Spring Ahead

Well, it was a bit of a crazy day as we all adjusted to the recent time change today.  We were ready to go this morning, but by the afternoon, we were all getting a little restless!  

We started our day with SWR.  Our red word of the week is saw.  Our focus in SWR this week is on the digraphs th, sh and ch.  We discussed how these letters together make a totally new sound and need to be read together.  We also discussed how reading the whole word at a time will help us do this.  Help your child find these combinations while you're reading together.  They have loved finding them at the beginning and ends of words so far.  Our WOW word is collaborate- to work together.

In math we practiced counting coins, drawing the hands on clocks and exchanging coins.  I cannot stress enough how important it is for the first graders to become fluent in counting coins.  We are going to continue to work with coins so the more practice they can have at home- the better!  Encourage them to always start with the largest coins and practice counting by 25's, 10's, 5's then 1's.  This will ensure that they are comfortable working with all coins and will be ready when we start to begin to give change.

   

Each reading group was introduced to a new book today.  We are reading a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts.  We also read our new poem of the week about the Zoo as a class.  As a class, we will be focusing on non-fiction writing and texts during our writing time.

In science we started a new unit all about Animal Classification.  This unit will take us straight through the end of the year.  We are discussing different ways to group or classify animals this week.  

Our photocopiers were down today so your child's poem is not in their homework folder.  I will make sure to have them in there tomorrow so there's plenty of time to practice!

I was watching NBC Nightly News this evening and was SO excited to see a news clip about the penguins in Antartica.  You can check it out here:

NBC Penguins  

Have a great week!