First Grade News

First grade writers work hard to publish their series books. Each first grader wrote at least two books in a series about the same characters. We will celebrate their writing with a mini publishing party next week.

As part of our science unit on organisms, each first grader planted their own seeds. We’ll observe these plants each week as they grow into our very own herb garden. After one week, we noticed that some seeds had sprouted!

In phonics we’ve been studying all the different vowel teams and the various sounds they make. We’ve learned to be careful when reading and to try different vowel sounds. For example, the vowel team “ea” makes different sounds in words like “eat,” “bear,” and “feather.”

In math we’ve spiraled back to double digit addition and subtract- this time with numbers to 100. First graders are using strategies they’ve already learned such as counting on and breaking numbers up into tens and ones.

We’ve read all four nominees for the Irma Black Awards. Over the next two weeks, Each first grader will pick their favorite and write a book review on it.

Our classroom neighborhood is nearing completion! We’ve set up roads and even made a bridge.

In Hebrew, we started traveling through the state of Israel! We started in the north in the port city of Haifa, made our way to the Kineret and through the busy streets of Tel Aviv. Students wrote sentences in Hebrew of what we can find in each place and drew pictures of each city inspired by images they saw in photographs, videos and books. We look forward to continue our traveling to new places in Israel next week.

In Tefilah, the first graders were so excited to learn the last two prayers from the Amida. The first prayer called hatov shimcha ulecha naeh lehodot . In this prayer we thank god for different things and each first grader shared what they are thankful for. The second prayer called hamevarech et amo yisrael bashalom. We discussed the meaning of peace and peaceful places.

Last week parasha is parashat Shemini. We learned about which animals are considered kosher and thatkosher animals have split hooves and kosher fish have both fins and scales. We then looked at pictures of different animals to see if they are kosher or not. We also learned that many kosher foods have a special sign on the label to show us that they are kosher. This week Parasha is Parashat Tazria. We spoke about that one of the Kohanim jobs was to help people when they get sick, just like today’s doctors. We also spoke about the similarities and differences to what we do today when we are sick to what they did in the time of the Torah.

Shabbat Shalom!