First grade news

Dear First Grade Parents,

This week was full of observation and exploration.  We really enjoyed going to the fire house and meeting the fire fighters.  They taught us what to do if there is smoke and a fire and most of all, they made us feel safe and like we could always come to them for help.

This week in first grade we talked about setting in story.  For example, when we read “The Night Gardener” by Terry and Eric Fan.  We talked about if the book took place in an urban or suburban environment.  This week in phonics we have been practicing our snap words and making sure we use all of our snap words in our writing.

In Writing this week, we began our writing reviews.  We explored our collections and shared them with one another. Sharing our collections deepened our sense of community and we learned fun facts about each other.  For example, we learned that a few students in our class had shell collections. We also met stuffed animals of the students and learned why they were important to the students in the class.  One student decided to shared that he loved this particular stuffed animal because he had it the longest.  As we continue this writing unit we will learn to compare the objects to express our opinion and list reasons why.

In Math this week we took a deep dive into two dimensional and three dimensional shapes.  We discussed that the three dimensional shape cone can roll and slide.  We also talked about what shapes had only one circle as a side and one square as side.  We explored if the shape was curved and if that helped it roll and even discovered that a pyramid was a shape that you could stack and slide.  As a culminating activity for the week we created our own imaginary figures from two dimensional shapes. We proceeded with a gallery walk and shared our creations with the class.

In Science we continued learning about temperature and expanding our science vocabulary. Students sharpened their abilities to read thermometers and work with partners to complete science journal activities  They asked and discussed many questions about the connection between the temperature indoors vs. outdoors, and how temperature can vary depending on geographic location and season.

In Hebrew, we learned the letters tet and ayin and continued practicing our reading and writing.

In Yahadut, we continued working on our siddurim and learned a new prayer from the amida called, melech ohev tzedakah umishpat. We spoke about the rules that we have in our classroom and in America and how they help us stay safe and be better people. We have learned so many of the prayers from the amidah and we are looking forward to learning the rest!

In Parasha, we learned about Parashat Vaera, which is when Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh to ask him to free the Israelites, which results in God sending plagues to the Egyptians. We spoke about why we think that God chose Moses and how Moses felt when God told him to go to Pharaoh. We also discussed that at times we feel that we can’t do something, but we should try.