Friday, March 13th Newsletter

Reading Workshop

 If you are looking for our class during reading workshop you will find us at the park, Bark Park that is.  Bark Park is a book series filled with a variety of four-legged characters, and some humans too.  Using these texts we are focusing on understanding story elements such as examining characters and identifying traits, describing the setting, analyzing problems characters face, and predicting solutions.  Two important reading strategies we practice are making inferences as we read and summarizing after we finish each story.  Book clubs are also an important part of our reading instruction too.  In our clubs we discuss story elements and practice the important skills of listening and speaking. 

Writing Workshop

We “travelled” this week in writing workshop too.  We visited Kenya to explore five animals for our All About Books; elephants, giraffes, gorillas, lions, and zebras.  The culmination of our newest writing project will be a book about one of these animals found in Kenya. This week we are exploring information about each animal in preparation for choosing our topic.  Each day we explored a variety of texts on Epic and reflected upon interesting facts about each animal.  In the coming weeks we will learn how to take notes about each animal’s appearance, habitat, behavior, diet, offspring, and unique facts.  We will also learn how to take these notes and write a cohesive paragraph.  Our completed published writing will reflect our growth as first grade writers this year.

Math

This week in math we focused on solving math story problems and writing our own.  We learned that the language we used when writing a problem allowed the reader to know which operation to use.  We also began using name collection boxes this week too. A name collection box is a space to demonstrate a variety of ways to show a number.

Classroom News

This week we began our eighth Fundations unit.  We began identifying and labeling consonant blends found in a variety of words.  We also began exploring r-controlled vowels such as -ar, er, ir, and or.  As we expand our phonics knowledge it becomes easier to spell words accurately when writing.

As spring approaches, I have our garden on my mind.  I am collecting Cherub Grape Tomato containers and seeds for the garden. Please consider saving any pepper, cucumber, or tomato seeds for us to sow.