Another Awesome Week!

Reading and Vocabulary

The students found cause and effect relationships in the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie series this week. The students hunted for “if, then statements” like if you give you give a moose of muffin, then he’ll want a napkin for the crumbs. Next week, the students will begin writing their own Hanukkah themed “if/then” stories, like If You Give a Giraffe a Dreidel or If You Give a Lion a Latka! The students also began working on story structure in our reading series with the funny story Teacher’s Pet. When thinking about story structure it is important that the student can identify the characters, setting, plot, problem, and solution in the story. If the student can identify those story elements, then you know they comprehended the text!

Next week, the students will review their past four vocabulary units, and study synonyms, antonyms, and compound words. The students will also study the shades of meaning between words, like wonder, wonderful, and wonderfully (the words are all related but mean something different.)

Spelling

The students learned about vowel pairs where the second vowel in the pair is silent, a lesson we call- “Two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking!” The word list contained the ai, ea, and oa patterns you find in words like rain, each, and goat, and next week we will look at ue, ay, and oe, like in the words glue, play, and doe.

Next week’s spelling pattern is long “i” and long “u” sounds like in the words spine and uniform.

Writing

Our writers are focusing on details, details, details!! The writers looked at mentor texts to see how authors use interesting details. They studied the way strong verbs can show an action and how the character is feeling. For example, in one book the character yanked on her nightgown and jerked her comforter up to her chin which showed us she was angry! The students are working to include strong verbs and details in their stories.

Math

The students completed unit 3 this week and their graded test will come home early next week. Unit 4 will cover addition and subtraction strategies, temperature, measuring, and more shopping and making change practice!

Project Based Learning: Social Studies

The students completed and published their book on goods and services today and presented their work to the first graders! Please check their backpacks because they brought home a first edition copy just for you! Throughout this P.B.L. project, the students had the opportunity to practice researching a new topic and taking notes, writing paragraphs, using Google Slides, typing and editing, and (the hardest skill of all) collaborating in a group! The students spent a lot of time finding and fixing mistakes in their book, but you will still notice a few errors. We will study these grammar skills soon, like apostrophes and commas!