I Appreciate the Appreciation!

 

Thank you to those who showered Ms. Martin and I with flowers, goodies, and kind words during Teacher Appreciation Week. This year I am especially appreciative of my first grade families, students, WES community, and the amazing Paitra Martin for jumping into first grade during my extended absence. I am so happy to be back and know that my recovery was successful in large part because I knew students were in good hands. 

First Graders Love to Read!

 

Literacy and Word Study

In our current Word Study unit students are learning to add the suffixes -s, -ed and -ing to non-changing base words, including two-syllable words with closed and vowel-consonant-e syllables.  Students are learning that the suffix -es is added to a base word that ends in s, x, z, sh and ch.  Heart words from this unit include: work, write, word, being, their, first, look, good, new.  

During Literacy students continue to learn about the sun, moon and stars.  We have read Does the Sun Sleep and What Makes Day and Night. Students are learning to describe the pattern of light and dark on earth using and discussing information from these texts. They are recording observations in their journals.

 

Second Step: Problem-Solving

First graders are learning about effective problem-solving through our social emotional learning program, Second Step. There are two main goals for this unit. The first is to develop students' ability to solve problems in safe and respectful ways. The second is to develop students' skills for making and keeping friends. Your child has been introduced to the problem-solving process.  Last week, hey learned and practiced the first two steps in the process, S: Say the problem , and T: Think of Solutions.  This week, they learned and practiced the last two steps, E: Explore consequences and, P: Pick the best solutions.  

Math Workshop: Modeling With Data

First graders have begun a new data analysis unit which focuses on representing, describing, and comparing data in two and three categories, and on conducting data investigations.  Currently, students are participating in surveys and working to represent the data collected in order to find out information about our class. Later in the unit, they will design a survey question, collect and organize the data in response to the question, and create a representation that includes a survey title, labeled categories, results, and an equation to represent how many people answered the survey in all. Activities in this investigations engage students in two Common Core State Standards Mathematical practices:

MP5: Use appropriate tools strategically-students determine what tools and materials are useful in creating their representations.
MP6: Attend to precision-a data representation should be designed so that others can look at it and determine what it reveals with regard to the original question.

PBIS Classroom Celebration: A Little Spring Craft....

 

.....and a Little Spring Sledding!