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First Grade News

What an exciting first week of school!  This week the first graders loved meeting everyone and building community within the classroom.  We welcomed many new students to the group.  In order to get to know one another we played games like “pop up and pop down” to learn what we have in common and different, and shared some of our favorite things, like ice cream and animals. We even designed and created our own ice cream cones!  This week the students learned classroom routines and procedures and settled in to being back at school.

In writing, students enjoyed making a collaborative web of yarn which served as a way to brainstorm ideas about things they love and generate writing.  They loved noticing patterns they made from the yarn and learning about one another.  Students each wrote an “I love” heart, and illustrated the writing.  They also wrote their first small moments piece this week.

In math, we practiced our numbers sense from 1-15 by identifying numbers in different forms whether it be with dice or with numbers.

We read back to school books this week.  One of our favorites was First Grade Jitters by Robert Quackenbush. After reading the story, the class checked in on how they were feeling about the first day of school. Students have enjoyed checking in and saying how they are feeling in morning meeting, as well as learning about the listening circle.

In the Hebrew classroom we had a great week. We all shared our Hebrew names and introduced ourselves in Hebrew. We learned how to write the letters tav and what sound she makes. The first graders were so excited to get their first classroom assignment working in their letters workbook. We spoke about the meaning of Tefilah and decorated our Siddurim (prayers book) covers. Everyone did a beautiful job!

Lastly, we made self portraits out of water colors.  Students practiced how to trace and use the water to make a lighter shade of paint.  We made sure that we drew what we saw in the mirror as we looked at the features on our face as we were drawing.

Next week we will continue to build community in our classroom.  We are looking forward to picking out just right books and working on our small moments in writing!