First Grade News

Dear Families,

In Hebrew, the first graders choose their favorite animal and describe them in writing – their color, where they live, what they eat and what they love to do. We also learned how to write the letters tav, kaf and chaf in script.

This week in Tefilah, the first graders were so excited to learn the last prayer from the Amida – hamevarech et amo yisrael bashalom. We discussed the meaning of peace and peaceful places.

In Math we are practicing our doubles facts! Students learned about how math facts can be a helpful tool when adding and subtracting bigger numbers. We played Doubles Bingo and other games and activities to help us become fluent with our doubles facts.

In Reading our detectives have solved the case of the letter twins and the case of the sticky letters! We reviewed digraphs and blends and discovered that some words have 3 letter blends that stick together. We also explored two-syllable words that have double consonants in the middle (letter twins) and figured out how to decode and spell words like “kitten” and “little”.  We solve our last case next week and then we celebrate! We also continued to practice retelling our nonfiction books and building our independent reading stamina. First graders also solved their first wordle on the 2nd try!

In Writing, we have been writing, writing, writing our chapter books! We are continuing to work on structuring and organizing our books and information. We also learned how to make comparisons to help our readers understand what we are teaching. For example, writing “Sharkskin is as rough as sandpaper” helps our readers put a picture in their minds that they can relate to. Next week we work on adding examples.

In Music class with Heidi, First Graders have continued their study of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals and tempo. We have examined five movements of the piece so far: The Finale, The Aquarium, The Elephant, Tortoises and Kangaroos. First graders especially love dancing with scarves to Tortoises and Jacque Offenbach’s Can Can!

Shabbat Shalom,

Ilana, Talia, and Liz