November 30-December 4

Hello Families!
What an exciting week we had! Here's a sneak peek:

Writer's Workshop
On Monday, we practiced reading our How-To books so that they sounded "smooth and lively!" This helps out our readers! We then traveled to Mrs. Armstrong's room to share our How-To books with each other. This was a great way for us to not only truly understand that our books were for an audience, but we also learned how to do many different things from Mrs. Armstrong's first graders. We then began our next unit: Nonfiction Chapter Books. This unit prepares children to write information texts of all sorts and supports the work we're currently doing during Reader's Workshop. 

Reader's Workshop
We're continuing to develop the skills needed to tackle nonfiction texts. Our focus has been on fluency and comprehension. One of the mentor texts we are using is called Owls. In order to extend this learning, we took part in the national "SKYPE-a-Thon" on Thursday! This gave us the opportunity to have a virtual field trip with Rhana Paris who is the outreach coordinator at the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island. She taught us all about owls! We even met the aquarium's resident owl Napoleon! Ask your first grader to tell you all about it. Here's a short video clip of our SKYPE session:

Math
During math this week, we continued to learn strategies for solving mixed problems using both addition and subtraction. Sometimes we solved for an unknown partner, other times for an unknown total. On Friday we took our unit assessment. Everyone did really well with their problem-solving skills! I am so impressed! An area to focus on for some is checking to make sure that they have used the correct label. Your child's assessment will be coming home this week. Please review the test, sign it, and return it to school. Thanks so much!

Science
In science this week we learned about three different kinds of clouds: stratus, cirrus, and cumulus. Ask your first grader to tell you about them. We then created a cloud book to show what we learned. 

Next Week's Word Wall Words:

them

then

don't 

out

their

Until then...
Michelle

REMINDERS: We have had many friends not returning their library books on Mondays. Please help your first grader to remember his/her books each Monday. Thank you!

Please remember to sign your child's progress report folder and return it to school. Thanks much!

Mark Your Calendars!
December 18: Share Your Talent Day
December 23rd-January 3rd: Winter Break
January 13: Early Release Day
January 18: No School
January 22: Ivy & Bean at Marquette
January 27: Early Release Day
February 2: Bedtime Stories First Grade Event 6:30-7:30
February 10: Early Release Day & Conferences
February 11: Conferences
February 12: Valentine's Day Celebration
February 15: No School for Students/ Conferences in PM
February 24: Early Release Day
March 9: Early Release Day
March 25: No School
April 13: Early Release Day
April 19: Schlitz Audubon 
April 22: No School for Students
April 27: Early Release Day
May 11: Early Release Day
May 25: Early Release Day
May 30: No School
June 9: Last day of first grade