November 28th-December 2nd Newsletter

First Grade Newsletter

November 28th-December 2nd

Literacy

Reading Street: Unit 2 Week 2

Main selection:  The Farmer in the Hat

Weekly Question:  How is a school a community?
Amazing Words: 
High-Frequency Words: be, could, horse, of, old, paper
Phonics Target: Long a: a_e; Consonants c /s/; g /j/

Comprehension skills: Cause and Effect
Comprehension strategy: Monitor and Clarify

Genres:  Realistic Fiction
Reading Street Parent Connection:

• Unit 2 Family talk letter for concept conversation starters and 6-week overview of the unit. (Sent home November 16th)
• Practice reading words (see white sheet sent home Wednesday) for Unit 2, Week 2 (second column). 

Fundations: Unit 5, Week 1

**Students will take the Unit 5 Fundations test at the end of this week.**
Students will learn about...

• Two new glued or welded sounds: /am/ and /an/ as in 'ham' and 'pan'. 
• Observe the form of a narrative story (character, setting, and main events) 
• Story: The Big Mess
• Sight words: from, have, do, does
• Trick Word reading test is on Wednesday and spelling test is on Thursday. 

Math in Focus

Chapter 5

Shapes and Patterns

Thinking Skills
- Induction; Analyzing patterns and relationships

Problem Solving Strategies  
- Guess and check
 
                               Objectives

                                                                                  - Identify, classify, describe, and sort plane and solid shapes.
                                  - Divide shapes into two and four equal parts and describe the parts.
                                  - Describe the whole as the sum of its parts.
                                  - Combine and separate plane and solid shapes.

*                                      

Science

Introduction to Matter: Solids, Liquids, and Gases

Observing Matter 

- Ways that matter can be grouped 

- Ways that matter can change

- 3 different forms of matter--solids, liquids, and gases.

 

Social Studies

          Jan Brett Author Study 

The Mitten

Animal Riddles: Students will come up with
animal clues and make an interactive writing
piece for others to guess their animal.
Vocabulary: admire, jostle, commotion

Second Steps—We are continuing our
Empathy Unit by thinking about how people’s
emotions can change.

 Specialists

MONDAY: Music 

TUESDAY: P.E.

WEDNESDAY: Music

THURSDAY: P.E.

FRIDAY: Art; Music

Writing Workshop

Six Traits of Writing~ Ideas

     The students did a great job of coming up with ideas about how our feathery friend, Mr. Turkey, would escape Thanksgiving dinner. This week students will be learning about conferencing and I will conference with each student about their writing.

Framing Your Thoughts~ First Barebone Book
The students will be finishing their individual pages of our first class barebone book and by the end of the week, the book will be bound and published! This week the students will be introduced to another part of the Framing Your Thoughts sentence structure. The predicate expander of where allows students to add detail to their barebone sentences. Students will be practicing writing barebone sentences using all of the parts we have learned so far.

This week’s mini-lessons will include… 
Students will also learn about conferencing… 
- What a whole-class conference is 
- How to give compliments to their peers 
- How to make constructive suggestions to improve their peer’s stories

                   Parent Reminders

1. Due to the book fair, we did not have library today.
2. Book Fair is here! Our class will have a
chance to preview the fair this Tuesday and
their book wish lists will be go home. Then,
we’ll shop for books on Thursday. Catalogs
went home last week.
3. Throughout the month of December, we will
be working on an author study of Jan Brett’s
books. Before we break for the upcoming
vacation, we will have a Jan Brett
celebration. Our Jan Brett Celebration will be on
Wednesday, December 21 st . A letter will be
going home today with more information.

Welcome back! 

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 Worksheets (due on Friday)
Wednesday: The Farmer in the Hat Comprehension (due on Friday)