First Grade News: Week of March 5th

First grade mathematicians learned double digit addition with regrouping this week. We started by using base ten blocks to represent making groups of ten, and then we moved into learning the vertical algorithm.  

We are participating in the Irma Black Book Awards. First and Second graders across the country get to vote for this award. We will read the four finalists and then discuss what makes a great picture book. This week we read “After the Fall: How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again” by Dan Santant.

In Writing Workshop we continued our realistic fiction stories. This week we learned to give readers a satisfying ending, and to add dialogue, feelings and action to our stories.

Our classroom neighborhood is under construction. First graders are using recycled materials to build a model neighborhood in our classroom. First graders used their knowledge of neighborhood needs and wants to decide what should go in our neighborhood. Our neighborhood has everything from a fire house to a spa!

Thank you to everyone who brought in books for Malawi. We will still be collecting books all next week!

In Hebrew this week, we started learning about our families. First we learned how to say the Hebrew words for family members like; ach (brother), achot (sister), dod (uncle) and doda (aunt) and then we started a special project where we are making books about our families using pictures and Hebrew sentences.

In Tefilah, we learned one more prayer from the Amida called; hamachazir shechinato litziyon. The first graders had a wonderful conversation about where they believed God was and times when they have felt God’s presence.

In Parasha, we learned about Parashat Vayakhel-Pekudei. We learned about the completion of the building of the mishkan, and we spoke about how hard all the Jewish people worked together to build it. We also spoke about what are the things that make us such a special community. Since this parasha ends the book of shemot, we played a game to review the stories that we have learned in the book of shemot. It was a lot of fun and students remembered a lot of the details of the stories!

Shabbat Shalom!