Opinion Writing Launch

Hope your first grader is enjoying his/her 3-day weekend! Students have been working really hard and I am especially impressed with their mastery of number families and relational thinking in math. They have it down! Access assessments are done so my hope is outside recess every day unless the wind chill is unsafe. The last two weeks with temperatures and 8 students taking the required ELL assessment, getting pulled half way through our recess, made it a challenge. Glad it's wrapped up! Here's a look where we are headed this upcoming 4-day week:

Reading:

Students learned the cvce pattern over the last two weeks. For some remembering this when reading and writing is tricky. In our next unit (Adventures, Unit 8), Students will be adding endings to cvce words (ed/ing) similar to how they learned endings with cvc words. Now they will be challenged with remembering both rules. With a cvc word, they need 2 consonants before the ending and for a cvce students drop the e and add the -ing or -ed without doubling the consonants. For example: bike becomes biked or biking. A lot to remember, so we will be doing a lot of practice! We continue with our differentiated reading groups and I will start mixing in some non-fiction magazines and readers as a way to challenge students. I hope to incorporate more creative writing and open responses during the 2nd reading block and enhancement as well.

Math:

As I mentioned, students are doing a great job and have their fact families down. We will practice finding missing part in a fact triangle, which was introduced on Friday, and students will also learned greater than and less than. Students will learn to solve for a function machine-both following the rule and finding the rule. The function machine involves skip counting both forward and backward. At the end of the unit we will do some mixed review of our new skills. This unit is packed!

Writing:
We are done with our air, weather, water and clouds unit and now we are moving on to opinion writing, which will tie into our YELP writing. Students will learn to distinguish fact from opinion and write their opinions, with supporting reasons and details. Students will learn how to share their opinion and respect others even if different from their own. I plan on connecting this to our work with Ms. Tara on anti-bullying, which we will continue on Wednesday morning. We hope to complete and guided opinion piece before our Amherst Eatery field trip on the 31st, which will be used to write our YELP reviews. 

Mindfulness:

We continue our weekly mindfulness with Ms. Baver and incorporate in in pockets throughout the day when we need to calm our bodies to prepare to do our best learning. This usually happens after lunch toward the end of our day.

Reminders: 

Please send your child with his/her folder daily and if your child has lost it or ripped it, feel free to replace with another with your child's name written on the front. 

Wish List:

• Chlorox wipes for tables
• black dry erase markers
• extra class snack

Thank you to all of the families who have donated! I really do appreciate it so much as do the students!