​ First Grade News    

ISSUE 19 FEBRUARY 1, 2019 

Reading  Writer’s Workshop 

In Reader’s Workshop this week, first  This week, first graders continued 
graders practiced checking that  teaching with their pictures, adding 
words looked right and made sense  arrows, labels, text boxes, words, and 
in their nonfiction books by doing a  much more. They also worked on being 
slow check. They also found and  brave spellers, spelling “fancy” 
thought about keywords in their stories. First graders  domain-specific words in their writing. 
learned that when readers run into a n​ ew​ word, they  First graders enjoyed working with writing buddies to 
don’t ignore those words, they say the word the best  help them add and subtract from their teaching books. 
they can and think, “What does this new word mean?”   
  Math 
Fundations  This week in math, first graders 
We kicked off Unit 8 this week in Fundations. During  worked on a variety of activities. 
this unit, students learn the difference between a  They solved addition and 
blend and a digraph. A digraph contains two  subtraction story problems, 
consonants and only makes one sound (i.e. sh, /sh/). A  investigated with place value, and 
blend, however, contains two or more consonants but  completed assessments for progress 
they each make their own sound, such as /s/ and /l/ in  reports. First graders were hard 
the word slip. First graders practiced marking up  workers this week! 
blends by underlining each consonant:   
 

s​ ​l​ i p 
Science 
  First graders continued learning 
We also practiced reading and spelling two  about sound this week. They 
r-controlled vowels (ar-car-/ar/ and or-horn-/or/) and  performed experiments with a 
learned three new trick words: would, could, should.  variety of tools, including cups and 
 
rubber bands, to try to create 
vibrations and different types of 
sounds. 
 

Save the Date  

January 29th - February 1st​: Winter Book Fair 
February 11th​: 100th Day of School Celebrations 
February 12th​: Early Release (12:15pm) 
February 14th​: Classroom Valentine Exchange 
February 15th​: Mitchell School Pajama Day! 
February 18th-22nd​: February Recess 
  February 25th​: Classes Resume 
   
  

​ First Grade News