First Grade News

After the break we started new writing, phonics, social studies and math units!

In Writing Workshop we started writing our own poetry. In our poetry unit first graders studied different types of poems. By studying other poems, they learned to look at ordinary objects with a poet’s eyes, use patterns and repetition, experiment with line breaks, and include specific language.

We read the book “shades of people,” and discussed all the different words we can use to describe our skin color like “sandy,” “gold,” “almond,” and “cocoa.” First graders then mixed their own unique skin color in art class.

In Math, we started an introduction to multiplication and division! First graders learned that when we multiply, we add the same number many times. The easiest way to do this is to skip count rather than counting on each time. First graders demonstrated their new knowledge by making skyscraper arrays. Check them out on the bulletin board outside our classroom!

In phonics we’re learning about all the common mistakes first graders can make when spelling. We talked about how we can laugh and learn from our mistakes, like bloopers in movies. We’re  studying r-controlled vowels like “ar,” “er,’ and “or.” We learned that the /er/ sound can be made three different ways “ir,” “er,” and “ur.”

We started learning about how to care for our community in social studies by using the three “Rs,” reduce, reuse, and recycle. For the rest of the year we will be learning about how we, as first graders, can work to keep our earth healthy.

We had a very busy two weeks in our Hebrew classroom. Our Siddur Ceremony is just a few days away and the first graders have been busy practicing and preparing for the big day! We continue traveling through the state of Israel! We traveled all the way to the mountains of Jerusalem. As part of their stop in Jerusalem, each student made their own kotel (Western Wall) out of construction paper. They wrote notes, about their hopes and wishes, to put in their kotel. We visited the Dead Sea (yam hamelach) and the city of Eilat. We spoke and wrote sentences about what so special about those places. We also talked about Yom Ha’atzmaut – Israel’s Independence Day and made beautiful Israeli flags using all kinds of art materials. Each first grader wrote a blessing for their grownups, where they beautifully shared their hopes and wishes. We look forward sharing all their work with you at our Siddur Ceremony next week.