April 24th, 2018
Hello First of All,
Wow! Time is flying by and we are really in the home stretch now! We enjoyed getting back into a full week of school and our routines after April break. I hope everyone had a nice Spring Break! .
In reading this week we continued non-fiction. This was my favorite week for non-fiction so far because we started learning about all of the components in a Non-fiction book and how they can help us as readers. We learned to mark interesting parts with post-its, to read each page matching the feeling on that page, to find and define keywords, and to figure out the special organization of our books. They were really excited to do this and learned so much about their non-fiction books.
In writing we are putting on our finishes touches for our Non-Fiction All Abouts. The students have been doing a great job with coming up with different animals to write about and then doing some research about their animal. Our next writing topic will be poetry. I'm really excited about this one!
I'm looking forward to the nice weather!
Thanks,
Mrs. Lindner
Hello First of All,
Wow! Time is flying by and we are really in the home stretch now! We enjoyed getting back into a full week of school and our routines after April break. I hope everyone had a nice Spring Break! .
In reading this week we continued non-fiction. This was my favorite week for non-fiction so far because we started learning about all of the components in a Non-fiction book and how they can help us as readers. We learned to mark interesting parts with post-its, to read each page matching the feeling on that page, to find and define keywords, and to figure out the special organization of our books. They were really excited to do this and learned so much about their non-fiction books.
In writing we are putting on our finishes touches for our Non-Fiction All Abouts. The students have been doing a great job with coming up with different animals to write about and then doing some research about their animal. Our next writing topic will be poetry. I'm really excited about this one!
I'm looking forward to the nice weather!
Thanks,
Mrs. Lindner
Dear Parents,
Happy New Year! I have returned from my maternity leave and I’m very excited to be back in school with the students. I’m looking forward to a productive and successful rest of the school year. I have high expectations for the students while having fun and I can’t wait to see what we can accomplish together.
I appreciate all the hard work Mrs. Domenico did in my absence. Mrs. Domenico and I are working closely together to make this transition go as smoothly as possible for the students. I want to take this opportunity to thank her for her time and dedication and wish her the best in 3rd grade!
Please feel free to contact me at anytime at [email protected]. I look forward to the rest of the school year!
Fondly,
Mrs. Lindner
I can't believe we are in the month of December! November was a short, but very busy month for us in first grade!
In reading, the students learned the power of reading partnerships! The students became helpers to one another by listening to each other read, making suggestions, and cheering each other on. Now that students had a whole 'tool box' of reading strategies, they were able to help each other by thinking about what strategies might work best for what words and suggesting their ideas to their partners when they got stuck on a tricky word. Of course, students learned the importance of being each others' cheerleaders and cheering each other on during reading. Another reading strategy students learned all about was visualizing. Through various poems like 'Green Giant' and 'My Neighbor's Dog' by Jack Prelutsky and read alouds, like 'Owl Moon', the students worked on closing their eyes and making a movie in their mind to picture what was happening. To make things more exciting, the students were given the opportunity to draw what they pictured in their minds and we compared it to our classmates! This is a great strategy we are continuing to practice!
In writing, the students finished publishing their personal narrative stories. Our stories were 'fancied up' with some coloring and a fancy cover. We then celebrated our hard work throughout the unit and got to share our stories to our other first grade friends. We also began another writing unit called 'How To Writing'. The students now had the opportunities to be the teachers! We learned that we can teach others how to do and make things and can get ideas from everyday life and the things we know how to do so well! Making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, brushing our teeth, and drawing rainbows are just a few of the things we can teach! In addition, the students learned that writing how to stories are hard work, but we can follow the process of thinking of a topic, acting it out (so that we are really clear with our words), writing our steps, and drawing pictures with labels. This unit sure is a lot of fun!
In math, first graders were introduced to ten frames. They noticed that a ten frame is a table with 10 boxes. It reminded us of a cupcake box! The students learned how to place counters in a ten frame, how to describe numbers in a ten frame, and how to recognize counters in a ten frame quickly. We can also recognize these patterns as quickly as we can recognize dot patterns on dice! We also learned how to show different parts of numbers using counters. We can make the number 8 in lots of different ways. Just ask us how! Last, but not least, who doesn't like to be organized?! We spent some time showing how we can organize ways to make numbers by using a handy tool called a table. We can keep track and find all the different ways quickly and easily now!
Besides all of our hard work, we have shared many special moments within the past month! Read alouds and activities focused on the holiday of Thanksgiving and what we are thankful for. We are thankful for so many things here in first grade, including school, our friends, and most importantly, our families!
We can’t wait to see what next month brings us!
Your Teachers,
Mrs. Lindner and Mrs. Domenico