In reading this week we learned about setting.  Many of us already had schema about what a setting is.  We tried really hard to  not use the words "outside" or "inside" for telling where a story took place.  A story can take place pretty much anywhere! Did you know that a setting is WHERE and WHEN a story takes place? 

In writing we worked on adding an ending to our stories.   We learned that sharing a feeling is a great way to end a story.  We worked with partners adding endings to stories that were on our "all done" side of our writing folder.

This week we had a hunk and chunk review.  We completed a hunk and chunk sort, found chunks in books, and even wrote sentences to see how many hunk and chunks we could use.  Some of the sentences were very funny and creative!

Our latest math unit has really challenged our thinking about numbers. This week we practiced differentiating between equations with tens and equations with leftovers. Using ten sticks and ones we can solve equations such as 7 + 3, 70 + 30, and 70 + 3! We can also add ten to just about any 2 digit number. Our math schema is definitely growing!

We started a mapping unit in Social Studies to see where our clothes came from. By sticking shirts, pants, and shoe stickers on a world map we could see that most of our clothes came from Asia or Central America.

Have a great week!
Mrs. Donohue

During the week of Thanksgiving we made Stone Soup in our classroom.  The children loved hearing the story and creating our very own soup.  The soup was a hit and many students had seconds!

We created a family recipe book.  The children did a great job organizing the recipes into the four different categories: bread, soup, noodle, and pasta.  We even created a table of contents to help us find recipes in the future.  Has anyone tried any of the recipes?  They looked delicious!

We used a turkey graphic organizer to compare and contrast how our families celebrate holidays at their home. We enjoyed learning about other families' holiday traditions.

Thank you to everyone that was able to come out and see our Thanksgiving play, Thanksgiving at Ned's House.  For those of you who were not able to make it, please watch the play below.  This video is unlisted, only those with the link can view it.  Please feel free to share with family and friends. Thanksgiving at Ned's House

Thank you to everyone who created a family feather for our first grade thanksgiving display. It was wonderful for us to see how much we have to be thankful for!

We have started collecting poetry for our poetry folder, which we keep in our book boxes to read at any time. These poems are a great way to build fluency...and they are fun to read! Usually we add one poem a week, but this week we added two! We used poems this week to create mental images.  It was so fun to see how different our mental images were from our friends.  We learned that our mental images are different because our schemas are different.

Our hunk and chunk song is up to 10! Make sure to ask us about our song, and what each chunk sounds like. These chunks not only help us on our spelling test, but also when reading and writing words.

These past two weeks in writing we have been having a ton of fun with sparkle words and synonyms.  These words help our stories sound fun and exciting! A person using sparkle words might start their story like this, "One bright sunny morning..."  A person using a synonym could maybe try using the word grumpy for mad.  We had so much fun creating synonyms every day this past week.  We now have a synonym wall in our classroom that we can use during our writing time.

In math we started a very important unit on place value. Our focus this week was discovering the importance of the number ten, and that two digit numbers are actually a secret code for ten sticks and leftovers. Using the teen numbers we  practiced drawing and writing equations using tens and ones. Understanding how to use ten sticks and leftovers is going to be very important in the weeks to
come!

Last week our class was visited by a scientist from High-Touch, High-Tech. We learned a lot about gravity, balance, and motion. We got to experiment with magnets, balance objects, shoot a water launcher, and bring home pocket rockets.  Science was definitely made fun!

A big thank you to our wonderful room moms for setting up the fall learning experience. We got to do a lot of exciting things like listening to fall stories, a bean bag toss, painting a fall tree, fall bingo, a yummy snack, and a word search. Thank you everyone who came in to help, we enjoyed having you there!

This week was all about bats! We filled up our schema by reading about bats.  We sure did learn a lot of neat information.  Instead of me telling you everything we learned, check out the Blabberize our class made this week.  This will tell you everything we learned about bats! Enjoy!

We also had to use our reading skills to find information. This came in handy when we were trying to label the different parts of a bat!

During math we practiced ways to count to 100. We counted by 1's, 5's, and 10's. We found that 10's was the fastest so this was the method we used when counting mosquitoes! Bats love to eat mosquitoes!!

In writing, we were introduced to "sparkle" words.  Sparkle words help us add more detail to our story.  We want our readers to be able to see our story in their minds.  The more detail we give our readers the better! We created sparkle webs this week on puppies and pizza.

We were super excited about the start of "Frankie the Frog" at the beginning of October. This week Frankie the Frog has begun visiting us all day and not just during the Daily 5. Frankie the Frog loves visiting first graders who have done an outstanding job of showing Panther Pride for the day! Congratulations to Caroline, Paul, Emma, and Saul for getting to hang out with Frankie the Frog this week! Great Job!

Enjoy the cooler weather and I will see you on Tuesday! Please remember "Parent Teacher Conferences" start on Monday!

Mrs. Donohue

This week was all about spiders! The spider theme was integrated into reading, writing, social studies, and science. Boy did we learn a lot! We enjoyed looking through the nonfiction books in our classroom.  We learned that nonfiction means Not Fake.  The spider books were definitely a hit in room 1417.

At the beginning of the week we made a Wordel of all the things that came to our mind when we thought of spiders. The words said most often appear the biggest on the picture.

Our schemas grew and grew this week!  The Wordel at the end of the week looked a lot different.  It included words like exoskeleton, joints, abdomen, wolf spider, and orb web. Most importantly we learned that spiders are not "creepy, scary, and gross!" 

This week we began a fall poetry book.  Each week we will add a poem to the book and eventually bring it home to share with our families. Our first poem was about spiders of course!  

We created our very own spiders and turned our favorite spider facts into a display in the first grade hall.  Come check it out!

We put on our hunting shoes and went on a spider/web hunt to end the week.  We started early in the morning, thinking there might be a good chance to see a spider. We were right! We saw orb webs, sheet webs, spiders, and even prey wrapped in silk.  It was a success. 

On top of all the learning about spiders, we also added two more chunks to our phonics song, took our first quarter math assessment, and learned how to add detail to our writing by watching a movie in our head! What a busy week!

Have a great week! Don't forget about our Fall Learning Experience on Friday!

Mrs. Donohue

Next week we will begin our school wide Red Ribbon Week.  Our theme if for students to realize all the choices they CAN make to stay drug free! I will explain to them as being healthy and making good choices in what they do, eat, and say to others.

Next week, Mills Park, will have daily activities that go along with Red Ribbon Week.

Monday: Pledges! The children will each get a red ribbon to put their name on pledging to live a healthy life.

Tuesday: students will receive red ribbon pencils.  We will write about different activities that we CAN do to lead a healthy lifestyle.

Wednesday: Stick with it day! The students will get stickers reminding them to stick to a healthy lifestyle.

Thursday: Dress up day! The students will dress in their favorite activity that allows them to live a healthy life: soccer player, gymnast, artist, jogger, etc.

Friday: I CAN be healthy! All students will get a bookmark to remind them about this week.

The school is doing a can collection during this week as well.  If you have any cans that you would like to donate please send them in any day next week.  The class with the most cans at the end of the week will earn an ice cream party!!

We CAN live healthy lives!!

This week we continued making connections in reading.  We practiced making self to text and text to text connections.  We know that a self to text connection is when the book reminds us about something we know about. A text to text connection is when a book reminds us of another book we have read.  We used Venn diagrams and Y charts this week when making text to text connections.  These charts helped us organize our ideas and see how alike and different the books were.

This week was our first official week of literacy centers.  Everyone did FANTASTIC!! The children get to visit three stations every day.  They can choose from the following:

Listening to Reading
They can listen on the computers or the listening center.

We started learning our hunk and chunk song this week! Our phonics program is based around learning 40 different "chunks" that can be found in words we read and write. These chunks each have a song to help us remember them, and each week we will be adding on to our song until we've 
learned them all! This week we learned SH and CH. We will learn 2 hunk and chunks every week.

In writing we continued to write about small moments from our lives.  The children are doing a great job using webs to help add detail to their stories. 

In math we ended our second unit. The children did a great job on their unit tests.  I will show you these during our parent teacher conferences. We ended the week with a scarecrow math project which you can see hanging in the first grade hall. Our next unit of study will concentrate on story problems.

In social studies we began our map unit.  The children loved exploring the atlases that were added to our classroom library. We explored some different maps and learned about symbols that are used in maps.

Thank you for checking in!
Mrs. Donohue