1st Grade - Barch

Dear Parents,            October 16, 2009

 

It is amazing how fast this month is going! We have a field trip planned for Friday, November 13^th. Please see attached permission slip. We are going to the Detroit Science Center. We will NOT be seeing the mummy exhibit! The children will have a hands-on time with the multiple activities available on many science topics. We are going to see 3 shows, also. One of them is called the DTE Energy Sparks Theater and the properties of electricity will be demonstrated in a fun way. It has been called a “Spark-tacular Show!” Then, there is an Engineering Theater presented in 4-D format that is about different inventions that have been created and how they work. Our seats will be rockin’, wind will be blowin’, and water will be spritzin’ as we watch this presentation. Lastly, we will go to the Chrysler Science Show which will be interactive, as well. We already have our chaperones determined. I always ask the room moms first and then we drew names out of the list of classroom helpers to pick the rest whom we have contacted. If you would still like to go, you can drive yourself there and still pay our group rate of $6.00 but we must know for sure if you are doing this by Oct.27^th. There may not be room for you in all of the shows.

 

In WRITER’S WORKSHOP, we continued to work on our 3 page stories and included the beginning, middle, and end of the story. We are coming to the end of this first unit and so we went through all of our pieces and picked out the one that we want to fix up and fancy up so we can publish it. Miss Watts and I will type the one they want to publish and they will pick out clip art to go with it on Microsoft Word. We will complete those next week in Computer Lab.

 

In MATH, we are working on addition using the number line, chips, and pictures for counting. We have been practicing using all 3 methods. We are working on story problems and making sure we read carefully so that we know what we are being asked. We learned part of the program called Mathblaster in COMPUTER LAB.

 

In READER’S WORKSHOP, we are learning about turning our reading switch on in our brains so that we aren’t just reading words but we are THINKING about what we are reading. I demonstrated this by reading a passage with my switch off. Then I read it again with my switch on and I commented about what I was reading and asked the students to compare the 2 readings.

 

We started GUIDED READING GROUPS this week. We have 4 groups at different levels. The children work on vocabulary before reading a book and then they whisper read the story. We then discuss the story and they either answer a question about it in their journals or do an activity sheet about the story. We have these groups 4 times a week for 35 minutes.

 

In SCIENCE, we had an observation of our Brassica plants and noticed how much they have grown. They have much bigger leaves as well as longer stems. Some have flower buds and some even had open flowers. We then wrote about what our plants looked like and drew a picture in our plant journal. Miss Watts read a story about plants to the class called “Tops and Bottoms.”

 

We learned more about bats this week and then we made our own. The children wrote 4 or 5 facts about bats and included that on their bat. You can see them flying around outside of our room!

 

Our next Citizen of the Week is Srishti Gadbail.

 

Have a wonderful weekend!

 

Sincerely,

 

 

Mrs. Susan Barch and Meggan Watts