Week 23

Our class on inside out/crazy hair day

A crazy-haired student

Student on tie day

Students on pig tails and ties day

Student during science

Students studying science

Student doing science experiment

Students with pig hats for pig-out week

The coin fairy coming to tell us good job on our behavior!

We had a fun “Pig Out Week”!

Special Activities: This week was “Pig Out Week” where we pigged out on reading.  Each day was a different dress up day, and at the end of the week everyone who fulfilled their reading contract got a free book.  Everyone in our class earned their free book!

Special Guests: As always, we had great parent volunteer help, which is greatly appreciated. 

Funny Stuff From Kids: Someone brought a fragile show and tell that was wrapped up in tissue.  Another student said, “Hey, that’s how you wrap a mommy.” (She thought that mummies were called mommies.)

Something pleasing happened to a student a few minutes after he got in trouble.  His comment shows a lot of insight into a first grader’s mind: “Thanks, Mr. Smith. I love you again.” 

We were learning about how to expand our sentences to tell where.  This is done through the use of prepositions (which we call “where words”).  Some of the words started with be—such as behind, beside, and beneath.  Thinking logically, some students tried to use what they thought was a very sophisticated word: be-near.

Homework: Thanks for keeping up on the homework.  It really makes a difference. 

Social Studies: For social studies this week, we watched a brief newscast in Dutch.  This exposure other cultures was great for the class.  We also watched a video and had a discussion about what to do when a friend wants you to do something that will get you into trouble. 

Math: We spent more time focusing on addition strategies that I think the students have yet to master.  For example, we did a lot of practice with counting on.  (25 + 2 is easy to solve if you count up two from 25. ..26, 27.  The answer is 27.)

Project Read/Spelling: This week we focused on ending blends (two consonants at the end of a word, like crisp).  The next three weeks will be variations of ending blends so that the students can really master it.  Students struggled to read and spell both letters.   

Speedy Words and Rocket Math: Students have really been taking off on rocket math, and they’re working toward an ice cream party right now. 

AR: Most students have reached their goal of 20 books for this quarter, and the rest are progressing.   Great job!

Writing: We spent one last week on practicing writing “where” in sentences through our “Where’s Martin” game.  I hide Martin the Moose.  The students have to find him, and they write a sentence to tell where he was at.

Science: For science this week we experimented with magnifying.  Students tried to discover what makes something enlarge.  They got to compare how glass jars, a magnifying glass, a clear transparency, hand sanitizer, and several other things enlarged a very tiny typed sentence.