Week of March 18th
Topic: Life today and long ago
Dear G1A Parents,
During the next few weeks in Social Studies we will be learning about life today and long ago. Our class will compare and contrast past and present community life, with an emphasis on schooling, children’s lives, and transportation. To help connect learning at school to home we are asking students to interview a grandparent about his/her life as a child. Students only need to interview one grandparent. If you are unable to interview a grandparent, students can interview one parent.
The attached paper has a list of questions that students can ask. If your child needs more space to write or has more questions he/she would like to ask, please write those responses on a different piece of paper. We ask that you send a picture of your child with his/her grandparent as part of the Show and Tell presentation. You can email a photo or send one to school in your child’s homework folder.
If you have any questions, please feel free to send me an email.
Thank you for your help!
Field Trip - Tokyo Meteorological Agency
Thursday, March 7th
World Book Day
Thursday, March 7th
Reading
We Can Be Our Own Teachers When We Work Hard to Figuring Out Words
This week our class learned that readers:
- solve tricky words by breaking the words into chunks
Example:
The shark swam fast.
shark - sh, ar (hunks & chunks)
swam - am (am is a word I know)
- figure out unknown words by guessing the word, reading the rest of the sentence, then checking to make sure their guess made sense (meaning) and matches the letters in the word (phonics)
Example:
The c______ lives in the barn.
Words that start with C - chicken, cow, cat
Does my guess make sense?
Does my guess match the letters in the word?
Writing
Poetry - Rhyming Poems
Poetry Slam Event - Friday, March 17th
On Monday Mr. Phil, a UST parent, introduced rhyming poems to G1 students. Together the group chose to write a poem about ice cream. They brainstormed a list of words that come to mind when they think about ice cream (sweet, cold, sticky), then wrote rhyming words (sweet/treat, cold/gold). The students worked in small groups to pick one word and write a sentence, making sure the word they chose was at the end of the sentence. Mr. Phil helped arrange the sentences on the board to create their poem.
In class each student began working on their own rhyming poem. First, they picked a topic and wrote words to describe and tell about their topic. Next, they listed rhyming words that could be used in their poem and started their draft. I will help students revise, edit, and publish their poems next week.
Students will bring their poems home to practice reading it aloud and memorizing it. We will have a presentation day in class for G1A students to recite their poem, then 3 students will be chosen to participate in the UST poetry slam on Friday, March 17th.
Math
Data & Graphs
To continue our Math chapter about data and graphs, our class learned about collecting and organizing data using tally charts and bar graphs.
Please continue to help your child practice the Math terms below:
- more
- fewer
- most
- fewest
Social Studies
What is a map?
This week students started creating their own map of a town. Each map includes a title, map key with symbols, and a compass rose. Students are following a set of directions to draw each symbol in the correct spot on their map (Ex. Draw the fire station in the middle of the map. Draw the library west of the fire station.). We will finish this activity on Tuesday during our Social Studies class.
We also talked about the world map in our classroom. Students learned that there are 7 continents and 5 oceans. You can explore maps at home by using Google Maps with your child! : ) We used Google Maps to zoom in and find UST's spot on the map!
Have a wonderful weekend!
- Ms. Allison