November 20th

We had a wonderful week in first grade!  We finished up our "showing not telling" writing project, which has to be one of my ALL time favorites!!  The kids used personal narrative to show an emotion that they were feeling.  We explored many books that helped us create an anchor chart about how we act, what we look like, and how we sound when we have different feelings.  They are absolutely adorable!!  It is so cool to see how their writing is growing not only in length but also in voice!

Last week the kids helped me celebrate my brother, Zach's homecoming!  He has been deployed with the Army for the last 9 months.  For the first 55 school days the students have said, "Get home safe Zach!" after the Pledge of Allegiance.  In celebration of Zach and all of our military the kids did a writing web of why soldiers are important to us.  Then we turned their writing into audio QR codes to put on our soldier art!  Aren't they precious!?!

In reading the kids are really focusing on their fluency.  Make sure there isn't any "robot reading" happening at home!  Practicing your sight word lists will greatly help with fluency.

This week we started our journey back to the time of Native Americans!  So far we have visited the Plains and the American Southwest.  We have learned all kinds of neat things!  We know why the Plains people needed to live in tepees.  We also learned that weaving is a difficult and tedious task.

In math we are learning a cool new strategy for addition.  It is called "make a ten" in class we like to call is "Goofy's shoe."  See if your kiddo can show you the new strategy to solve 8+6=__!

We capped off this week with a wonderful celebration of the love between grandparents and their grandchildren!  It was so special watching the firsties become the teachers to their loved ones!  We were so lucky to have such an amazing outpouring of love on us!



P.S. This week the kids earned their 20th compliment!!  They have chosen to have a stuffed animal party!  On Monday, each child may bring in ONE of their favorite stuffed toys to spend the day with!