Welcome to Grade 1

february 18-22

We had a wonderful week with our field trip and 100th day of school! As we continued to inquire into our unit, we went on a field trip to Kruja to look at how it has changed from the past to the present. Students were fascinated and learned many things. We enjoyed the end of the field trip with a picnic and getting a souvenir from the bazaar. We also continued to make houses, farm, and other things needed to survive in our settlement.

We also enjoyed the 100th day of school with different activities. Students continued to practice addition and subtraction using various strategies. Students also continued to practice identifying and creating 3D shapes.

In literacy, students continued to practice writing narratives. Through reading books and planning the stories, students identified the story elements.

Have a great weekend!

February 11-15

We had a great week of learning. Students continued to inquire into how settlements are unique and evolve over time. Students created their landforms and their first settlement. There were great discussions about where people should live and what people need to survive.

Students continued to practice addition and subtraction. Students continued to learn about 3D shapes, such as identifying their edges, vertices, and faces.

In literacy, students continued to identify the story elements. The students also practiced writing stories, coming up with characters, setting, problem, solution, and a plot.

We also celebrated Valentine's day with a few activities, looking at how we can be kind to one another and use positive and encouraging words.

Have a great weekend!

February 4-8

We continue to inquire into our new unit, Where We Are in Place and Time. Students inquired into maps as they read books, viewed different types of maps, and started drawing maps of their bedroom. We started to use the vocabulary, continents, countries, cities, keys, and compass. We started to explore the different types of landforms, such as mountains, valleys, hills, grasslands, as well as bodies of water, like ocean, lake, and river. The class chose which landforms they’d like to live in and started to create the class landform.

In literacy, students continued to inquire into narrative writing. Students continued to identify the story elements, and started to create class or group narratives. We continued to practice reading and writing through literacy centers and other activities.

In mathematics, students continued to explore 3D shapes. Students practiced identifying the 3D shapes through various activities. Students also practiced addition and subtraction skills.

Have a wonderful weekend!

January 28 - February 1

We hope you enjoyed the student-led conference and celebrated the progress your child has made!

We reflected on our unit, How We Express Ourselves, and put some of our work in our portfolios.

We started inquiring into our next unit, Where We Are in Place and Time. We discussed this transdisciplinary theme and talked about what we might learn in this unit. We also explored and discussed what maps are. As a pre-assessment, students were asked to draw what they think a city is. As a provocation, we watched Zootopia and recorded things they saw that was in the city.

In mathematics, we looked at the similarities and differences between 2D and 3D shapes. We started to inquire into different types of 3D shapes. We also continue to practice adding and subtracting numbers using various strategies.

In literacy, students were introduced to narratives. Students identified the story elements, such as characters, setting, problem, solution, and plot.

We had a great week of learning!

Have a great weekend.

january 14-18

We are starting to wind down our unit called "How We Express Ourselves". The children are working hard on their research papers about an animal or plant with a natural pattern. They are using library books and books their teachers have provided them to gather information about their topic. They also are using a kid friendly search engine called www.kiddle.com to look for information. You might want to check kiddle.com out at home with your child. It helps your child search all kinds of topics and presents the information in a way that is easier for kids to understand.

Your children are also starting to prepare for the student led conferences that are scheduled for the 28th of this month. Your children are so excited for you to come to school so they can show you what they have been learning in the areas of math, reading, writing, inquiry and Albanian. Your children will also take you to their single subject classrooms so they can show what they have been learning in P.E., art and performing arts. If you have not yet scheduled a time to come to school with your child on the 28th, please contact your child's teacher soon.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

January 7-11

Welcome back! It was great to see everyone excited to come back to school.

We reviewed the sounds and tricky words we learned. Students were excited to share what they did during the winter holiday. Students continued to practice writing poems, such as shape, acrostic, and haiku poems.

In mathematics, students continued to review and practice 2D shapes. Students continued to practice composing and decomposing shapes and identifying the shapes.

We reviewed what we learned about patterns and started our summative assessment. Students made a list of natural and man-made patterns. They chose a natural pattern they were interested in learning and researching about. Over the next two weeks, students will be researching on their natural pattern through computers, tablets, and books.

Have a good weekend!

December 10-14

We continued to inquire into our new unit, How We Express Ourselves.

Students explored poetry through various activities. Students continued to practice reading and writing rhyming words. The students were introduced to repetitive poems. They wrote an “I Am” poem about themselves and went through the writing process of creating a plan, draft, revise and edit, and publish. Students also drew themselves while learning about symmetry. Students also learned about acrostic and shape poems and practiced writing them.

In Mathematics, students learned about 2D shapes. Students identified the shapes: circle, triangle, rectangle, oval, rhombus, trapezoid, and hexagon. They identified the sides and vertices each shape has too. Students also used pattern blocks to create different types of patterns.

Students have been learning different types of patterns, such as symmetry, repeating patterns, growing patterns, shrinking patterns, and spirals. Students created various decorations using patterns. Students recognized that there were patterns in numbers too!

Have a wonderful weekend!

December 3-7

We started to inquire into a new unit this week, How We Express Ourselves.

Central Idea: We appreciate both the patterns that occur in the natural world and the ones that we create.

Lines of Inquiry:

• How to identify and create patterns
• How patterns are connected across subjects
• How patterns affect our lives

We started the unit with our provocations. Students looked at pictures with patterns and wrote about what they saw, what they thought about it, and how it made them feel. Students also listened to different patterned sounds and wrote down what they heard, what they thought, and what they wondered. Students were given different materials and were asked to create a pattern with them.

We inquired into rhyme through various activities. Students also started with poetry, focusing on an “I Am” poem.

In Mathematics, we started to explore shapes through various discussions and activities.

November 19-23

We are wrapping up our unit on How the World Works by drawing and writing about our treehouse, parking garage or fire station building projects. The children are making books using words like first, next, then and finally to describe the sequence of the building project. It is exciting to see the children looking for simple machines in their school environment. At home you are probably hearing your children point out various simple machines too.

Your children are continuing to make good progress with their reading and writing during our literacy centers. Don’t forget to continue to read aloud to your children each day. Reading to your child in English or Albanian will help your child increase their vocabulary, learn proper grammar and develop a love for reading.

Measure, measure, measure! Your children have spent a lot of time measuring using various items to find the length of things in our classroom or the distance between two locations in the classroom. The children have used cubes, tiles, paper clips and their footsteps to measure. Ask your children what the word “measure “ means and see if they can explain it to you.

Enjoy the extra time you will have with your children next week!

November 12-16

This week students continued to further develop their understandings of simple machines. Students continued to explore the form and function of screws, inclined planes, pulleys, wheels and axles, wedges, and levers. Simple machines are all around us in our everyday lives and students continue to point them out.

In language arts, students continue to work on how-to writing and use transitional words such as first, next, then, and finally. Students also practiced working on basic writing conventions. Our beginning conventions include beginning with a capital and ending with a period or question mark, as well as only using capital letters for proper nouns or the beginnings of sentences.

In mathematics, students continued to practice addition and subtraction problems, while applying different strategies they learned. Students also practiced measuring the length of objects.

November 5-9

This week students are really developing their understandings of simple machines. They have had the opportunity to use screws building various items that we can play with at school and learned that a screw twists. Simple machines are all around us in our everyday lives and students are beginning to point them out.

Students made connections on our field trip to the firehouse. They noticed the hoses for water are connected with a screw, the chainsaw as a wedge, the truck ladder as an inclined plane and many other simple machines while on our visit. It was a great first field trip and we are very proud of the students engagement and attitudes while we were at the fire station.

In language arts students are continuing how to writing as well as working on basic writing conventions. Our beginning conventions include beginning with a capital and ending with a period as well as only using capital letters for proper nouns or the beginnings of sentences.

October 29-November 2

As you can imagine, celebrating Halloween was a highlight for this past week. The children loved wearing their costumes to school, trick or treating upstairs at the "big kids'" classrooms and participating in the ACT Halloween Parade.

In math, your children are showing a solid understanding of the concepts of greater than, less than and equal. They have also become experts at ordering a group of numbers from least to most. Many of the children have been introduced to the concept of addition and will soon start to work on subtraction.

Your children are growing their sight word vocabulary, decoding skills and reading comprehension as they meet in small groups with their teachers throughout the week. It is exciting to see the progress they are making with reading!

The children have been introduced to using the words first, next, then, last and finally in their writing. We have explained that these words help the reader understand the sequence of events that are being written about. The children are also beginning to write "how to" stories to explain how to complete various tasks.

In our unit about simple machines the children are working on building a treehouse, fire station or parking garage. They are learning about how to apply their knowledge of simple machines to complete these projects.

October 22-26

Welcome back from the holiday.

Students were excited to talk about what they did during their holiday. We reviewed our phonic sounds and tricky words. We continued with literacy centers where students practiced reading and writing skills.

We continued to practice our mathematics skills daily. We continue to practice counting numbers and identifying the date, month, day during calendar time. Students started to inquire into addition and subtraction as they practiced using strategies to help solve problems.

We reflected on our previous unit, Who We Are, as students chose pieces of work they wanted to put in their portfolios. We also started to inquire into our next unit, How the World Works. Students were asked “how does simple machines make work easier?” Students came up with questions about the question and discussed what they wanted to know more about. Students came up with questions such as “how do they work?” “how do we build them?” Students are getting excited about learning about simple machines!

Have a good weekend!

october 8-12

After 6 weeks of inquiring into Who We Are, we are demonstrating our learning through our summative assessment!

We continued our literacy centers, where we practiced our letters, tricky words, and reading and writing sentences. We also began to practice strategies to help us read and write in our guided reading groups.

We continued to explore ordering numbers from least to greatest or greatest to least. We also learned about comparing numbers, using vocabulary such as greater than (>), less than (<), and equal to (=). Students practiced these skills through various activities. We continue with our daily calendar time as we look at the day, date, the days we have been in school, and practice counting forward and backwards numbers 1-20.

This week, students focused on demonstrating their learning through the summative assessment. In groups, students came up with a social, emotional, or physical question they wanted to ask the ACT community. They went around the school to collect data using tally marks. Then they thought about what kinds of action they could do to encourage ACT community to make healthy choices. Students came up with actions such as making a poster, video, game, or teaching others through a class about how to be healthy. It was great!

Have a wonderful holiday next week. See you back on October 22, 2018.

October 1-5

Students continue to be engaged as they inquire into Who We Are.

We continued our literacy centers, where we practiced our letters, tricky words, and reading and writing sentences. We also began to practice strategies to help us read and write in our guided reading groups.

We continued with our daily calendar time as we look at the day, date, the days we have been in school, and practice counting forward and backwards numbers 1-20.

This week, students brushed the egg shells from the experiment with the various healthy and unhealthy beverages. Students recognized how stained and bad the egg shell looked when it was in coca cola, whereas it was still clean when it was in water. Students concluded that coca cola was bad for our teeth, juice was a little bad, while water and milk was good for our teeth. Students also watched a Kindness video and discussed the caring actions that were happening in the video through a see-think-wonder chart. Students also practiced their data handling skills by coming up with questions they wanted to ask their classmates on being healthy and collected data through a tally chart.

September 24-28

Your children have been busy continuing to learn about “Who We Are”. We are teaching them the vocabulary words of physical, social and emotional. The children are learning what these words mean and how they apply to themselves and to others. As we have discussed the word “physical” we have learned about healthy beverage choices by doing an experiment with eggs. Your children were so enthused about this experiment! Be sure to ask them about it.

In reading, your children are continuing to learn and apply more letter sounds. They are growing their “tricky” word reading vocabulary. A “tricky” word is a word that a child looks at and is able to read automatically without sounding it out.

In writing, the children are continuing to learn proper letter formation for the letter sounds that have been introduced. We are also encouraging them to add labels and write sentences for the pictures they produce.

Our math instruction continues to center on calendar skills, counting and the vocabulary of first, last, next, before, after. Your children are also working on collecting and interpreting data using tally marks and graphs.

September 17-22

This has been a fun week of learning.

As we continue our Jolly Phonics program we have begun to learn “tricky words”. Over the last two weeks we have learned tricky words the, to, my and I. A tricky word is a word your student should be able to immediately recognize and read as well as spell correctly in their writing. Our grade one classrooms make use of either a word wall or student dictionary to support this ongoing process. We have also learned the letters Cc, Kk, and Ee.

Mathematics learning is being continued through our daily calendar as we prepare to begin our mathematics curriculum next week.

Continuing into our Unit Who We Are we focused on the first line of inquiry: the physical, social, and emotional characteristics of ourselves and others. Each class took time throughout the week to watch the film Inside Out which aided us in furthering our understanding and sorting out of the above characteristics of humans.

Feel free to go to your child’s class by clicking on the tab above to view pictures! Please read about our upcoming Back to School Night under the announcements tab.

**Unit homework: We have been learning about "Who We Are," the physical, social, and emotional characteristics of ourselves and others. We will look at how our actions impact our health next week. We are currently keeping a food and exercise journal where we record what we ate and how long we exercised daily. Your child is bringing home their journal to be filled out over the weekend. Please have them fill it out independently (drawing and labeling) what they ate and if they did any exercise. Please have them bring it back on Monday.

September 10-14

We were all excited to start learning this week!

Students were assessed on their letter names and sounds and writing. We also started learning our letter names and sounds as we follow the Jolly Phonics program. We started learning /s/, /a/, and /t/. If you’d like to listen to songs, you may click on the link under the information tab.

We started our mornings with morning meetings and calendar time. We discuss the date, day, and how many days we have been in school. We also had a pre-assessment on the mathematics skills, such as numbers to 100, addition, subtraction, and others.

We started to inquire into our Who We Are unit through various provocations and activities.

We will focus on these Primary Years Program (PYP) essential elements throughout this unit:

Learner Profiles: Caring and Balanced Attitudes: Respect and Tolerance

Key Concepts: Causation and Responsibility Transdisciplinary skills: Self-management and Social skills

Feel free to go to your child’s class by clicking on the tab above to view pictures!