December 15-18, 2014

This week we will wrap up our first semester.  We have had 76 days of great learning in our classroom and I am so proud of my students hard work! Our homeroom moms have been hard at work planning for the winter party.  Thanks to all of you who signed up to bring items for the party.  I am sure the children will have a great and memorable time. Hope to see you all on Thursday!

READING

This week we will read our favorite holiday books including the Polar Express.  We will work on comprehension strategies such as identifying the plot (series of events that happen in order in the story), main characters, problem and solution.  We will also practice retelling, and summarizing the stories in our own words.


WRITING
This week we will learn and practice writing letters. We will learn that people write letters for different purposes.  Sometimes we want to express ourselves, or to tell some people about our feelings, our needs and etc. Other times we write letters to say "thank you", or make someone's day.  We will write short letters and put our ideas in logical sequence.  We will also learn about the conventions of letter writing such as date, salutation, body (text), and closing. 

MATH
This week we will work on making graphs and reading graphs.  Graphs allow us to put our information/data in an organized form and make it easier for us to understand the data. We will have some fun holiday related graphs such as gingerbread, reindeer, and snowman survey.

SOCIAL STUDIES
We will travel around the world and learn about customs, holidays, and celebrations. We will learn about the importance of various beliefs, customs, language, and traditions of communities and how communities celebrate their heritage. Our elf has been so busy traveling around the world.  .

HABIT #6:  SYNERGY:  I value other people’s strengths and learn from them.  I seek out other people’s ideas because I know that by learning with others we can create better solutions than anyone of us can alone.

THANK YOU!

Thank you, Angel Miller, for stuffing the folders.  Thank you also to everyone who is volunteering to help with our Holiday Party!  Your helping hands and hearts are greatly appreciated!

REMINDERS:
*Specials- A Group:  PE on Monday, Wednesday and Friday
                   B Group:  PE on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday
**Wear tennis shoes for sure on these days!!!!
*Library- Tuesday 11-11:30
*Send orange folders back every day.
*Send a healthy snack with your child every day.  We will eat snack at 10:30

DATES to REMEMBER:

December 17:  Polar Express Day (wear pajamas to school)

December 18:  Holiday Party @ 1:30-2:30

December 19:  No School/Winter Break begins

December 19-January 5:  Winter Break

January 6:  2^nd Semester begins

December 8-12, 2014

Can you believe we have only two more weeks left before the winter break! They say time flies when you're having fun, but it sure is going at a lightening speed for us! 
Here is what we will be doing this week:

BOOK FAIR
There will be book fair at our library DEC 8 through 12.  The library books are not due this week. Please feel free to come by and visit the book fair.  The library is open after school.  

READING

This week we will explore a new genre in fiction: The Folk Tales.  We will learn about the elements of Folk Tales.  Folk Tales have animals with human characteristics as the main characters, and there is usually a lesson to be learned at the end of the story.While we read some of the most beloved children's stories such as the Three Little Pigs, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, and The Little Red Hen, we will work on many comprehension strategies such as retelling the story (telling the events in logical order), and summarizing the story which is telling the important events in the story from the beginning to the end.  When we summarize we tell the important events in a short paragraph. We will also review main characters, setting and the problem and solution in the story.

WRITING
In writing we will continue writing facts about traditions and celebrations around the world. As our elf is traveling around the world, we will learn about many new traditions. 
Lat week we learned about traditions in United States, Israel, and India.  This week we will learn about Mexico and England.  We will also write a expository writing about the traditions and celebrations in our own family.

MATH
This week we will continue working on subtraction.  Last week, we practiced on many math problems that involved "taking away, separating from a set, taking a part away from a whole".  This week, we will focus on subtraction as a way to find the difference between two quantities, or a way of comparing two different quantities.  If team A scored 12 goals and team B scored 9 goals, how many more goals did team A score than team B? At the beginning of the year, the children learned to solve these kinds of problem by thinking addition: 9+ ?=12.  Now, they are learning that they can actually use subtraction to solve these kinds of problem: 12-9=3.

SOCIAL STUDIES
We will travel around the world and learn about customs, holidays, and celebrations. We will learn about the importance of various beliefs, customs, language, and traditions of communities and how communities celebrate their heritage.

HABIT #6:  SYNERGY:  I value other people’s strengths and learn from them.  I seek out other people’s ideas because I know that by learning with others we can create better solutions than anyone of us can alone.

THANK YOU!

Thank you, Angel Miller, for stuffing the folders.  Thank you also to everyone who is volunteering to help with our Holiday Party!  Your helping hands and hearts are greatly appreciated!

REMINDERS:
*Specials- A Group:  PE on Monday, Wednesday and Friday
                   B Group:  PE on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday
**Wear tennis shoes for sure on these days!!!!
*Library- Tuesday 11-11:30
*Send orange folders back every day.
*Send a healthy snack with your child every day.  We will eat snack at 10:30

DATES to REMEMBER:

December 8-12:  Book Fair

December 18:  Polar Express Day (wear pajamas to school)

                       Holiday Party @ 1:30-2:30

December 19:  No School/Winter Break begins

December 19-January 5:  Winter Break

January 6:  2^nd Semester begins

December 1-5, 2014

Early Release Day
Wednesday, Dec 3rd is an Early Release Day.  Dismissal is at 12:45
PTA Spirit Night at Newks starting at 5:00 p.m.

Here is what we will be doing this week:

READING and WRITING
With the holidays approaching, for the next several weeks we will be learning about many different winter celebrations around the world. We will read about the customs and traditions in different countries and record some facts about their traditions. This week, we will learn about celebrations in the Israel, USA and India.

MATH
We will continue our double addition strategies and move on to subtraction. Subtraction names a missing part by taking away, removing or comparing to find a difference. We will use concrete and pictorial models including ten-frames, math racks, Base Ten blocks ad other manipulatives to represent word problem situations involving separating or comparing sets of whole numbers up to 20 where the unknown may be start, change, or result for joining and separating problems.

SCIENCE
This week in science we will learn about force and movement.  Energy causes force and force causes motion/movement.  Force can be defined as a "push" or a "pull" which causes objects to move in different ways such as straight line, zigzag, up and down, side to side, round and round and slow.  We will also explore magnets.  Magnets can pull or push certain objects.  The push and pull caused by magnets is also a force.

THANK YOU!

Thank you, Shari Ochs, for stuffing the folders.  Thank you also to everyone who is volunteering to help with our Holiday Party!  Your helping hands and hearts are greatly appreciated!

REMINDERS:
*Specials- A Group:  PE on Monday, Wednesday and Friday
                   B Group:  PE on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday
**Wear tennis shoes for sure on these days!!!!
*Library- Tuesday 11-11:30
*Send orange folders back every day.
*Send a healthy snack with your child every day.  We will eat snack at 10:30

DATES to REMEMBER:

December 3:  Early Release Day dismissal @12:45

December 8-12:  Book Fair

December 18:  Polar Express Day (wear pajamas to school)

                       Holiday Party @ 1:30-2:30

December 19:  No School/Winter Break begins

December 19-January 5:  Winter Break

January 6:  2^nd Semester begins

November 10-14, 2014

This week, due to a wonderful project (Pilgrim Doll Project) that we will be sending home, there will be no reading homework.  While I will read with kiddos every day during our guided reading group time, I will not send the reading homework home.  I want to make sure you and your child have enough time to complete the project by Wednesday, November 19th.  Please see below for details.

THE PILGRIM DOLL PROJECT

As we are approaching Thanks Giving, this week we will read the story of Molly's Pilgrim by Barbara Cohen. This beautiful story tells us how recent immigrant Molly leads her third-grade class to discover that it takes all kinds of pilgrims to make a Thanksgiving. 

This week, in the Tuesday folders, your child will bring a wooden doll with instructions and a few research questions. Your child will interview you and ask you questions about the first pilgrim/ immigrant in your family that came to this country. Please help your child complete the research questions and have them write the answers with pencil, in complete sentences, in their own handwriting. You may help your child with spelling and sentence structure, but please do not write the answers for them. After that, you and your child will dress the pilgrim doll with the traditional clothing of the country that your pilgrim came from. I will send some photos from previous years so you will have an idea.

This project (the research questions and the pilgrim doll) is due By Wednesday, Nov 19th. Each child will get to present their doll on Nov. 20th and 21st. This project by far is one of our most beloved projects in first grade and every year, we, first grade teachers can't wait to see the final product!  Have fun crafting and creating with your child!

THERE WILL BE NO OTHER HOMEWORK THIS WEEK!  Please just focus on the Pilgrim Doll Project J

 Here is what we will be doing this week:

READING and WRITING
This week as part of our non-fiction reading and writing,  we will start our research on Thanksgiving and spend this week writing facts about Thanksgiving, the Mayflower ship, the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. As we learn facts about thanksgiving, we will record our facts and make a book about Thanksgiving.  

MATH
We will continue counting by tens and ones using dimes and pennies and apply our knowledge in problem solving.  Now that we know the two digit numbers so well and we know what each digit in a two digit number mean and what value each digit has, we will practice making 10 more, or 10 less.  For example, the children will be able to show 57 with manipulatives and pictorial models and then add 10 more, which will be 67 or take off 10, which will be 47.  We will also work on different combinations that make 10, such as 4 and 6, 3 and 7, 2 and 8 and so on.

SCIENCE
This week in science we will learn about different forms of energy such as light, heat and sound.  We will discuss the importance of energy in everyday life and how scientists use energy to invent objects that improve our daily lives. 

Habit #5 Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood:  I listen to others without interrupting.  I try to see things from their viewpoint.  I am confident in voicing my own ideas.

REMINDERS:
*Specials- A Group:  PE on Monday, Wednesday and Friday
                   B Group:  PE on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday
**Wear tennis shoes for sure on these days!!!!
*Library- Tuesday 11-11:30
*Send orange folders back every day.
*Send a healthy snack with your child every day.  We will eat snack at 10:30

DATES to REMEMBER:

November 19:  Pilgrim Dolls are due

November 24-28:  Thanksgiving Break

December 3:  Early Release Day dismissal @12:45

December 8-12:  Book Fair

December 19:  Winter Break begins

November 3-7, 2014

FIELD TRIP
We are very excited to take our first graders to Zach Theater for a live play (A Year with Frog and Toad).  This is an opportunity that many of our kids experience for the first time in their lives.  We are thankful to our generous Parent Teacher Association for providing us with the fund to do this for our kids.  Our field trip is on Thursday, November 6th.  We will leave campus at around 10 AM.  Please have your child wear a Caraway shirt (if they have one), and comfortable tennis shoes.  Also, please check the weather to see if any warm clothing is needed.  Please pack a disposable sack lunch and water bottle.  We will eat a picnic lunch outside the theater.

 Here is what we will be doing this week:

READING
We will continue learning about non-fiction and this week we will explore a new genre which is biography/autobiography.  Sometimes writers try to teach us about someone's life and therefore they write about the important events in a person's life and things that they have done.  We call these kind of books biography.  Sometimes,  writers write about the important things about their own life and we call this autobiography.  

WRITING
This week we will be finishing up our Spider books.  We have researched, recorded our data, organized our data, and now we are putting everything together.  The kids have worked hard on this project for 2 weeks now and I am super proud of them.  They will be hanging in the hallway for everyone to see!

MATH
This week in math we will learn about money and particularly the value of pennies and dimes.  We will count the dimes by 10 and count the pennies by one.  In the process, we will review the place value and counting by groups of tens and ones.  We will also learn that one dollar is 100 pennies (100 ones) or 10 dimes which is 10 groups of 10.

SOCIAL STUDIES
This week in social studies we will learn about physical characteristics of places and different landforms such as plains, valleys, mountains and hills.  We will also learn about different bodies of water and the characteristics of each such as river, lake and ocean.

Habit #5 Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood:  I listen to others without interrupting.  I try to see things from their viewpoint.  I am confident in voicing my own ideas.

REMINDERS:
*Specials- A Group:  PE on Monday, Wednesday and Friday
               B Group:  PE on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday
**Wear tennis shoes for sure on these days!!!!
*Library- Tuesday 11-11:30
*Send orange folders back every day.
*Send a healthy snack with your child every day.  We will eat snack at 10:30

DATES to REMEMBER:

November 6:  Field Trip to ZACH Scott Theater

November 24-28:  Thanksgiving Break

December 3:  Early Release Day dismissal @12:45

December 8-12:  Book Fair

December 19:  Winter Break begins

October 27-31, 2014

It was great to see everyone at the Harvest festival! Thanks to our wonderful PTA for a fun afternoon and thanks to all of you for coming in and showing your support!  We are so grateful for our PTA and all they do for our Caraway Community!

Red Ribbon Week

This week is Red Ribbon Week.  We will talk about a healthy life style, eating healthy, exercising, and staying away from all the harmful things that could hurt our body. As a whole school, we will do different activity each day to show our support for a healthy and happy life. 

Monday:  Red Ribbon Day- we will start to wear our red ribbon today for the rest of the week.
Tuesday: Pair up and make good choices (find a friend and dress up as twins)

Wednesday: Sock It To Drugs Day (we will wear silly/crazy socks to school)

Thursday: Good character is our super power (we will wear superhero clothing)

Friday: Rally In Red Day (We will wear as many red items as we can). 

Here is what we will be doing this week:

READING
We will continue our study of expository/non-fiction text. As a class we discussed the features of nonfiction such as real photos, table of contents, glossary, caption, labels, index, diagram, and maps. We concluded that the purpose of reading nonfiction text is to learn! We also learned the differences between fiction and nonfiction. One difference is that we read a fiction text from beginning to end. However, we do not have to so the same thing when we read a non-fiction.  We can read the parts of nonfiction text which holds the information we want to know, or the information that is important to us. This week we will be reading texts about bats! 

WRITING
We will continue writing non-fiction.  Our focus this week will be writing facts about bats.  We are learning how to draw careful diagrams like scientist and label the parts. Our goal is to write these facts so we can teach others about what we have learned.

MATH
This week we will learn to tell time.  We will learn to tell time to the hour using a digital and an analog clock.  We will learn about the hands, the hour hand (the short hand), and the minute hand(the long hand) and how they move: The minute hand makes one full turn while the hour hand moves slowly from one numeral to another.

SOCIAL STUDIES
Maps and globes are the focus this week in Social Studies. As a class we will compare the two and learn how each is important. We will also be learning about where we are located in the big scheme of the world, starting with our street address and moving outwardly to the entire world.

Habit #5 Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood:  I listen to others without interrupting.  I try to see things from their viewpoint.  I am confident in voicing my own ideas.

REMINDERS:
*Specials- A Group:  PE on Monday, Wednesday and Friday
               B Group:  PE on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday
**Wear tennis shoes for sure on these days!!!!
*Library- Tuesday 11-11:30
*Send orange folders back every day.
*Send a healthy snack with your child every day.  We will eat snack at 10:30

DATES to REMEMBER:

October 29:  Early Release Day dismissal @12:45

November 24-28:  Thanksgiving Break

December 3:  Early Release Day dismissal @12:45

December 8-12:  Book Fair

December 19:  Winter Break begins

October 20-24, 2014

Math:  This week, we will be learning about length and measurement.  We will talk about longest and shortest and longer and shorter.  We will not use rulers to measure in First Grade.  We will use non-standard units of measurement.  We will use pencils, cubes, paper clips, and other non-standard objects to measure.  We will even have a small history lesson to learn what a cubit is.  You can help your child with this skill at home by letting them measure different objects around the house.  How many steps is it from the front door to the couch?  How many pennies long is a fork?  Have fun!

Reading Workshop:  We have been learning about Nonfiction and this week, we will actually begin doing teacher guided research!  In the spirit of the month of October and Halloween, we will be researching Spiders.  The kids love this unit!  We will become experts on Spiders by the end of the week, and your child should be able to tell you some very interesting facts about Spiders.

Writing Workshop:   We are continuing our Nonfiction unit from Reading.   We will begin by learning the difference between fact and opinion since Expository writing is only facts.  We will talk about how authors who write Expository texts are experts on the topics they write about.  We will pick topics that we are interested in and that we already know a lot about to practice writing facts.  At the end of the week, we will write facts that we have learned during our Spider research.

Word Study:  We will begin working with a whole class sort in Words Their Way to get familiar with the procedure.  These sorts will be how we supplement our spelling instruction, and this work will be done in the Word Study Notebooks. 

Science:   This week we will be continuing our discussion on physical changes to materials.  We learned this past week, that adding heat and removing heat cause materials to change.  We will be doing more experiments this week to observe those changes first hand!

Here is a picture of our Crayon Experiment if you missed the email.

https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/?ui=2&ik=a2cb3592a8&view=att&th=1491edfe386134d4&attid=0.1&disp=safe&realattid=869948ae525318b8_0.0&zw

Habit #4 Think Win-Win:  I balance the courage of getting what I want with consideration of what others want.

Thank you!!!!

Claudia Aguilar- Classroom Chores

Meghan Stack- Parent Reader

Reminders:
*Specials- A Group:  PE on Monday, Wednesday and Friday
               B Group:  PE on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday
**Wear tennis shoes for sure on these days!!!!
*Library- Tuesday 11-11:30
*Send orange folders back every day.
*Send a healthy snack with your child every day.  We will eat snack at 10:30

Dates to Remember:

October 25:  Harvest Festival

October 29:  Early Release Day dismissal @12:45

November 24-28:  Thanksgiving Break

December 3:  Early Release Day dismissal @12:45

December 8-12:  Book Fair

December 19:  Winter Break begins