Skills and content recently shifted from computation to geometry as first graders explored a brief unit which focuses on developing students’ ideas about the attributes of two-dimensional shapes and how these attributes determine their classification. Big ideas include describing, comparing, and identifying shapes using geometric language, composing and decomposing 2-D shapes, and building and drawing familiar shapes.
Nurse Pam and Mrs. Klocek visit the classroom each Thursday for a first grade Health lesson. This week, first graders learned about and modeled the digestive process from the mouth through the intestine as they learned about what happens to the food we eat in different parts of the digestive track.
During the Literacy block first graders have continued their exploration of tools. They have worked in partnerships to sort tools into different categories. They are learning to ask and answer questions about key details in a text. Next week we will conclude our study of tools with our field trip to Billings Farm on Friday October 27th. We will leave school after lunch and return by dismissal time.
Unit 2 Stories are in orange folders this week. This is a collection of daily passages that directly matched skills taught in Unit 2 during our study of three letter CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words and are therefore considered decodable. "Spotlight" words are highlighted to draw the reader's attention to words that were practiced during word study that day. Please reread these familiar passages with your child FREQUENTLY to build automaticity with heart words and high frequency CVC words and reading fluency (reading at a conversational rate with expression).
Building on taught strategies for listening to learn, our current Second Step social emotional learning lessons helped first graders understand that focusing attention and following directions involves using your eyes, ears, and brain and that the more we practice focusing attention the better we get at it. Strategies to avoid distraction include using self talk and putting on our "attent-o-scopes"!
Reading fluency, what many experts believe to be the bridge between word recognition and reading comprehension, is a primary focus of first grade reading instruction this year. Readers are considered fluent if they read at a conversational rate with accuracy and expression. Studies show that singing helps the youngest readers engage with the rhythm and cadence of language, increases engagement with a text, builds vocabulary, and develops voice/print matching skills. This week, first graders were introduced to their First Grade Songbook entry, London Bridge.
To help fill the literacy gap left by the loss of our school librarian, our media and technology support specialist, Ms. Allison, has made time available for our homeroom to check out books from the school libray on Tuesday mornings. Thank you, Ms. Allison!
To guide the shift towards structured literacy instruction, the Mountain Views Supervisory Union recently adopted the EL language arts program across grade levels. Through this program, first graders are building their literacy and citizenship as the engage in content-based learning focuesd on tools and work. Students are exploring how tools help do a job. The guiding question and big ieda for our first unit is: Whey do we need tools? Tools make our lives easier by hepling us do work and create things.
During word study students are segmenting and blending three sound short vowel words. There has been a focus on sentence dictation with correct capitalization, punctuation and editing. Heart words (words that are not phonetically spelled) for this unit include: the, a, and is, his, of. Please help your child practice reading and spelling these high frequency words at home!
First grade mathematicians have been investigating the operation of addition by solving story problems and working on games and activities that involve combining two amounts. They are using combining strategies we call counting all, counting on and using a known addition fact.
First grade mathematicians have also worked on using numbers, pictures, and words to understand and solve subtraction, or take from, story problems. Our mathematicians have discovered several strategies and ways to represent these strategies on paper. As we investigate increasingly more complex problems throughout the year, first graders will be coached to notice and use the relationship between addition and subtraction to solve, which is a priority mathematical understanding.
