April 22nd-26th

Reading

Students are continuing to learn "first grade sounds" during phonics instruction. Because these sounds are more challenging, I introduce one new sound each week rather than several. This helps give a little more time for it to sink in.

Sound we have covered recently
/oo/ zoom to the moon
/ar/ start the car
/c/ city mice on ice (soft c)

This week our sound is
/ou/ shout it out

Our letter of the week is X and our word of the week is look.

This week we are continuing our reading unit on plants. We are in the second week of this unit and the focus this week is on Seeds and Plants. Last week we focused on How Trees Grow. Today our story talked about many different ways seeds can move from place to place such as getting carried by birds, blowing in the wind, or being carried by water. Later this week, the kiddos will get the chance to dissect a seed and see what it looks like inside.

Writing

Our current writing focus in Opinion writing. In this type of writing, the kiddos are expected to state their opinion relating to a particular topic or prompt and then give reasons to explain their opinion. When I was absent last Friday they wrote a piece in response to the question "Do you like to eat vegetables? Why or why not? As they are becoming more and more proficient in writing, spelling is becoming more accurate and we are now working on making sure to put periods at the end of each sentence and to capitalize the first letter of each new sentence. Writing is looking great!

Math

This week we are focusing on measurement. Today we looked at several different tools used to measure (measuring cups/spoons, a ruler, and two different kinds of measuring tape). We talked about how we use particular tools based on what we need to measure. One example I gave was that if I wanted to measure chocolate chips to add to my cookie recipe, I couldn't use a ruler for that. Throughout the week the kiddos will be doing some hands on measuring during math time and we will be using the math vocabulary words long/longer/longest, short/shorter/shortest, tall/taller/tallest.