Neighborhood Share

Festival of Lights

The Festival Lights is only a few days away - next Wednesday, December 18th, at 9:30 am! The first graders will be performing the song "Put A Little Love in Your Heart" with Caroline's class and Bradley on guitar.  The lyrics are posted below - if you have time, please have your child practice the song at home!

Think of your fellow man
lend him a helping hand
put a little love in your heart.
You see it's getting late
oh please don't hesitate
put a little love in your heart.
And the world will be a better place
and the world will be a better place
for you and me
you just wait and see

Another day goes by
and still the children cry
put a little love in your heart.
If you want the world to know
we won't let hatred grow
put a little love in your heart.
And the world will be a better place
and the world will be a better place
for you and me
you just wait and see

Take a good look around and
if you're lookin' down
put a little love in your heart
I hope when you decide
kindness will be your guide
put a little love in your heart.
And the world will be a better place
and the world will be a better place
for you and me
you just wait and see
put a little love in your heart each and every day
put a little love in your heart there's no other way
put a lttle love in your heart, it's up to you
put a little love in your heart...

One more page please!

"One more page please!" Most of the first graders exclaimed this when we paused reading the book Punctuation Mark by Amy Krause Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld!  The character "Question Mark"had us all laughing.

Here are some more books we've been enjoying these last few weeks…
Ezra Jack Keats books (Goggles, Apt 3C)
Punctuation Takes A Vacation
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
It Looks Like Spilt Milk
A Kiss Goodbye (Rebecca read this on her last day)
Subway 

Equivalent Equations in Math

In math, the first graders have been thinking about equivalent equations.  We now know that equations (or number sentences) can go in many different ways. Here are some examples: 6+4=10, 4+6=10, 10=6+4, and 10=4+6.  At first, our students were confused by seeing the total as the first number in the equation, but now we understand that it makes sense!

First graders have also been thinking about balanced equations.  For example, we know that 4+6=5+5 or that 5+5=7+3.  Test your child at home by asking if an equation is true or false! Or, have your child  fill in the missing number of an equation! Here are some examples...

True or False

3 + 3 = 5 + 1

7 + 3 = 4 + 6

2 + 7 = 5 + 7


___ + 8 = 3 + 5

9 + 1 = 8 + ___

2 + ___ = 6 + 5

Library on Fridays

Remember, our new library day is Friday! First graders should bring back their library books on Fridays so that they can take out a new book for the week.

Saying Goodbye to Rebecca

Today is our student teacher Rebecca's last day! We are so sad to say goodbye to her.  It has been wonderful collaborating with Rebecca and we wish her all the best next semester in her new classroom! Stay in touch, Rebecca! We will all miss you so much!

A Sentence Study

Our next writing unit is entitled "A Sentence Study."  After attending a brilliant writing PD for teachers a few weeks ago, we were inspired to do a study around the mechanics of writing. So, after looking carefully at our students' work, we decided to focus on sentences.  

Goals for this unit include:
Learning to capitalize the first letter of a sentence.
Learning to to end sentences with a period, exclamation point, or a question mark.Learning to use commas to separate single words in a series.Learning to produce simple and compound declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentences

The best part about this unit is that the first graders get to write within any genre of their choice! Some of us are writing fairy tales, while others are writing how-tos or small moments. Today our writing workshop was buzzing with excitement!

We look forward to continuing our study of sentences!