Mrs. Sheffield's 1st Grade Class

November

Time sure does fly! Thanksgiving break is just around the corner! I hope everyone enjoys some time with friends and family during our week off. Here is a look at what is going on during the month of November.

THIS MONTH

Reading/Language Arts-We will be focusing on visualizing or creating mental images while we are reading. In Debbie Miller's book Reading With Meaning she says "proficient readers create mental images during and after reading" and "creating images enhances comprehension." We will be reading a variety of books and focus on the mental images that the words create. Everybody's mental images are different based on their schema! We will also work on inferring, using our prior knowledge to draw conclusions about a text. We will also continue to focus on nouns, verbs, and adjectives and begin using pronouns to replace nouns.

Phonics-long i spelling patterns (i_e, igh, ie), long o spelling patterns (oa, ow, o_e), and long u spelling patterns (ue, ew, u_e)

Writing-We will be working on pattern books. We will read examples of pattern books including The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Always in Trouble, and The Grouchy Ladybug. The students will work on creating their own pattern books with repeating text. When we finish up our pattern books, we will start a unit on narrative writing.

Math-Next week we are diving into money! We will spend a couple of weeks practicing counting coins and bills as well as making fair trades. We will wrap up November with two and three dimensional shapes.

Science-We will be studying sound and will focus on the pitch and volume of sounds.

Social Studies-We will start a unit studying Thomas Jefferson. Remember you can check out PebbleGo biographies if you want to do some research at home on any of the historical figures we learn about in class! The website is http://cvl.cobbk12.org

IMPORTANT DATES

Monday, November 7-Turkey disguise project due! Your child came home today with a blank turkey to disguise. Your turkey can be whatever you want it to be!

Tuesday, November 8-Teacher workday, no school for students

November 21-25-Thanksgiving break, no school

IMPORTANT WEBSITES

Remember for math practice you can visit:   www.ixl.com/signin/mountainview There are tons of games to play that align with each of our first grade math standards. The students have enjoyed using the laptops in class to practice our math skills.

We will also start using a website called Skills Tutor. Your child will be bringing home thier user name and password with them next week. Skills Tutor is an excellent website that has language arts, reading, writing, and math games and activites. All of the activities align with our standards. The web address for Skills Tutor is: www.myskillstutor.com

I hope you can enjoy using both of these great websites at home. They are excellent tools to help practice and reinforce skills being taught in the classroom.

As always I can't thank you enough for being such a terrific group of parents! I enjoy working with your children each and everyday!

Mrs. Sheffield

 

October

I can hardly believe it is already October! I hope you all have been outside enjoying this beautiful fall weather! I always enjoy this time of year when the students are settled into their routines and we are hard at work in our classroom. I am so proud of how well the students are doing with math workstations and The Daily 5. They are becomming independent first graders!

THIS MONTH

Reading-We have been discussing schema, using what we already know about a topic to help us better understand what we read. We have also been working on making meaningful connections to books. We make text-to-self connections to help us better understand a story and understand how the characters are feeling. We will also focus on text-to-text connections, text-to-world connections, comparing and contrasting stories, and visualizing. When reading with your child encourage them to make meaningful connections!

Language Arts- We will review nouns and verbs and spend some time talking about adjectives and how to use them in our writing. We will also learn about antonyms, words with opposite meanings.

Phonics-We are starting off the month with r blends including fr, br, dr, tr, and cr. We will then focus on l blends including bl, cl, fl, and sl. Then we will focus on long a and long e spelling patterns. (ai, ay, ea, ee)

Writing-We will wrap up our unit on personal narratives and begin to focus on writing narrative stories. The students will write stories with a beginning, middle, and end as well as include characters, a setting, and a plot.

We will also be writing friendly thank you letters to soldiers overseas. We had a special visitor this morning from the army come visit us to talk about what we can include in our letters. The whole first grade is teaming with Sergeant McGreevy to have thank you letters delivered to members of her troop. We hope to receive a few letters back as well!

Math-I have been so proud of how the students are using our addition strategies to help them add more fluently. We will be focusing on subtraction strategies over the next couple of weeks and use number lines to help us add and subtract. We will also learn about place value to the hundreds place.

The students  have started using a website during math workstations, www.ixl.com. There are games to match each of our first grade math standards. You can browse this website at home to see what we are using in class! You can also check out http://www.funbrain.com/math/ for some practice with addition facts.

Social Studies- We will be studying Benjamin Franklin. Today, we explored a package full of clues about Benjamin Frakinlin's life. There was a candle, a feather pen, an almanac, bifocals, a copy of the Declaration of Independence, a fire hat, and a candle. As we study Benjamin Franklin over the next couple of weeks we will talk about how each clue relates to his life.

Science- Towards the end of October we will start a unit on sound.

IMPORTANT DATES

October 5,6,and 7-COGAT testing for first and third. We will be testing in the morning so please be sure your child eats a good breakfast each day and arrives to school on time.

October 24-28-Conference week and book fair. The students will be dismissed two hours early each day of conference week beginning at 12:20.

HOMEWORK

A copy of the October homework came home with your child today. I am also attaching a copy of the October homework as well in case you need it!

Download Octoberhomework

Thank you so much for all of your support of our school and classroom! You all have been amazing about sending in all of your Boosterthon money. I am so fortunate to work with such wonderful parents and students!

Mrs. Sheffield :)