Week 7

This week we are reading "Dan's Pet".  It is about a little boy who gets a pet chick.  The sound this week is short e.  

Remember that tomorrow is the field trip.  We need good walking shoes and maybe a light jacket.  Join us at Squirrel Springs for a picnic if you can.

The vocabulary words this week are:

day

every

her

said

was

with

Spelling this week is:

hen

pen

men

end

send

set

all

call

very

that

of

want

walk

In math we will be working on patterns and time to the half hour.

Week 6

This week's story is "All That Corn".  We will be learning the short o sound of the letter a as in ball.  This story traces corn from the farm field to your home.

Vocabulary words are:

buy

that

very

where

Spelling words are:

all

call

fall

wall

ball

tall

on

not

so

of

In math we will be exploring patterns, odd and even numbers, and skip counting by 2's and by 5's.

Friday Fun

Friday was Monster Sandwich Day. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and ate lots. We just had sandwiches made to order, chips, and milk. After the last recess we had ice cream cups for dessert. This was the introduction of Monster Sandwich Day. We will do it again as they earn it by saving pennies. When they have earned 25 pennies, we will do Monster Sandwiches again. They earn pennies by having good classroom manners.

Week 5

The story this week is called "Todd's Box".  The new sound is short o.  We will be reviewing short a and i also.  We will continue to blend new words that are easily decodable.  The new vocabulary words are:

don't 

of

so

Spelling for this week is:

hot

hop

pop

pot

dot

not

back

pick

now

want

 walk

 they

I just graded spelling tests.  Almost everyone missed walk and they.  I am adding them to the list for next week.  These are words that are used a lot so we need to be able to spell them.

In math, we will be trading pennies for nickels.  Money is tricky.  This might be something you could do at home for extra practice.

Friday will be "Monster Sandwich Day".  I will bring sandwich stuff and we will eat in the room.  This is usually a fun time for all of us.  Your child will not need a lunch on Friday.

Friday Fun

On Friday we worked with colors and color words.  We mixed colors using corn syrup and food coloring.  It was pretty sticky but the colors are so clear and pretty when mixed.  

Week 4

This week's story is a fantasy story called "Jack and Rick". It is about a bear and a rabbit who want to play together but are on opposite sides of the stream. By working together they solve their problem. We will be working on the digraph ck. The vocabulary for this week is:
help
now
play
too
want

Spelling words are:
pick
pack
tack
back
sack
sick
big
is
they
walk

In math we will be learning time to the hour and counting pennies. Time and money are two difficult concepts. Arizona State Standards say that a first grader should be able to count coins up to $.99.

Friday Fun

Last week we studied ants. Our ants didn't come for the ant farm. That was disappointing but maybe they will arrive this week. On Friday we did an art project about the inside of an anthill. We also made ants on a log for an afternoon snack.

Week 3

This week we are reading a non-fiction story called "Ants".  We are reviewing the short i sound. The new vocabulary words are:

make

they

walk

Spelling words are:

in

pin

pig

wig

win

fin

am

pan

yes

and

In math we are still practicing tally marks.  We also have been working on writing numbers.  Many are still struggling to write to 50.  We are also writing by 5's to 50 and 2's to 10.  We will go farther as we can handle these benchmarks.  We will also start working with complements of 10.  These are the two numbers when added together make the sum of 10.

Hopefully the ants for the ant farm will arrive soon.  They were ordered before school ever started.  It should be a great addition to our story for the week. 

Friday Fun

Last Friday we did the book, "The Birthday Cake". It is a simple book that reviews color words. The children each made a copy of the book. Using colored frosting and vanilla wafers, we built birthday cakes following the pattern used in the book. After the last recess we ate birthday cakes and drank juice.