First Grade: Gerbils

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Gerbils

We are going to get gerbils and we're going to feed them and watch them and take care of them.

by Arda

1 comment:

UnknownNovember 27, 2013 at 3:50 PM
It was so nice to meet you all today. I know you will take great care of them. - Mrs. Hanna
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Your first grader is learning to be an independent thinker and problem solver. Give your child opportunities to be more independent at home-chores, helping with their school lunch or snack, writing a list, etc. If there are things your child does on their own, let us know so we can share that news with other families!

The concepts of addition and subtraction are tricky for some first graders. Kids can learn to "memorize" math facts but understanding HOW to add and subtract and use strategies for solving each kind of problem is more difficult. We always stress that the answer is important but not as important as how a child solves the problem. Some strategies we use are to draw a picture of the problem, use a number line, create a 10-frame to visually "see" the problem, and use your fingers! They are handy counters that are with us always! Kids can use their fingers to see and solve 3+5 as well as 46+ 7 (we keep the bigger number in our head and count on using our 7 handy fingers!)

When listening to your child read, let them use these strategies they are learning at school: look at the picture, get your mouth ready to make the first sound of the tricky word, think about what would make sense as you read, check the letters in the word after you read it to see if they match.

Remember, we can't "sound out" all words so we are helping kids use many other strategies as they read.

We are learning about congruent shapes on our calendar this month.

We are continuing to tap out words that are hard to spell and are working on adding /s/ to the ends of words.

We continue to work independently during our daily 5 time and are working hard in our reading groups. Everyone has shown improvement in their reading skills!

We love to read quietly for 20 minutes every day and have books in our book bags that are just right for us to read on our own!

We are using small geoboards in number corner each day.

Kids have begun their own how-to story and have chosen a topic they feel they are experts in and can write about easily.

We continue our study of snow, winter and how the seasons affect things over time such as trees.

Welcome to First Grade!

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Gerbils

1 comment: