Week 21

Here’s what our CA first graders are learning this week: January 25-29th

Interactive Read Aloud:  For the next two weeks, we are reading books about winter: Snow (McKee/Eastman), Snow (Shulevitz), Katy and the Big Snow, The Jacket I Wear in the Snow, Snowballs, Snow is Falling, and One Snowy Night. We will still be discussing character traits for the main characters of each story. 

Phonics:  Our students are learning to read and spell words with vowel teams for the rest of January. Vowel teams are two vowels that work together to make one long vowel sound (ie. “ea,” “ai,” or “oa”).  We use the rhyme “when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking and says its name” to help students remember how to read words using vowel teams 

Grammar: We are continuing to practice pronouns this week.  A pronoun is a word that replaces a noun. “She,” “they,” “his,” and “it” are examples of pronouns.  We will also continue identifying and recognizing nouns and verbs in our stories and writing.

Writing:  We will be working on small moment narratives and drawing upon our personal experiences once again.  Small moment stories are true accounts from the child’s own life, and the children learn to include important details as well as a clear beginning, middle, and end to their stories. 

Math:  This week, we continue our two-week study of data and graphing.  We will make bar graphs, tally graphs, and picture graphs together as a class.  The students will also learn the parts of a graph and how to construct a bar graph on their own.  We will also practice reading and interpreting graphs. 

IXL:If you would like to use IXL at home, we recommend these sections for practice this week:

·        Counting and Number Patterns (Section A)

·        Addition (Section B & C)

·        Subtraction (Section D & E)

·        Mixed Operations (Section F)

·        Recognizing Patterns (Section P)

·        Data and Graphs (Section M)

Core Knowledge:   We’re starting a new science unit this week: Astronomy!  This is one of our biggest units of the year.  We learn about the sun and Earth’s relationship to it, the moon, stars and constellations, the history of the space program and NASA, and the planets of our Solar System.  The students always love this unit and we have lots of fun little projects that we squeeze in between the lessons.  We are excited to learn about the expanses of space together! 

Core Virtue:   January's Core Virtue is Courage: being brave and doing what is right, even when it is scary.