Mrs. Adlers and Ms.

Zimmermanns First Grade

Weekly Review
November 3, 2017

Past Weeks Review

WELCOME TO THE FIRST GRADE!
What a week! The excitement, the action, the learning, and a win for all of Houston! To say this
week was a rollercoaster would be accurate. Every day, we stayed Houston Strong as we learned
new things, put into action what we have practiced, and cheered on our hometown Astros. The
students celebrated a well-deserved win for the Astros and learned a valuable lesson in
perseverance as Houston Earned it!

In Language Arts, in Readers Workshop we continued learning and practicing our

nonfiction skills. Nonfiction books are not only informational, but interesting as well. Our strategies
this week focused on decoding difficult words by breaking apart a word and then crashing it back
together to read the entire word. We also learned how to check our reading by going back and
making sure the word we read makes sense in the sentence and context of the story. In Writers
Workshop, we are continuing to write our own nonfiction expert books. As we continued working,
we challenged ourselves by self-assessing and setting goals. Good writers always look for ways to
make their writing more interesting. We are continuing to work hard in our Handwriting books as
we are learning how to form properly our letters and numbers using the Handwriting Without
Tears program. Our phonics activities focused on learning more consonant clusters and high
frequency words. Last but not least, we have completed our third spelling test! Our patterns
contained op, ot, and og words. The two bonus words were: November and twenty. The three
sight words this week were: play, her and went. Please make sure that you are continuing to
review these words with your children.
 In Math, this week we moved on to counting and comparing numbers to twenty. We related
the numbers 11 through 19 to a ten plus ones and the number 20 to two tens. We also reviewed
what this would look like in a number bond and expanded our vocabulary with ordinal numbers
through 20! See the examples below:

To further strengthen our math skills and vocabulary we compared numbers and focused on using
terms such as, greater than, less than, most, least, smallest and largest. Being able to read the
instructions before moving ahead is very important in math! Lastly, please continue to practice
addition and subtraction MATH FACTS with your child every night! Flash cards are a great
way to reinforce the skill!

In Social Studies, this week in our Weekly Reader titled, What is a Flying Fox?. We learned
that Flying Foxes are the biggest bats in the world. When their wings are outstretched, these bats
can equal their length to the height of the baseball player Altuve! Flying Foxes also sleep in huge
numbers. For example, more than a thousand bats can be in one group. In our Texas Studies
Weekly, we read, Good Citizens. We learned that being a good citizen means playing by the
rules. Win or lose, a good citizen is always honest and kind. We also discussed when it is a good
idea to keep something private and when we should tell an adult. For example, keeping a birthday
gift a secret is okay because it is fun to surprise a friend! However, there are some things that you
should not keep private, like if someone is being mean to you or hurting you. When in doubt, talk to
an adult you trust to help you figure it out.

In Science, this week This week in science we explored one more concept with light called
refraction. We learned that refraction means that light bends. We tested this theory by drawing two
arrows on a note card and placing it behind a glass cup. Then we added water to the glass and
watched as the arrows changed directions! We learned that this happened because when light
passes from one material to another, it can bend or refract. The light rays that were bent pass each
other and the light that was on the right side is now on the left and the left on the right, which
makes the arrow appear to be reversed. We tried moving the arrow closer and farther away from
the cup to observe any changes. Then we reviewed all the light vocabulary words we've learned in
this unit by matching the words (opaque, translucent, reflection, refraction, etc.) to the definition.
We had a great week in science!

In Art, this week the first Graders created an abstract dot design in the style of the artist
Wassily Kandinsky. Next week we will have a lesson on weaving and they will learn how to weave
black strips of paper into their dot designs.

Last but not least, if there is one thing we can suggest or encourage for you to be doing at
home is to read with your child every night. It is a wonderful bonding time for you and your child.
Please make sure that you are also recording in the daily reading log what your child is reading at
home and returning the reading logs to school on Mondays. Please make sure that your child is
reading for at least 15 minutes every day.

Important Dates Ask Your Child

Tuesday, November 7th is our classroom
spelling bee.
What is the Table of Contents used for?
What is the difference between a trot
and a jog?
Arrange these numbers from largest to
smallest: 12, 22, 16, 7, 11
What should you do if someone you
know is doing something dishonest?

Important Info

Please remember to send snacks with your child every day! They get very hungry and a
mid-morning, as well as mid-afternoon, snack helps out! These should be healthy snacks
that can be eaten in a 5 minute time frame!

Every Monday is Spirit Dress Day! Students may come dressed in a spirit dress shirt and
jeans! If there is no school on a Monday, Tuesday becomes Spirit Dress Day.
We love school!