Unit 4 Week 4 Preview

We are continuing our discussion of teamwork, in particular, how in working together, teams can accomplish big things. We have been interactively writing a narrative in response to literature we've read this year. We will work on story structure, organization, and word choice. Our comprehension focus strategy will be visualization; our focus skill will be problem and solution. Vocabulary words for the week are: approach, assist, determined, quarrel, and view.

Individually we are working on and completing our Social Studies/Language Arts projects which will be on display for Open House (TBA). Seven students have worked steadily enough this week to finish. More are very near completion.

Also in Social Studies we will discuss transportation of long ago. We will continue our work with maps adding the concept of relative direction in greater detail. We will use what we learn with relative direction to locate hidden treasures.

In science we continue our study of air with lessons on resistance, propulsion, and pressure.

Results of the last two topic math tests are forthcoming.

Unit 4 Week 1 Preview

Our new theme for this unit is teamwork. We will begin the unit discussing the advantages of using teamwork and what team members do. This week we will use the spelling rules: 'ai_', and '_ay' to spell the long vowel-a. For comprehension we will learn how to generate questions during reading in order to make predictions. We will discuss comparatives and superlatives and use them to make a small fold out book. Our vocabulary words will be: encourage, friendship, relationship, rely, and suggest. Our sight words will be: across, carry, eight, once, upon, and walked. In grammar we will distinguish between the two verbs: was and were.

In health, we will talk about safety and safe habits.

Additionally, this week all 1st graders will take their reading skills battery for fluency and comprehension.

We will also attempt to get in a math test.

On Wednesday is our field study trip to the Getty Museum. We will be enjoying as well as examining and comparing art for a variety of elements: line, color, texture, shape, and subject matter.

This will be a busy week with Our 1ooth day of school celebration on Thursday.

Unit 3 Week 4 Preview

We will be discussing how we can be creative and resourceful and likewise how the characters in our selections exhibit these characteristics and what it is that inspires them. Our vocabulary words for this week are: create, hobby, inspire, resourceful, structure. Among our selections this week is a fantasy by Harry Horse called A Friend for Little Bear, in which a resourceful toy bear learns the importance of friends over collecting possessions. Another selection is Karen Lynn Williams' story Galimoto about a resourceful child in Africa who has to make his own toys from found objects.

Our comprehension strategy will be making inferences in order to draw conclusions, our comprehension skill. Our sight words will be: after done, find, old, new, work.

We will continue with final silent 'e' long vowel spellings for the remaining vowels along with open syllable long vowels as well as the remaining stanzas of our vowel poem.

Everyone should have brought home a world map at this point labeled correctly from which to study for our next social studies test. We will also discuss the concepts of reusing, repurposing, and recycling.

We will also be taking a look at and finding symmetry in a variety of shapes and using the idea for a few art projects.

We have to cover some difficult math concepts in this topic. Please check to be sure your child has completed all classroom assignments as well as homework assignments in order to reinforce concepts presented in class.

Reminder: reading logs are due Jan. 31.

Unit 3 Week 1 Preview

In our next unit we will be exploring fun and laughter. Over the course of this unit, students will be collecting funny stories, riddles, and anecdotes to make into a book. Please assist children over the winter break to write notes about family members' favorite funny stories, riddles, and jokes.

We will begin our study of long-vowel spellings beginning with the spelling pattern long-vowel 'a' spelled 'a_e' (eg., rate, cage). We will learn the first stanza of our vowel poem which students may later memorize for a star on the Star Chart. Our vocabulary words of the week are: amuse, humorous, delighted, mood, and ridiculous. We will review sight words: all, put, show, together, under, and want in addition to introducing away, school, today, way, and why. In grammar we will be taking another look at verbs. We will discuss again, respect and good sportsmanship. As we did last week, we will use a Flow Chart to independently retell a story.

Unit 2 Week 5 Preview

For the next 5 instructional days we will ask what neighbors do together for fun. Our focus vocabulary words will be: audience, entertain, brilliant, enjoy, and perform. Our sight words will be: all, put, show, together, under, and want. In phonics we will be introduced to the digraphs 'sh,' and 'th'. We will again generate retells and summaries of our selections using visualization and Flow Maps

Unit 2 Week 4 Preview

Continuing our exploration of families and neighbors, we ask the question: what is a home? Our vocabulary words for the week are: collapse, company, construct, entire, and material. Our high-frequency focus words are: again, could, make, one, then, and three. For spelling we will focus on short-vowel 'u'. Our grammar rule will be proper nouns and capitalization.

Tuesday we will read our class president speeches and Wednesday we will vote. I will send home a copy of our voting ballot with those children making speeches. This is one of those documents you might consider scanning to your child's flash drive.

Last week, 22 of 24 students passed the district quarterly math exam. Two students passed with perfect scores.

Forty-Second Day

We compared the the past and the present in a nonfiction selection today called Around Town, Then and Now. We started a Flow Map to write a report about the city of Carson. Our vocabulary words for the week include: frequently, service, variety, useful, and amazed.

We took Topic 7 math test today.

Unit 2 Week 2 Preview

This week we will be discussing helping and cooperation in connection with our larger theme Family and Neighbors. We will discuss how we are able to contribute to tasks which need to be accomplished. We will read and listen to several versions of The Little Red Hen for comparison. We will focus on the order of events to retell (R 1.2.7). We will use our fourth thinking map (Flow Map) to write a retelling. We will then learn to write ordered instructions for completing a task.

Our focus in phonics will be the short-vowel 'e'. We will focus on high-frequency words: eat, no, of, some, and who. We will discuss and practice plural nouns with an emphasis on those which require '-es'. Our robust vocabulary words are: appreciate, cooperate, partner, responsibility, and scrumptious.

In social studies we will observe how the environment/weather of three different climates affects lifestyle. We will also examine the division of labor in and the process of raw material to final product.

In science we will work further with solid forms of matter.

Thirty-Fifth Day

We discussed how animal parents protect and provide for their baby animals using our robust vocabulary for the week. Our total through seminar is now 11 and 4 students have completed their Unit 1 project (we are now working on Unit 2).

We worked on balance today in P.E.

Our Topic 6 math test will be on Friday.

Thirty-First Day

If memory serves correctly, (we had several false starts) 2 students made it through seminar today before our earthquake drill. Behavior (from our class) was very good during the drill. That brings our total to 10 through seminar. We listened to our weekly oral vocabulary story "Roberto Clemente" today and learned why he was a true American hero. We used clues from the story to determine the author's purpose for writing the story. We blended words with final consonant blends. We read a high-frequency word story called I Like to Help. We wrote a personal narrative journal entry about doing something with a friend.

We took the Topic 5 test today. With 24 students taking the test, 21 passed with a score of 16 or better. Three students earned a perfect score, 3 earned 21, 7 earned 20, 2 earned 19, and 4 earned 18. Tests will be in backpacks tomorrow.

P.S. Slip-on shoes still coming off.

[U1/Wk5/D2]

Week Preview and Home Project Idea

The last instructional segment of our unit on All About Us will center on what we like to do with friends. Our robust vocabulary words include: focused, offer, charity, admire, and challenging. In phonics we will focus on final consonant blends ('-nd', '-st', '-ng', and '-nk'). In social studies, we will also discuss symbols of the United States. In science we will continue our work with forms of matter.

Election day will soon be upon us and in order to mark this date (Nov. 8th) we will be holding our very own election for class president complete with speeches. If your child is interested in holding the office of class president, please help them to formulate a speech which they might deliver to the class on this date. I will tape the speeches, as usual, using an Apple program. They can easily be transferred to a flash drive for those interested parents.

Twenty-Third Day

We listened to a nonfiction selection about the growth of tiger cub to adulthood. We analyzed the text for structure and augmented our growing robust vocabulary words for the week. We read another nonfiction selection reinforce sight word learning of: run, ride, and be. We used our Circle map about us to begin our personal narrative rough draft.

We continued with subtraction sentences to find the difference between two collections. We will likely have a test on Topic 4 on Wednesday.

Week Preview

This week we will focus on ways we move and express ourselves through movement. We will compare the ways we move with the ways other animals move. We will learn the importance of movement in our daily lives.

Our robust vocabulary words will include movement, energy, express, exhausted, and stretch. Our spelling focus will be on '-ack', '-ad', and '-ap' words.

Fifteenth Day

We are focusing on the definition of a sentence for grammar this week. We listened to the fairy tale The Princess and the Pea, while reviewing this week's robust vocabulary. We are focusing on plot as our comprehension strategy. Our skills for identifying the middle of the story are improving. We began work on our second thinking map, Bubble Map, in order to describe ourselves. This map will come in handy when writing our personal narratives. We also continued work on our Unit Project.

In math we related story problems to addition sentences. We will have a test on Topic 3 on Friday.

Your child's first reading log is due Friday.

Week Preview and First Home Project Idea

Over the course of the next few weeks we will be developing our ideas for a personal narrative. This week's words for building a robust vocabulary are: unique, interest, cheerful, genuine, and prefer. When discussing your child's interests try to use these words in conversation.

We read a short biography of Alexander Graham Bell. An autobiography is a personal narrative told with ideas/facts about ourselves in chronological order. In order to develop an autobiography, it may first be helpful to develop a timeline. One project a first grader may want to share with classmates and display in the classroom is a personal timeline. A personal timeline may include significant events in a person's life displayed in chronological order. These events might include trips, interesting "firsts" (haircut, costume, ice cream), sibling births, etc. These may be displayed physically on paper, digitally on a flash drive, or with links to a Web tool/application.