Twenty-Sixth Day

Today I recorded one student being completed with the Unit 1 Project. Soon students will be ready to go to "seminar." This means they are ready for the revision step of the writing process of their personal narratives. I will be reporting regularly how many students have completed the seminar process. During this process they will receive positive and constructive feedback of their writing from their peers.

Today we analyzed the structure of a fantasy selection. We discovered the elements of a plot.

We began Topic 5 where we will explore the utility of the the "tens frame." We also took the Topic 4 test and of the 24 students taking the test 17 passed with a scaled score of 14 or better. Two students earned a 23, 1 earned a 22, 2-21, 2-20, 3-19, and 2-18.

[U1/Wk4/D1]

Fourteenth Day

Today was our first official day of study for unit 1. We began with the focus questions for the week: What do you like to do? What makes you special and unique? We used this week's vocabulary words in sentences. We read the realistic fiction selection: That Big Cat. We used the comprehension strategy of analyzing the text structure. About half of the class is getting very good at identifying the middle of a story. We used word building cards for the first time to begin work with '-an' and '-at' words. There is a homework sheet to go with these words for tonight.

In math we introduced addition sentences generated from a model.

Please do not forget that tomorrow (Tuesday) is our first banked time day and student dismissal is 1:04.

Second Day

Today we reviewed the letters 's' and 't,' and the sight words 'we' and 'like'. We discovered something that we liked in common with out partner and wrote about it. We listened to The Little Engine that Could and examined narrative story structure focusing on beginning, middle, and end. We segmented words listening for initial and final sounds. We discussed syllables and counted syllables in multi-syllabic words.

In PE we played a tag and chase game. A note about footwear: we normally participate in physical activities every day. With that in mind, the best type of footwear is a sneaker or tennis-type shoe with laces or velcro. Shoes with buckles or slip-on type shoes, or boots are insufficient for first-grade physical activities.

In math we continued with number sense for 6-10 expressed as 5 and another quantity. We had time to free explore math manipulatives which will be used throughout the year. The homework will look much the same as last night's homework. If your child returns home with last night's homework, it is because a problem is either incorrect or incomplete. If this is the case with your child, I discussed the problem with your child today; they are to correct the problem and return the homework for credit. I will discuss homework in detail with parents at Back-to-School Night.