Twenty-Ninth Day

Two more seminars completed.That's 6 for anyone keeping track other than me. We listened to a nonfiction selection Animal House about pets from the White House past. We took a dictation test on words with initial consonant blends. We read another nonfiction selection What Pets Need and compared it to our fantasy selection Flip. Inspired by Flip we drew and wrote descriptive sentences about a pet.

We completed more work with parts of 10. We will have a test on Topic 5 on Thursday.

[U1/Wk4/D4&5]

Twenty-Eighth Day

Two more students made it to seminar for a total of 4. We read our main selection of the week Flip and analyzed for plot. We read a decodable about how things were made in the past. We continued work with initial consonant blends with 'l'.

In math we discussed parts of 10 using a tens frame.

For social studies we again discussed traditions and tolerance for other cultures.

[U1/Wk4/D3]

Twenty-Seventh Day

Two students were brave and ready enough to take on seminar today. We've been concentrating on initial consonant blends with 'l' this week (cl-, sl-, etc.). We listened to a Puerto Rican story about a naughty boy and his pig and analyzed that for story structure. We used Along Came Toto as a model for descriptive language and tried our hand at some as well.

You should find our Topic 4 test results in backpacks along with some student's unsatisfactory notes. Please sign and return to indicate you received the notice. Conferences will be scheduled the week of the 24th of October. There were a few students who were just barely borderline in a subject or two so I sent a notice as simply a 'head's up." Again, your child needs to know nothing about the contents of the unsatisfactory notice at this point. We can keep the particulars between the teacher and the parent.

In science we put are hands on and used our senses with various samples of solids to observe properties (vocabulary) including temperature.

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]

Twenty-Fifth Day

Today we started the final step of the rough draft of our personal narrative. We used our Tree Map to right details about what we can and like to do etc. We also began the finishing detail of our Unit Project. We anlyzed the structure of a cause and effect informational text.


For science/health today we went into first grade detail about how we grow. We discussed how genes, nutrition (balanced diet), and exercise all play a part in our growth. We discussed how a disease may interfere with growth if left untreated.

Many students returned to school today with either incorrect math classwork or incorrect homework. All incorrect math was sent home to be corrected. Today we applied the principles we've been learning about parts of a whole to solve story problems. We will most likely have our Topic 4 test tomorrow.

[U1/Wk3/D4&5]

Twenty-Fourth Day

We continued with our personal narrative today by using our Bubble Map to construct descriptive sentences about ourselves. We continued work on our Unit Project. We also had a dictation test on '-in' and '-ip' patterned words. We read a nonfiction selection about growth and analyzed the text for structure and compared the text to earlier selections.

Please look for incorrect/incomplete math classwork today and return corrected/completed to class tomorrow along with the homework. We had limited time due to the shortened afternoon and some students may need some extra input. I will be gauging understanding tomorrow to decide what day will be best to give Topic 4 test.

For social studies we discussed the meaning and difference of the terms rights and responsibilities and discussed the meaning of community and citizenship.

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.