Friday, November 29, 2013

This week

This week we will begin our Maps Unit.  This social studies SOL will be incorporated into reading, writing and theme time.  

We will begin with learning the basic map facts like what is a compass rose and a map legend.   We will then move into learning about where VA is located in relation to the USA and the rest of the world.  We will also learn important symbols on a map.

We will incorporate this theme with writing by reading the book As the Crow Flies.  This book follows a crow as it flies through different areas and shows a map of each place the crow flies.  The students will use this format as a guideline to make their own map stories using the 4 square model.

We will review addition in math.  We will review different strategies to help us solve addition problems.  We will play some games and work on creating our own addition problems.  

Reminders for this week:

Friday is a half-day!  Students will be dismissed at 12:30.  PLEASE be aware of this.

Please send in snack daily with your child.

Our room is cold, please send in a light sweater/sweatshirt for your child to keep at school for these chilly days.

If you are able to send in some extra snacks for those forget days, we would appreciate that.

I hope you all enjoyed turkey time with your kiddos!  Thank you for your continued support!

Mrs. Beltz



Making Butter

Making Butter

We finished our past, present/long ago and today unit with making our butter.  We did a lot of learning about how things for the pilgrims and for children not too many years ago, had a very different life style than we do.  We talked about how they couldn't go to the grocery store and pick up some butter like we can.  The class learned that the Pilgrim children almost daily had to churn their own butter and how it was a pretty long process.  

We opened the wall and made some butter with Mrs. Martell's class.  What fun!

Enjoy some of our pictures from butter making:








I saved the best picture for last!  He DID NOT want to try the butter and I kept saying just try it....with many repeats he finally said, if I try it you just let me BE...and he DID!  He had us in stitches!

Author Visit

WES welcomed author and illustrator
Jim Arnosky

Mr. Arnosky talk about how he wrote his books, where he got his inspiration and sang some songs with the students.  They really enjoyed his visit!




Many Thanks to our awesome PTA for sponsoring his visit~

Saturday, November 16, 2013

This week...

This week will be another busy one in First Grade!  Lots of learning and fun to be had!

We will continue to do reading groups and word study.  We will read in small groups as well as in whole group ( as always ).

We will integrate our Social Studies SOL in our writing this week.  We will use four square to write about when we were babies, what we can do now and what we want to do when we grow up.

In math, we will review basic patterns and learn about growing patterns.  We will compare the two and make growing patterns in various ways.

We will continue to learn about timelines, past and present in Social Studies.  The class really enjoyed seeing pictures of things we use everyday from the past.  

Things to remember:
We are BEES in the upcoming Holiday Program. Your child will need to wear black pants and a black shirt.  If you do not have black pants, a black shirt will be plenty.  If you have already purchased yellow that is fine too!  We will be putting either yellow or black stripes on your child's shirt here at school. 

Fall break- November 27-29 

December 6 is a half day for all Elementary Students

Have a great rest of the weekend!
Mrs. Beltz

Money Songs

Money Songs

We found some great songs on youtube to help us remember the coins, their values and other characteristics.

Check them out here!


Enjoy!

Flashlight Friday!

Flashlight Friday!

This week we partnered up and found a quiet spot to read but instead of the same old, same old, we turned off all the lights and read with our flashlights!  They had a blast! 


Special Thanks to the parents who sent in flashlights for the entire class!










Sunday, November 10, 2013

This week...

Wow!  I know it was a "short" week but our superstars worked hard right up until the last minute on Friday!  I am very proud of them and they never once complained!

They also got the chance to celebrate their greatness on Monday with lunch with me in the classroom!
30 dots for a special reward!

Tomorrow is red, white and blue day!  We will read, write and learn all about the meaning of Veteran's day tomorrow.

This week we will continue to read, write and read some more.  We will review how to write a friendly letter and write letters to our Veterans.  In reading we will focus on making predictions, with an emphasis on predictions are not right or wrong they are guesses.  

We will focus on identifying all the coins, their characteristics and how much they are worth.  We will do this through hands-on experiences, looking at money under a magnifying glass and through other computer programs.

This week we will learn/review the terms, past, present and future.  We will work on identifying items, communities, school houses and may other things in the past, present and what we think they might look like in the future.  

A few items we are need of:
Flashlights with batteries-  we will be using these weekly and your child can bring his/her flashlight 
at the end of the year.
White Copy Paper

Many thanks and have a great week!
Mrs. Beltz

      

Saturday, November 2, 2013

This Week....

This week...

There is NO SCHOOL for students on Tuesday, November 5!!!!!

This week we will continue to read, read, read.  We will continue our focus on short a and short u words.  We will also begin to learn about plurals and words that end with double final consonants.  Word study has been going well and the students have been scoring well on their assessments.  Now the goal is to have them apply these spelling features to their every day writing.  We will write about our Not-A-Stick this week.  I hope you enjoyed their Not-A-Box stories from last week.

We will continue to learn about measuring and then begin to talk about volume.  We will use different objects to fill a variety of containers and talk about why some containers only needed a small amount to fill and others large amounts.  We will also read a story about 3 bears and a little lost girl to help us with this SOL.

We will continue to talk about Fall weather/seasonal changes.  We will review how animals, plants, and humans are affected by the weather.  We are making a book about this SOL.  When the book comes home, encourage your child to read it to you.

Time is flying by and we are learning so much.  Please remember if you have any concerns contact me.

Reminders:
First 9 weeks report cards will be coming home on Thursday.  Please look it over, sign and return.
Conferences are November 12.  I will contact you if we need to schedule a conference.

Many Thanks,
Mrs. Beltz

Pictures from Fall Fun!

 Some of our Favorite Story Book Characters...Can you guess who we are???





 We had a special guest reader from 3rd grade...Ava's sister Alyssa.  She did an awesome job!


 We did some measuring with ghosts and spiders.  We had to measure how many ghosts long we could move our spider.  
  We played sight word bingo using candy corn as our markers.  A fun and sugar filled way to review our sight words. 


We finished with our tasty treats.  Yummy!

We even got to celebrate Makiya's Birthday!

Thank you to every one who contributed to our fun filled day!