Veteran's Day
This week we have focused our Reading Workshop of learning about Veterans and Veteran's Day. We have discussed what it means to be a veteran and how communities come together to celebrate their service to help protect our nation. We read the following article, as well as our own easy readers and a poem.
Throughout the week, our students discussed new vocabulary words including; DEFEND, CEREMONY, VETERAN, NATION and TRIBUTE. Every Tuesday, when learning our new words, we also come up with a motion together to help us remember the definitions. Ask your child to teach you their words each week - its a lot of fun! Additionally, we spent time discussing the connection between Veterans and Veteran's Day and have written about how communities celebrate and honor our veterans. On Friday, we spent the afternoon writing about being thankful for our freedom and made posters to give to Veterans to show our appreciation for their service! Take a peak at our fun posters below.
During Math this week, we learned about Fact Families and vertical form equations. We learned that Fact Families are groups of 3 numbers (2 partners and a whole). Each fact family is used to form 4 different equations, using only those 3 numbers in different orders. We learned a new song this week to help us remember how to manipulate our numbers to form the different equations - there was snapping involved during the song so we have been doing a lot of snapping all week ;). We also learned how we can write our equations in different ways. We learned that our horizontal equations (which we are used to) go from left to right and vertical equations go from top to bottom.
We wrapped up our first set of HBrothers in spelling and phonics. Our focus last week and this week has been on our digraphs ch, th and sh. The class was excited this week as we began using the app Magnetic Alphabet on our iPads as a way to sound out and build our words! We will continue learning about consonant digraphs wh and ph next week. Our spelling list has been posted on our sight if you need an extra copy of our words!
We began a Science Unit on Sound this week. To kick off our unit, we started a sound web - talking about things that we know about sound. Next, our class took a sound walk through and around the school. We made sure to be extra, extra quiet so that we could listen to all of the different sounds around us. While on our walk, our students recorded their findings in their own interactive science journals. We then came back as a group and discussed the various sounds we heard; thumping, bouncing balls, feet walking, teachers and kids talking, vents running, a refrigerator, a telephone ringing, cars and trucks, birds, and much more! Our friends get very excited when they see Science on our schedule during the week, their minds begin to race with the possibilities of what we might be talking about and doing.
Additionally, this week we talked a lot about what we are thankful for. Our friends participated in making a fun turkey craft and wrote about what they were thankful for. It was so fun to read about these kiddos being thankful for their families, their homes, and food to eat! We have also talked about Forest View's upcoming annual Thanksgiving Food Drive. Our school participates in a yearly school wide food drive to help families in our community. From now until November 23rd, we will be collecting canned (or boxed) foods that will be donated to deserving families. We are hoping you are able and willing to help by sending in canned goods with your child. Both first grade classes are working together to build a GIANT pyramid in the hall outside our two classrooms. Mr. Brown has even challenged us to see if we can bring in enough food to make our pyramid as tall or taller than him! I think we can do it!
A couple of reminders as we go into next week....
* Monday is Picture Retake Day
* Tuesday - Deer Day (no school) - be safe if you go out hunting and good luck!!
* Tuesday/Thursday - school store is open every week on these days during lunch recess.
* Our first grade group will be in need of some donated items for our annual Thanksgiving Feast. A note will be sent home at the beginning of the week with items we are still needing. If you are willing and able to donate items we would greatly appreciate it. We will also be in need of a few volunteers who can come in on that day and help to get our feast ready (warming up and plating food) for the students to eat.
Thank you SO much for all of your willingness to help and your participation and partnership with our class. We love to see our volunteers coming in and working with us!
Enjoy your weekend and the beautiful weather!
