Apples and Seeds!

This week we will be wrapping up our learning about apples!  We had an apple taste test and learned that our class loves green and yellow apples.  We also learned a lot about apple trees, Johnny Appleseed, and apple orchards. Tomorrow we will be making apple crisp in our First Grade Classroom.  Please send in 1 or 2 apples tomorrow to add to our recipe!  This will be a fun way to end our unit on apples.  We will begin learning about many other types of seeds this week beginning with dissecting and growing lima beans. This is a fun science unit for fall!

Reading:  This week we will being working on our Daily Five rotations.  The children have been doing a nice job with Read to Self, Read to Someone, and Writing.  During this time, I will be reading with children individually and begin forming guided reading groups.  Next week the children will begin bringing home reading bags. Please keep the reading bags in your child's folder or backpack.  Read the books and return the books each day so that other classmates may borrow them. Thank you!

Word Wall:  We will add six more words to our wall this week.  They are:  it, run, no, yes, to, & was.  As of this week we will have 18 words on our Word Wall.  The children should be able to read these words quickly when they see them on lists or in stories.  Please practice reading these words at home.

Math:  This week we will wrap up our unit on adding numbers.  We will have a first grade assessment at the end of each topic. I tell the children it's a chance to 'show what you know'.  Each assessment will be sent home after I have checked it. Please sign and return each assessment that is sent home.  We will do this at the end of each math topic.  It's a great way for us to communicate and keep track of how your child is doing throughout the school year.

Writing:  We will continue our work on personal narratives or 'small moment' stories.  We talked a lot about how we can write a whole story just from one small moment in our lives.  As a class, we created a whole story about when I spilled the markers all over the rug during writing workshop!  We decided that our writing ideas do not need to be 'big and fancy'.  Our ideas happen every day! :)  I am so proud of all of the writing that is taking place in our classroom each day.

Homework:  Please return your child's Reading Log each Monday.  A new log will be sent home on Mondays as well.  I love seeing all the 'tricky words' that the children are either reading or learning about.  Math and Spelling homework will begin next week.

Thank you so much for your support!  I am looking forward to a busy and fun week in first grade.

Sincerely,
Eileen Browne