Another busy week!

Measuring in Math using Popsicle Sticks

This week Mrs. Brady read us a book about the brain.  We learned that when we learn something new, we create new pathways in our brain.  The human brain is incredibly complex and controls everything we do.  By working hard at school we can grow new pathways!

Students drew pictures of things they already know and things they want to know-their pathways-and shared them with each other.

Speaking of new skills, shoe tying is an important skill.  Students help each other at school.  Please practice with your child at home.

During Writing Workshop we spent one day going back to our stories and correcting our capitalization and punctuation errors with our writing partners.  We are also learning how to use craft moves, such as pop out words, ellipses and describing exact actions of our characters.

These two writers were trying to decide which period was correct.  Together they decided on the last one.  

Students reading yoga books and trying our some moves!

Of course the highlight of our week was our Back to School Night.  The students were so eager and proud to teach their families all about first grade! 

 If you have any questions that were not answered that night or in the slide show I shared, please email me.

Thank you for your support!

Shelburne Farms and More!

Our trip to Shelburne Farms was amazing!
I tried linking a slide show I made but I know that link did not work.
Let's try this:
click here for a photo album of our day
(I think you need "google photos" or "google + for this to work)

AND if this still does not work, I will be playing the slide show at our Back to School Night.
Tomorrow I will ask Mr. Bianchi how to share with you!! So much technology, so little time!

The mathematicians in our class have been working on solving story problems.  First we visualize what is happening in the story.  Then we decide what equation solves the problem.  Notice the "box" in the equations.  This helps us remember what we are solving for and is very important.  When we solve it we justify our strategy with a mathematical representation-draw a a picture or show your thinking some other way.

We teach our strategies to each other.  Other mathematicians listen and "revoice"the strategy they heard. We practiced this whole class one day.

The next day we continued solving problems.  We paired up with a math partner.  Partners practiced teaching each other their strategies and revoicing to each other.

This week with Mrs. Brady we talked about how often times things are hard for us and we need to "keep on trying"!

In Word Study we are learning about the digraphs-ch, sh, th, wh, and ck.  We practiced writing the words on white boards and underlining the digraphs.  We also worked on a new activity-a word sort.  Children had to read the words and then sort them by the digraph.

We are also spending time making sure that we learn to write lower case letters correctly!

We have a new typing program that all the children have now logged into two weeks in a row during Computer Lab.  Children can access this from home.  Got to the CCS School Web site, click on staff/students, then on line programs and then Typing Club.  Their log in name is their first name and last name- no spaces, all lower case.( ex: monicalubic) The password is: book1234.  If your child works on it at home please try to encourage them to use more than just their pointer fingers to type!

Four Winds-learning about the life cycle of insects.

On September 30 we will be going to the Flynn Theater to see Junie B. Jones' Essential Guide to School.  I have been reading several different Junie B. Jones books to the class.  They are loving her outrageous antics.

   

Thanks for helping your children with homework!