Helper of the Day is one of first graders' favorite classroom jobs. Duties of this daily position include (but are not limited to 😀) acting as line leader, messenger, paper passer-outer, and retrieving and returning the lunch cart from the cafeteria.
...please let me or Mrs. Hecker know if your child needs their photo taken
(tiffany.hecker@mtnviews. org). Thank you!
Our Unit 2 math work continues with a focus on put together/take apart and addend unknown problems. This work gives students experience with developing their understanding of the relationship between addition and subtraction.
Put Together/Take Apart problems involve part-part-whole relationships rather than actions or a change over time. To provide visual support for making sense of the relationships between the total and the two parts, students played the center game Shake and Spill. It’s also used to help generate strategies when students are introduced to problems where one addend is unknown,
The lack of action makes it more likely that students may think of this problem type in different ways. Some students see it as finding how many to add to get to the known part, while others may think of the problem as removing the known part from the total to find the unknown part. Students continue to highlight the ways they make sense of problems with objects and drawings and annotate the problems with equations: 4 + ___ = 9 or 9 - ___ = 4)
First graders began a new unit in our Fundations phonics/word study program on Wednesday. Most are fluently recognizing, using, and applying the letter/sound relationship for consonants in reading and writing, and many have gained proficiency with short vowel sounds. This week, students were introduced to digraphs, two letters that "stick together" to form one sound: wh, sh, ch, th, and ck. They learned that /wh/ is only used at the beginning of a word and that /ck/ is only used at the end of a word. When "tapping" to spell or read, digraphs get a one finger touch to represent one sound, even though there are two letters. First graders were also introduced to four new trick words that they need to be able to read and spell automatically: as, has, to, into. Please help your child practice all of our trick words and challenge him or her to be a "digraph detective" by noticing and talking about digraphs in print and in spoken words! .
During EL, students are building their understanding of work and tools by considering how habits of character (initiative, perseverance and collaboration) help us do work. Students will complete various work challenges to deepen their understanding of this concept. This week students engaged in a collaborative cup tower challenge. Additionally, First Graders are participating in a series of active, close read-alouds of The Most Magnificent Thing. They will be closely studying the main character's behavior and actions and looking for examples of habits of character.
