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First Grade News

This week in first grade was full of getting to know new things within our community. We explored our neighborhood, and learned new subtraction strategies. Happy Birthday to Maxwell and Julie!  We are looking forward to our Chanukah celebration next week with all of you.

In Reading this week we continued our work in digraphs and learned some blends.  For example, the word dragon starts with the blend dr and the word slide starts with the blend sl. In our small reading groups this week we continued writing about reading as we ask and answer questions about the books we have read.

In Math this week we have continued our exploration of subtraction.  We learned how to use a number bond to aid us in our subtraction and writing subtraction stories. One thing that you can do at home is practice using subtraction in the real world and creating your own subtraction stories.  For example, If we have 7 blocks to walk and we have walked 3 blocks, how many blocks do you have left?

In Writing this week we have been writing our all about books and writing on topics we are an expert on.  We learned how to write a twin sentence which is a  second sentence that helps explain the first sentence.  Here is an example: The students were throwing snowballs.  Snowballs is soft frozen water.

In Science, we continued reading about tornadoes and asking additional questions we want to find the answers to.  The scientists plotted data about cloud cover from two consecutive weeks in November on a graph.  They applied what they learned last week when they make a wind graph. It’s amazing how well they can interpret the information!

In Social Studies this week we had our neighborhood scavenger hunt.  We learned so many things!  We learned that there are many different languages in our neighborhood written everywhere.  We found Hebrew, Korean, Spanish, Italian and Chinese!  We learned that we have so many different kinds of community helpers.  For example, students met a mail carrier, a woman who works for Con Edison, a shoemaker, shopkeepers, community liaisons, and even a bus driver!

Some other highlights of our excursions included seeing where people exercise, finding ramps, street lights.  One group even found a vehicle from the parks department!

In the Hebrew classroom this week, we learned the letters kaf, chaf and chaf sofit as well as a new vowel, which makes the “oh” sound. We wrote lots of sentences using the verbs ochel/ochelet (to eat) and ohev/ohevet (to love). We also spent time learning about Chanukah! We read the story of Chanukah – all in Hebrew. We also learned how to say the symbols of the holiday in Hebrew and played a matching game. The first grader made beautiful dreidels which we used to decorate our bulletin board. Next week we will celebrate and continue to learn about this special holiday!

In Parasha, first Graders learned about Parashat Vayishlach. This is when Jacob and Esav reunite and apologize to each other. This parasha is an example to the new prayer that we learned last week, and we continued our discussion about the importance of saying sorry and forgiving each other.

Special thanks to all of the parents who volunteered for the scavenger hunt.  Students were very happy to explore and share with you all.

Shabbat Shalom,

The first grade team