May 26-29, 2015

Tuesday folders will go home for the last time next week.  There was nothing to send home this week!

READING and WRITING
We will begin working on our First Grade memory books, and we will write about all the great memories that we've had in First Grade.  In doing so, we will review the writing conventions, such as capitalization, punctuation, subject-verb agreement, and correct sentence structure.
In reading, we will continue reading fiction books and review some comprehension strategies that we've been working on this year such as making inferences, predictions and connections.

MATH
In math we will review some important concepts that we learned in first grade such as place value, time, measurement, money, shapes and etc.  We will also review patterns and algebraic thinking and solve word problems that involve these concepts.  We will review the steps for problem solving such as reading the problem carefully, underlining important information, using number line, shapes, and tally marks to show our thinking, writing addition, or subtraction sentences to solve the problem and use words to explain our thinking.

SCIENCE
This week we will learn about the amphibians, particularly frogs.  We will learn about their food, habitat, predators and focus especially in their life cycle.

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

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 a healthy snack with your child every day.  We will eat snack at 10:30

DATES to REMEMBER:

May 29:  Career Day

June 1:  1^st Grade Awards Ceremony

June 4:  End of the Year Party

June 5:  Last Day of School

May 18-22. 2015

It was an exciting week for the children to visit the Book Fair this week. This couldn't have happened in a better time since we are learning about goods and services and spending our money wisely.  I was so proud when I saw my students adding their money, or knowing how much they need to get back in return.  Real Life applications!! Thank you for supporting our school library! 

VOLUNTEER BREAKFAST
If you received an invitation to the Volunteer Breakfast on Thursday, May 21, I look forward to seeing you to say a big thank you for everything you did for our classroom!

READING and WRITING
We will continue our family writing.  I can't wait to share their writings with you.  They are sweet and precious.  After finishing our family writing, we will start working on our first grade memory books.  We will remember all the great things that we did in first grade and write about those things. As always, we will emphasize on neat writing along with correct capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure.    
In reading we will continue to read some of our favorite fiction books and review some important comprehension strategies.  We will use the picture clues as well as the text clues to make predictions and inferences, visualize a part of the story or make connections. 

MATH
For the next few weeks, we will work hard on problem solving.  We will review the steps of how to start the problem solving and work on different strategies that have been learning throughout the year.  Reading a math problem is like reading a story.  We need to visualize it first by drawing a relevant picture.  We need to remember the important things by underlining them, and we need to show our steps and strategies such as using a number line, ten blocks and ones, tally marks, and addition and subtraction sentences.  Whatever strategy we use, we also need to write our thinking in words.  These steps will help the children in the long run to do more advanced problem solving in higher grades.

SOCIAL STUDIES
We will continue our unit on economics.  The children have been learning about goods and services and how some jobs produce, or make goods and other jobs provide a service.  We all need money to satisfy our needs and wants, and in order to gain money we need to have jobs.  But we also need to make wise choices and be smart about spending our money.  We will also learn about scarcity problem, when we have unlimited wants and needs and limited resources.

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 and homework bags back every day.
*Send a healthy snack with your child every day.  We will eat snack at 10:30

DATES to REMEMBER:

May 18-22:  Caraway Canned Food Drive

May 20:  Ms. Smith out (Mr. Sparks will be my sub)

May 21:  Volunteer Breakfast

May 22:  Prezi Viewing Party

May 25:  No School, Memorial Day

May 29:  Career Day

June 1:  1^st Grade Awards Ceremony

June 4:  End of the Year Party

June 5:  Last Day of School, 

May 11-15, 2015

Thank you all so much for all of the wonderful gifts last week!  I feel so loved!  Y’all are the best!

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful moms that I've had the privilege to get to know this year.  I hope you all had a relaxing day!  The world is a better place because of all you have done and continue to do for your children.

Our field trip to the Austin Nature Center was AWESOME!
We had a great day at the Austin Nature Center on Thursday.  The children had the opportunity see many live birds, mammals and reptiles and learn more about these animals. Thank you all for generously paying for the transportation and helping us to help the children have more hands on experiences.

READING and WRITING
This week we will write about our families.  We will think about each member of our family, and things they like and are interested in doing and write about those things.  We will review writing conventions such as capitalization, punctuation and correct sentence structure.  Please review the first grade sight words in your child's blue agenda and be sure to practice those at home.  Your child needs to spell those words correctly before going to second grade.

In reading we will read some of our favorite fiction books and review some important comprehension strategies such as retelling the story, putting the events in the order that they happened and making inferences.

MATH
This week we will work more on using non-standard units such as linking cubes and balancing tools to compare the weight of 3-D objects. We will also review strategies for addition and subtraction and apply those strategies in problem solving.  If you are practicing problem solving with your child at home, please be sure the steps such as drawing a picture to show the problem, the relevant addition and subtraction number sentences, and words to explain their thinking are all shown on the paper.

SOCIAL STUDIES
This week  we will continue our unit on goods and services. Goods are produced and services are provided in our community.  We will identify and discuss examples of goods and services, ways people exchange goods and services and the role of market and services in our community.  As part of media literacy, we will learn about advertisement and how people advertise for either goods or services in our community.  

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 and homework bags back every day.
*Send a healthy snack with your child every day.  We will eat snack at 10:30

DATES to REMEMBER:

May 11-15:  Book Fair

May 14:  Caraway Fine Arts Night

May 21:  Volunteer Breakfast

May 25:  No School, Memorial Day

May 29:  Career Day

June 4:  End of the Year Party

June 5:  Last Day of School, 

April 27-May 1, 2015

READING HOMEWORK
From now on, there will be no homework sent home.  Starting this Monday, I will begin the end of the year reading assessment.  This is a special time where each child reads to me individually and I will assess their reading skills based on their comprehension and fluency. The reading assessment will take a few weeks to complete. As always, your child needs to be reading at home daily using books, or on-line resources such as RAZ-kids, pebble-Go, or Makin-VIA.

FIELD DAY
Field Day is on this Friday, May 1st at 12:30-2:20  The children will be doing different P.E. related activities and have lots of fun!  Please have your child wear comfortable exercise clothes and send a small towel, extra pairs of socks and clothing in a small bag.  There are couple of water stations/activities.
Our lunch time is at 10:45-11:20 on Field Day.

READING and WRITING
We are continuing with our unit on poetry and we will be learning how to find inspiration in our hearts to write poetry.  What really matters to you?  We will start the week off exploring different feeling/emotion words and follow it up with writing a feelings/emotion poem.  Next we will explore the concrete or shape poetry. In this type of poetry, the words form shapes which illustrates the poem's subject as a picture. The last set of poetry we will explore this week will be poetry using our 5 senses.We will read different examples, focusing on the parts with the 5 senses and write our own poems using sensory words.

MATH

This week we will start a measurement unit and explore the capacity and weight of 3-D shapes.  We will define capacity as the amount that something can hold and use vocabulary such as full, half full, or empty to describe the capacity of various sized containers.  We will use non-standard units such as scoops of rice, or glasses of water to measure the capacity of three-dimensional objects. We will also use non-standard units such as linking cubes and balancing tools to compare the weight of 3-D objects.

SCIENCE
We will continue our plant unit and learn about different parts of plant and their function.  We will learn that roots carry the water and nutrients from the soil, stems hold up the plant and transport the nutrients and water from the roots to other parts of plant and leaves make food.  We will also learn about the plant life cycle.  We will plant a Lima bean and watch the growth process by observing the growing roots, shooting stem and leaves.  

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

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 and homework bags back every day.
*Send a healthy snack with your child every day.  We will eat snack at 10:30

DATES to REMEMBER:

May 1:  Field Day

May 4-8:  Teacher Appreciation Week

May 7:  Field Trip to Austin Nature Center

May 11-15:  Book Fair

May 14:  Caraway Fine Arts Night

May 21:  Volunteer Breakfast

May 25:  No School, Memorial Day

June 5:  Last Day of School, End of the Year Party

April 20-23, 2015

READING and WRITING
This week we will begin a new genre, my most favorite of all, Poetry. We will learn about the features of poetry. Poems have short lines with no punctuation most of the times. There are repeating words or phrases in poetry. Poems sometimes rhyme and sometimes they don't. Poems have rhythms, some are songs and some could be silly and funny. We will think about how poets see the world in different, fresh and unusual ways. The students will make inferences with poetry as a strategy to comprehend the poem. We will also discover sensory language in poetry and understand that sensory images help us visualize the poem and make it more interesting for readers. In writing we will “See with Poets’ Eyes” as we begin writing about ordinary objects in different ways. We will learn that poems are big thoughts in little packages. 

MATH
This week we will learn about 3-D shapes.  We will identify three-dimensional figures such as spheres, cones, cylinders, rectangular prisms (including cubes), and triangular prisms and describe their attributes using geometric language such as flat surface, curved surface, having corners or not any corners, being able to stack or not. We will look at everyday objects around us and compare them to the 3-D shapes that we are learning about.

SCIENCE
This week we will learn about plants, their parts and the function of each part.  We will compare and contrast the parts of one plant to another and find the similarities and differences.  For example, we will compare the roots of carrots and radish and see how the stem of celery and parsley can be different.

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

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 and homework bags back every day.
*Send a healthy snack with your child every day.  We will eat snack at 10:30

DATES to REMEMBER:

April 20-23:  STAAR testing

May 1:  Field Day

May 4-8:  Teacher Appreciation Week

May 7:  Field Trip to Austin Nature Center

May 11-15:  Book Fair

May 14:  Caraway Fine Arts Night

May 21:  Volunteer Breakfast

May 25:  No School, Memorial Day

June 5:  Last Day of School, End of the Year Party

April 13-17, 2015

This is it! The chicks will hatch this week! Look for pictures and videos through email. We are all so excited!

READING and WRITING

We are continuing with our animal research this week.  The children are doing a great job finding the information in their research book, summarizing it and recording it in their own words.  They are using all the tools in the non-fiction books such as table of contents, real photos, captions, labels, maps and diagrams to find the answers to their questions.  We also use on-line sources such as Pebble Go or other reliable sources to find the information that we are looking for. There are times that we find an expert (friends that know so much about a particular animal) and ask them some of our questions. We have quite a few experts in our classroom so far, but I can see that by the end of this unit we are all going to be research/animal experts!

MATH
This week we will review and work more on place value.  We will use concrete and pictorial models to compose and decompose numbers up to 120 in more than one way as so many hundreds, so many tens, and so many ones. For example one hundred can be shown as 100 ones, 10 groups of tens, or 1 one hundred.  This will help us to read and write three-digit numbers that do not involve teens.  For example, 105 has one 100, 0 tens and 5 ones. We will use our knowledge of place value and apply it in math problem solving.  


SCIENCES
This week we will continue our PBL (Project Based Learning) about litter and our animals, the ecosystem that they live in and the impact that they have in our community.  We have done some research about how litter can be harmful to animals and ways we can help.  This week, we will be making posters to put around the school to raise awareness about the effects of littering. 

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

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 and homework bags back every day.
*Send a healthy snack with your child every day.  We will eat snack at 10:30

DATES to REMEMBER:

April 15:  Chicks start to hatch!!!!!!!

May 1:  Field Day

May 4-8:  Teacher Appreciation Week

May 7:  Field Trip to Austin Nature Center

May 11-15:  Book Fair

May 14:  Caraway Fine Arts Night

May 21:  Volunteer Breakfast

May 25:  No School, Memorial Day

June 5:  Last Day of School, End of the Year Party

April 6-10, 2015

READING and WRITING

Our first graders did a fantastic job researching facts and information about chicks.  I can tell you that they are all becoming research experts! This week we will move on to independent research about animals.  On Tuesday, each student chose an animal book from the three animal groups of birds, fish and mammals.  We have kept the library books in our classroom and this week students are going to do independent research about their animal's body parts, habitat, food, movement, life cycle and any other interesting facts.  The students are going to conduct a book research as well as an on-line research on Pebble-Go.

MATH
This week we will apply our problem solving strategies to solve a variety of math word problem involving time, money, addition and subtraction.  In first grade we emphasize on showing the steps in solving the problem.  These steps involve reading the problem carefully, underlining important data and information, drawing picture and show any strategy that they have learned such as number line, addition and subtraction strategies to solve the problem.  Showing the steps in an organized form allow the students to understand the problem better and be able to think more thoroughly. 

SCIENCE
This week in science we are taking our knowledge of animals, their habitats and interdependency of living things and using it to take a closer look at our neighborhood and animals that live in our community.  We will start a project that focuses on how deer impact our community.

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

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 and homework bags back every day.
*Send a healthy snack with your child every day.  We will eat snack at 10:30

DATES to REMEMBER:

April 10:  Family Fun Night

April 15:  Chicks start to hatch!!!!!!!

May 1:  Field Day

May 4-8:  Teacher Appreciation Week

May 7:  Field Trip to Austin Nature Center

May 11-15:  Book Fair

May 14:  Caraway Fine Arts Night

May 21:  Volunteer Breakfast

May 25:  No School, Memorial Day

June 5:  Last Day of School, End of the Year Party