Week 6

Hi!  This was another great week for first grade.  I can’t believe we’re already into October!

Summer readers

Student on her "rock phone" she discovered at recess

Our class with our new "pet" bee

First grade twins!

School counselor teaching our class about emotions

The pet mini pig brought in by one of the students

Pet mini pig with students

Student bringing in his bunny to share

Student sharing his bunny

Funny Sayings from Kids: One student saw a reflection of sunlight dancing on the ceiling and whispered, “Mr. Smith, I think there’s a fairy in here.”

A student got a fortune cookie at lunch, and she read something like, “sticking to your principles will bring happiness.”  She interpreted it as, “The principal will be nice to me this week.”

During our snack one day, I let the students watch a video that has a classical song playing as the story is acted out.  In the video, a boy takes his frog to a fancy restaurant without his parents’ knowledge.  The frog causes havoc, of course.  As part of this, the frog ends up in the kitchen with the chef chasing him.  At this point in the video, one student said, “Sorry, frog.  See ya in heaven.”

A few weeks ago we learned about George Washington, including how we respect him by putting his face on a one dollar bill.  One student kept talking about “the girl on the dollar bill” this week.  I finally figured out that she thought George Washington was a female because of the way the old time wig looks!

Special Activities: There was a special assembly to reward the kids that read during the summer.  They got anything from stickers to T-shirts depending on how much they read.  Hopefully this will motivate students to read next summer. 
We also had a few special visitors this week.  Mrs. Anderson, the school counselor, taught our class about emotions.  A parent brought in a child’s bunny, which our science lesson and writing practice revolved around.  We also had a parent bring in a student’s pet pig, which is a miniature pig as you see in the pictures above.  Students really enjoyed these special activities this week. 

Academics: This week in math we reviewed writing numbers, addition story problems, and addition facts.  We also learned a lot about patterns and shapes, particularly the attributes of shapes (a rectangle has four sides, a triangle has three sides, etc.). For writing, we continued practicing sentences, and we moved on to learn about capitalization and question marks.  Our reading and spelling focus was qu, x, y, and z sounds with the word “of.”  In social studies, we began learning about Christopher Columbus in preparation for Columbus Day.  We also learned about a website called “wheresgeorge” that can track dollar bills as they move from place to place.  Each student got a dollar bill to spend, so that we can track where it goes.  The highlight of science this week was when a parent brought in a student’s bunny.  We learned about rabbits.  We also learned about the word “research.”  Students had to come up with a question about rabbits that they didn’t know.  Then they had to find the answer by looking in a book, by observing the rabbit, or by asking an “expert.”