first-grade. At first, the students were a little apprehensive about reading to someone they didn’t know, but after discussing this project, the kids seemed ready. I explained how the residents get very few visitors and seeing a first grader could change their day. We sang a few songs, read a few books and gave them special greetings. You would have been so proud of your children. They had so many residents smiling and asking if we would be coming back soon. Fortunately, we will be going back on Valentine’s Day! The kids are excited to do this again.....as they have learned that they made an impact on someone else’s life for a day.
We have been extremely school:
In writing, we are finishing up the Opinion/Review unit. The students have written everything from what kind of a dog they would purchase, to what book they suggest, to what their favorite restaurant is. They have been very entertaining to read.
In reading, we have been continuing our guided reading/word work model. Each of the groups have been progressing and are anxious to start each lesson. We have been concentrating our focus on non-fiction books. We appreciate you working with your child every night. The ocean books that have been coming home can have more challenging words and we appreciate you helping your child with the words - this will help the kids acquire information for our next writing unit, ‘Ocean All Abouts’.
In science, we have transferred our scientific knowledge of observation from rocks to seashells and then to ocean life. The last couple of weeks, we have been looking at different kinds of shells and using our observational skills to describe them. When we go to the zoo in a couple of weeks, we will be using these skills to record what we see.
In social studies, we have been continuing our work on “Change Makers”. We have been learning about the lives of Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, Jacques Cousteau and Abraham Lincoln. When introducing these change makers, the students receive a history lesson of what was happening before the change, and then hear the change that occurred due to the person who had an impact. Afterwards, we discuss what words we would use if we were to describe that person. Then they are asked to come up with a word or two that gives a character attribute of that person. We have been hanging the words on a bulletin board. If you look at these words, the word BRAVE comes up a lot.
We have also been working on our map skills. In our first grade atlas’s we have been learning about bodies of water, hemispheres, and the equator to name a few items.
In math, we have just finished a unit on addition and subtraction up to 20. We are now working with numbers up to 40. As the equations get more complex, your child will be sending out a SeeSaw entry that explains how they are figuring out their equations.
We will have a new student joining our class starting the Tuesday after President’s Day. His name is Jack Suesse and will be moving here from Milwaukee. The class is so excited to have him join our group!
