A Look Into Our Day
Carlsbad Flower Fields
We had a fun day on our field trip!
Word Study
We have been loving going on word hunts around the classroom to practice our weekly spelling patterns.
Informational Writing:
We have been having a blast practicing our informational writing. We just finished working in groups to research different animals. We then took what we learned and wrote a teaching book that we brought over and read to Mrs. Week's TK class. We are now starting another animal research book independently and will share those with you at Open House!
Gardening
After learning about living and non living things, we planted some seeds that we could look after. We are excited to watch grass and lettuce grow as well as sunflowers in our garden beds.
Plants and Animals Unit:
We kicked off our plants and animals unit by learning about what all living things needs. We made our own living things out of playdough and then did a living and nonliving picture sort in groups.
Informational Writing:
We started our informational writing by discovering what is unique about non-fiction books. We explored different non-fictions texts and learned about different text features. We then created a list of all the things we are an expert at and could write a teaching book about! We then went on a book hunt with our Scholastic book order magazine to find examples of non-fiction and fictions books.
Number of the Day:
We challenged ourselves to see how many addition or subtraction sentences we could come up with that equaled our number of the day (127)!
Math: Graphing
We learned all about making and reading graphs. We then created many of our own graphs and collected data from our classmates!
Writing
We practiced free writing in our journal! After spending weeks learning about narrative and opinion writing structure, we took some time to just write more freely. We spoke about how writers are story tellers. We began our brainstorming by telling a partner about a special moment in time. We then drew a detailed picture of that moment and added labels to our picture. We finished our writing session but spending 10 minutes writing everything we can about our moment in time.
Long Vowel Review
We spent this last week playing games to help us review the different long vowel teams we have learned over the last couple of weeks!
Opinion Writing
We wrapped up our opinion writing unit by publishing a book! After writing our opinions about the best classroom pet and whether we liked the sun or rain more, we choose one to turn into a final draft. We reviewed our rough draft writing, made edits, and turned our writing into a published book that our classmates may now read!
We have been celebrating the month of March and St. Patrick's Day with a few crafts!
Math
We learned and practiced measuring different things in our classroom. We measured objects using centimeter cubes and compared them to each other.
Music PBL
We have been enjoying learning all about sound waves and how sound is created! We have been practicing our different music standards with Mrs. Corso. We will take what we learned about sound and create our own instrument out of recyclables this week. We are very excited to perform for you on Friday, March 4th!
Instrument Exploration
We explored different instruments and discovered what is creating the sound. We recorded the instrument, how it works, and what kind of sound it makes in our science notebooks.
Sound Scavenger Hunt
We kicked off our sound unit by going on a sound scavenger hunt around our school. We noted what sounds are loud or soft. what pitches are high or low, and if the sound was natural or man made.
100th Day of School
The 100th day of school was filled with many 100 themed activities. We created a bucket list of things we want to accomplish by the time we are 100, made 100 year old people in art, and showed off our spirit wear!
Lunch Bunch
Lunch bunch has been a huge hit! Each Friday, if your child earns treasure box, they may choose between a trinket or a reward coupon. One of those coupons is Lunch Bunch. During Lunch Bunch, your student gets to invite one friend and eat lunch with the teacher.
Spelling Words
We practiced our weekly spelling patterns with shaving cream!
Math Fluency
Since returning from Winter Break, we have jumped right into mastering our math facts! In first grade we are working on being able to fluently (within 3-5 seconds) solve addition and subtraction problems. We continue to practice those facts weekly in class and your support at home with the flash cards have been very helpful with our Thursday timed fluency tests.
6 Foot Sandy
Our school's Sandy got to spend two whole weeks in our classroom! Sandy gets passed around each week to the class who shows the most school spirit on Friday! Keep wearing blue and white each Friday!
Narrative Writing:
We are reviewing our narrative writing unit and practicing writing stories on our own!
Science: Earth, Sun, Moon
We learned all about the moon and created moon art with facts about the moon! We also learned about constellations and made up our own constellations!
Math
In math rotations, we complete 3 rotations which consist of Zearn online, independent math games, and teacher time. These past few weeks we have been practicing making a friendly number (10) to solve 2 and 3 digit addition facts.
Reading Groups
We have been working hard practicing our different spelling patterns and reading strategies!
Music
Mrs. Corso has been teaching us many different holiday songs!
Turkey Traps:
We have been working as a team to design and create a turkey trap! Students worked with their group, assigned group jobs, budgeted their $20 for supplies, and began building. After building, they presented their traps to the class!
Science: The Moon
We have been learning all about the moon. In the pictures, you will see us learning why the moon has craters. We also showed our knowledge about the sun by writing the facts we have learned and creating sun art with coffee filters.
Virtual Disneyland Field Trip:
We enjoyed a virtual field trip to Disneyland where we took a walk down main street, rode rides, and ended our day watching the firework show! We spent the next two weeks writing a narrative about our day. We then went through our writing and made edits before publishing them into books! As students published their book, they rang a bell and the class cheered them on before they placed their book in our classroom library. We then got to share our books with Mrs. Weeks' TK class.
Math:
We have continued to practice word problems and wrote addition and subtractions facts that relate.
Halloween Celebration
We had a fun-filled day to celebrate Halloween! Thank you families for all that you did to contribute to our class party! The kiddos had a blast and it was all made possible because of your generosity!
Class Reward: Chalk Party!
We once again earned all of our class points! The kiddos got to enjoy a chalk party at PE.
Story Retelling
We read and learned about the lifecycle of a butterfly. After learning, we retold the 4 main steps using our time order words.
Science
We continued our learning by observing how the sun seems to move across the sky. We traced our shadows at different times of the day and discovered that our shadows can change based on the sun's position in the sky.
Story Retelling:
We read the book Trick or Treat Crakenstein and then practiced retelling the beginning, middle, end, characters, and setting.
Reading
Check out our "creepy fingers" while reading books at our different levels. We are practicing tracking the words on the page as we read and trying different strategies when we get stuck on a word we do not know yet.
Project Based Learning: Earth, Sun, Moon
We launched our pbl work by exploring shadows and gaining an understanding of how the earth, sun, and moon revolve around each other.
Personal Narrative Stories:
We are currently working on telling and writing personal narratives! We just finished writing our Ouch Stories!
Literacy Rotations:
Our “Workplace” rotations are in full swing this week. Every day, students are working independently on their leveled reading and writing skills through writing, practicing power words, retelling stories, working on Lexia, and collaborating with peers in the steam center. Our students have shown great independence while completing their daily tasks. While students are working independently, Ms. Troyan is able to pull small groups and work with them on specific skills.
Stuffed Animal Reward Day
Students enjoyed working alongside their favorite stuffed animals as a reward for following classroom expectations.
Library
We have been enjoying our time learning all about Lake's library! This week students checked out their first book. Students will leave books in the classroom for now. In a couple of weeks, we will start to take them home once checked out.
PE
We are having fun learning many games during our PE time. Ask your child about line tag, hula hoop rock, paper, scissors, and different skills they have learned with our PE teacher who comes once every other week.
Writing
We have begun our first grade writing with exploring our writing journals and tools. We learned that writers write best about things they love and know a lot about, so we brainstormed ideas for our own writing. Since then, we have practiced writing in our journals and sharing our entries with the class.
Sight Word & Spelling Pattern Practice
We spend each week practicing our weekly sight words and spelling pattern. We practice many different ways such as building the words with play dough and writing them on our whiteboards.
Reading
Students have enjoyed listening to different read aloud books while we discuss the various story elements. So far we have focused on characters, setting, beginning, middle, and end.
Math
We have focused on number sense and decomposing numbers into 2 parts to make a whole. We have become number detectives as we broke apart the numbers 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 in many different ways. We also worked on our fluency through timed sprints.
Self Portraits
We practiced using different materials correctly and following directions through completing a directed drawing. Students followed steps to draw themselves.
Science Introduction
We kicked off our science with learning about what a scientist is and what is science. Students then drew and wrote about topics they want to learn in science this year!
Morning Tubs and Fun Friday
Play is powerful! Students spend about 10-15 minutes each morning on morning tubs. These tubs focus on building, creating, drawing, fine motor skills, and moving while also working on social and academic skills. Each Friday afternoon students also have the opportunity to work on social skills through what our class calls “Fun Friday.” If students have finished all work from the week, they get to participate.
All About Me Posters
Students made a poster to show all of their favorite things and who they are. They then mingled to music around the classroom and took turns to share with other students.
Class Promise
We started the first 2 weeks of school by sharing reasons why we come to school and what we hope to learn or do this year. We then brainstormed classroom rules/expectations that we would need to have in order to make those things happen. We then summarized those rules into 5 expectations that make up our class promise. We rehearse this promise each morning as a class.
Check back soon to see what we have been up to!
