Second Step: Emotion Management

Our social emotional learning program, Second Step, began a new unit recently that focuses on emotion management. In this unit, students are taught proactive strategies to help prevent strong feelings from turning into negative behaviors. When intense feelings are allowed to escalate, strong physiological reactions hamper students' ability to reason and to solve interpersonal and other problems without aggression. The ability to keep strong emotions from escalating and driving behavior allows students the chance to employ many of the other skills practiced this year, such as effective communication, assertiveness, negotiation and compromise, and problem-solving. During today's lesson, first graders learned to identify their own feelings by noticing the physical clues in their bodies.  Using disappointment as the example, activities and discussions revolved around the idea that everyone has strong feelings sometimes.

 

It is hard to believe that this is the last post of 2024!  Like most people, Mrs. Underwood, Ms. Morse and I find ourselves wondering how another year has passed so quickly. And, like some people, we find ourselves taking time to reflect upon the paths that we traveled on this trip "once around the sun".  There are many things that we are thankful for in 2024, including our families, our friends, and our health. We are hugely thankful for the opportunity to teach your children at Woodstock Elementary School. Each day we learn as much from them as they learn from us, and it is this type of connection with our students that makes first grade such a fulfilling place to spend our days. We appreciate all you do to support your children in their learning and readiness for whatever the day brings, and we honor the trust that you place in us to guide their development as learners and as people.  This post sends our best wishes for a happy, safe, and peaceful new year.

PBIS Pompom Classroom Celebration: Holiday Craft

Snowy Days Have Arrived!

Thank you for sending your student to school everyday with the snowclothes they need to be safe, dry and comfortable on the playground and in the classroom. It is a lot of gear to manage and first graders are doing a great job! Please also remember to help them pack inside shoes every day OR send an extra pair to leave in their cubby. 

Math: Adding and Subtracting Within 20

First graders recently began a new math unit focused on adding and subtracting within 20. Learning goals include applying the properties of operations and using the relationship between and subtraction as a strategy for solving problems. As a foundational understanding of place value and our base 10 number system, students are exploring unitizing, the idea that 10 ones as a unit is called "a ten". They will grow their knowledge of teen numbers as 10 + some number of ones and use this knowledge to add and subtract. First graders will continue solving story problems throughout the unit and learn two new problem types--Add To, Start Unknown ( ____ + 3 = 13) and Take From, Change Unknown (13 - ____ = 10). 

Fourth Grade Readers!

 Fourth grade members of the Wildcat Club have been visiting our homeroom on Wednesdays to read to first graders during lunch. We all look forward to this special time with older students!

Literacy: The Sun, Moon, and Stars and Suffix -s

In Literacy we have shifted our focus from tools to learning about the sun, moon and stars. We have begun to examine literary texts about celestial objects. First Graders are exploring the question, “Why do writers write about the sun, moon and stars?". Our work began this week by focusing on noticings and wonderings about the sun and moon with close viewings of photographs and time-lapse videos. We then began to do a "close read" of two different texts and respond to reading through writing. 

During word study students have been introduced to the concept of base word and suffix. They have learned that when suffix -s is added to a word it sometimes says /z/ like in the word bugs.  First graders have been taught about using a suffix to make a word plural or to use in an action word.  Heart words for this unit include: were, are, who, what, when, where, there, here.