October 31st-November 4th Newsletter

 First Grade Newsletter

October 31- November 4th

Literacy

Reading Street: Unit 1 Week 5

Main selection:  Get the Egg!

Weekly Question:  Which wild animals live in our neighborhood?
Amazing Words: habitat, hatch, survive, chirp, croak, moist
High-Frequency Words: saw, tree, your, small
Phonics Target: Short e: e; Initial Consonant Blends (st-, bl-, pl-, gr-)

Comprehension skills:  Main idea and Details
Comprehension strategy: Important Details

Genres:  Realistic Fiction
Reading Street Parent Connection:

• Unit 1 Family Talk letter for concept conversation starters and 6 week overview of the unit. 
• Family Times gives various activities that can be done at home that connect to the concept we're learning this week.
• Practice reading phonics and sight words for Unit 1, Week 5 (fourth column only).   

Fundations: Unit 4 (Week 1 of 2)

Students will learn about...

• Bonus letter spelling rule: ff, ll, ss, and sometimes zz
• Glued sound: all
• Observe the form of a narrative story (character, setting, and main events) 
• Punctuation: exclamation point and quotation marks
• Story: The Big Mess
• Sight words: you, your, I, they

Math in Focus

**I felt the students needed a couple more days working with addition word problems and sentences before taking the test. Chapter 3 test will be on Wednesday**
Chapter 3

Addition to 10 

Thinking Skills
- Analyzing parts and a whole
- Deduction

Problem Solving Strategies 
- Act it Out
 - Draw a diagram

Objectives

      - Count on to add 
   - Use number bonds to add in any order

- - Write and solve addition sentences
- - Tell and write addition stories about pictures

*

Science

We will not be starting a new science unit until after Thanksgiving. We will continue with some Science mini-lessons while our main focus is on Social Studies. 
Our science learning is embedded in our reading program. This week we will be focusing on wild animals that live in our neighborhood.

Social Studies

Thanksgiving Unit
We will be working on developing an understanding of life as a colonist and a Wampanoag Native American. We’ll start by learning about each of their homes.
Second Steps—We began our Empathy Unit last week with identifying feelings. This week we are learning where to look for clues for how someone is feeling.

 Specialists

MONDAY: Music 

TUESDAY: P.E.

WEDNESDAY: Music

THURSDAY: P.E.

FRIDAY: Art, Music

Writing Workshop

Six Traits of Writing~ Ideas
     This week we will begin the first steps to writing our very first story. Each student will be looking at their heart inventory paper to find ideas of what topic they would like to write about. Once the students have a topic, they will write five important details they want to share in their story about the topic. These details will be in one or two word phrases on the Five Finger Detail organizer. By giving students the organizer, the focus will be more on five solid details about the topic than writing a proper sentence.
     The students did a great job writing some facts they learned about the birds (owls or falcons) we saw at the Wingmasters assembly last week. This week they’ll learn how to create an introduction and closing to complete their informative writing.

This week’s mini-lessons will include…

• Choose a topic 
• Use important details to tell about a topic
• Use spacing in between words 
• How to write an introduction and closing

                   Parent Reminders

1.  Scholastic Reading Club-November catalogs/Holiday Catalogs are due tomorrow (November 1st).
2. Library day was today. Please make sure you help your
child with remember to bring in their
book for next Monday.
3. October 27th West Parish changed our
school color to PINK! It was great to see
our community come together for such a
great cause.
4. Halloween parade was so much fun! I’m glad
so many parents could attend. The children
had a blast!

Happy Halloween!

Miss Biggar

Homework for the Week

 Daily

Reading Words (Phonics/Sight)

Reading Log (with discussion questions)
Number/Letter formation

Monday:  Reading Log (due on Friday)

Tuesday: Math (due on Wednesday)

Wednesday: Dialogue Journal (due on Friday)
Thursday: Comprehension (due on Friday)