Are you ready for some football???

Sundays are great! Whether you spend it at a soccer field, eating dinner with your family or watching the Patriots, Sunday is a great day!

We had a great week this past week. The children are doing a great job with our daily routine and have really done well diving into the first grade curriculum.
In ELA, we have been talking about super star short vowel /a/. What sound does /a/ make? What words have short vowel /a/ in them? We used many different modalities to "build" short /a/ words - we rolled play dough into letters, we used magnetic letters on cookie sheets, we had a Smart Board activity and our new gel boards. We read "Let's Tap" in our anthology and talked about what happened at the beginning, middle and end of that story. The students were also able to listen to it at our listening center.
In Math, it's all about addition. We learned what an addition sentence is. We talked about the important words "in all" and "sum". We learned about adding zero and how to use pictures to help us figure out a word problem. We had many fun hands on math centers where the students were able to play addition file folder games, "Around the Block" dice game, "3 in a Row" spinner game, and some other fun hands on activities that help everyone learn their math facts.
In Science, we began our Foss Science Kit "Balance and Motion". This unit is a lot of fun (as you can see by our pictures). We started off by learning some important science words such as balance and counterweight. The students were able to experiment and find ways to balance a cardboard crayfish on their finger. How will counterweights (clothespins) help us balance the crayfish on it's nose? The students were then asked to do the first grade version of science "notebooking" - our science investigation sheet. They wrote a sentence or two about what they did and then drew a picture. Fun was had by all!!!

Looking forward:
In ELA - continue on with short vowel /a/ -an family words. We will read "The Van". We will also be finishing up on our assessments.
In Math - it's all about making 7 and 8. What are all of the pairs of numbers (number bonds) that will make 7 and 8? We will also begin looking at adding vertically using dominoes.
In Science - continue with our balance theme. This week we will try to balance an arch and triangle on the edge of a craft stick.

Have a wonderful week and GO PATS!!!!!

Mrs. Muscarella
Mrs. Flynn
Mrs. Fiore