First Grade – Kitah Alef

We got a lot done on this very short day!  We started with a journal question which illustrated the life cycle of the frog.  We then moved on to the weather and days of the week.  We were able to start a bit of our math before it was time for the Bikkurim Festival.

After our festival we came back and had snack.  We also got to watch a show!  We went to library after snack time.

When we came back from library we worked in our math workbooks.  We learned about shopping earlier in the morning!  We got to practice in our workbook.   PLEASE REMEMBER TO PLAY WITH MONEY AT HOME!  THIS WILL BE A HUGE PLUS TO HELP US LEARN!!!

Once we finished math we started language arts.  We did a syllables worksheet where we had to ‘clap out’ words!  Then we all got to do a reader’s theater!

Then it was time to go home!  Have a happy Shavuot!!

(Ms. Lewis will not be at school on Friday.  Ms. Tolisano will take GREAT care of us and will be teaching!!  If you need to get in touch with Ms. Lewis, she will be available via email!!)

We had a great Monday!  Everyone was so focused and we had a great fun day We started our morning with the journal question, days of the week, and the weather.

We started language arts after our morning work.  During language arts we did our work that we were supposed to do last Friday!  We worked in our grammar book talking all about commands.  In our practice book we learned a little about how to take notes.  We also got to buddy read our story from last week, “Tippy-Toe, Chick, Go!’.  Once we finished language arts we went to art.

We came back from art and had snack.  We jumped right into math after snack.  We did our problem of the day and then had a quick review.  We took a test after our review!  They will be in our daily folders tomorrow.  Our test was all about money; bills and coins.  It would be SO beneficial to ALL students to start playing with money at home.  By playing with the spare change and bills it helps us to get familiar with the values, names, and what each coin/bill looks like.  

After math we got to go outside for recess.  We went straight to lunch then came back to do social studies.  We did a weekly reader all about the needs of seeds!  We also had a little bit of science today.  Jake found a diagram that helped us to visualize the life cycle of a frog!  We read the stages and then got to color the pictures!

Then it was off to Jewish studies.

Tomorrow is Tuesday.  The school will be celebrating Shavuot tomorrow so remember to send in a basket with fruits and vegetables. Also send your child dressed in white–It does not have to be uniform clothes. If your child doesn’t have white bottoms, khaki is fine.   Please remember that our students will be carrying their own baskets so make it manageable for them–it doesn’t need to be filled with large amounts of fruits and vegetables.  Students will be dismissed at NOON tomorrow and there is NO SCHOOL Wednesday and Thursday of this week. 

There is NO HOMEWORK this week: no math, no spelling.  You can still read if you want…I would, it’s so much fun

Whew!!  We had an INSANELY busy day!!!

We started our morning VERY early.  SO early that we didn’t do the journal question, we didn’t do the weather, and we didn’t do the days of the week!  We started with science. As many of you know, the tadpoles have arrived, I repeat, the tadpoles have arrived!!!  We have a 20gallon tank filled with about 1000 (or more) tadpoles!!  We got rocks, weeds, and extra water this morning for our tadpoles.  They came in a bucket so we poured the whole thing into our tank and got more stuff to add.

We managed to get all this done before our 9:00 assembly for Memories of Love!

Ms. Lewis said yesterday that we probably won’t be able to watch the WHOLE life cycle of our tadpoles because it is so close to the end of the year.  During our research yesterday we discovered that it can take 6-9 weeks just to turn from a tadpole to a froglet!  So, Ms. Lewis said that we could each take home some tadpoles at the end of the year so that we can continue to watch the life cycle!  I will post more information and send emails when it gets closer to adoption time.  This is an OPTIONAL adoption, it is not required to take home any tadpoles at the end of the year.  We can discuss the habitat they need, what they eat, and more details.

After we got back from the assembly we took our spelling test and did our problem of the day.  We took a break from our regular lessons because we had SO much to do today!  Once we finished our work for the day we had snack and got started on our secret art activities.  We get to take them home and we hope that everyone likes their surprises!

After we finished our activities we got to go outside until the 4th graders came.  Some of the 4th graders created tutorials to teach about pronouns and homonyms.  They were great!!  We really enjoyed learning from our 4th grade friends!!!  Once 4th grade was finished teaching us we went to lunch.

After lunch we had a mystery reader!  Our mystery reader read to us in Hebrew and in English!  Thanks so much to…………………..Hallel’s mom for reading to us!!

Congratulations to Evan who gets to take home Jerry before his big trip to New York next week!!  Hallel, Lucy, and Jacob G., won the ticket drawing–great work!

Next week is a VERY short week!  We will not have homework or spelling words.

Have a great weekend and Shabbat Shalom!

We started our Thursday morning with the journal question, days of the week, and the weather.  We also spent some time talking about our upcoming schedule and sharing announcements.  We went to PE and came back to start math.  Since we had so much to talk about this morning, we only did our problem of the day for math and then we moved on to language arts.  We will continue with our regular math lessons tomorrow!

We started language arts with our practice book.  During the middle of language arts we had our first real code red (drill) with the whole school.  We did a great job! We were in our safe place for the longest that we had ever been (at least 7-8 minutes).  It got a little toasty, but we did wonderful!  We were quiet and were great listeners.  Once we got the ‘OK’ to get out of our safe place we started language arts again.  We talked more about commands in our grammar book.  We also did some silent reading with our Reading Street story.  Once we finished language arts we had snack and got our AR books so we could review before it was time to take our quiz.  After our quizzes we went to the library to get new books for NOT NEXT WEEK, but the week after.  Our next AR quiz will be May 20.  

We went to music and then straight to lunch.  After lunch we got to go outside for a little bit!  When we came back inside we started science.  We are VERY excited to announce that after watching the life cycle of a butterfly, we are now going to watch the life cycle of a frog…well frog(s)!  Ms. Lewis will be bringing in tadpoles (A LOT!) tomorrow for us to observe!  They will be in a tank and we will give them pond water.  We did lots of research during science about what tadpoles eat, how there water should be, and how long it takes for them to grow.  We are super excited to start watching!!

After science we went to Jewish Studies.

Tomorrow is Friday.  WE ARE SOOOOOOOOO BUSY TOMORROW!!!  In the morning we have a Rosh Chodesh assembly.  We have 4th grade coming to teach us a special language arts lesson.  We also have some surprise work to do that we will get to take home!  After lunch we even have a mystery reader!!  Whew!

WE WILL NOT HAVE SHOW&TELL TOMORROW! (We won’t have time.)

HOMEWORK IS DUE TOMORROW!!  DON’T FORGET TO STUDY FOR YOUR SPELLING TEST!

What an amazing Wednesday!  We started our morning with the journal question, the weather, and the days of the week.  We all got to share our journal responses so we worked up until it was time for PE.

When we came back from PE we started math.  We began with our problem of the day and then started to work independently in our workbooks.  We were still working on counting change.  It is important that we practice at home!!  We can help at the grocery store, or just count some change at home to get familiar with the names and values of each coin.

We had snack and then had the BEST SKYPE CALL EVER!!!

We finally got to meet the infamous Mike Fisher.  He came to us via Skype wearing a sombrero and sunglasses.  He was silly!  It made us think he was in Mexico, but he tricked us!

  We guess where he was first.  He gave us some tricky answers, but we figured it out!    He was in Buffalo, NY!  After we figured out where Mr. Fisher was we asked some fun questions.  Mr. Fisher shared some of the poems he wrote with the 4th grade illustrations.  Mr. Fisher did something VERY special and even wrote a poem JUST FOR US!  We have a secret plan (It’s so secret that only Ms. Lewis and Ms. Tolisano know about it..so far!!) about something fun we are going to do with the poem Mr. Fisher wrote for us.  Mr. Fisher asked us questions about school, about our favorite books, and about traveling!  We introduced Jerry also.  We all came up with a plan…..Jerry is going to TRAVEL to Mr. Fisher!  We are going to send Jerry to Mr. Fisher next Monday and the following week, when Mr. Fisher has Jerry and Jerry’s journal, he is going to take Jerry somewhere special and we will Skype again.  Ask your kids where Jerry will be going

   After our 47 minute Skype call (!!!!!!!) we started language arts.

During language arts we talked more about commands and we worked with our high frequency words.  We also read our next story.  We started our LAST reading street book today!  Our story was called ‘Tippy-Toe, Chick Go!’  It was a very good story!  It told us that it doesn’t matter how small you are, you can always solve a problem if you try your best and use your brain

After language arts it was time for lunch.  We got to go outside after lunch and then when we came back inside we started our spelling bee.  During our spelling bee we had a practice code red.  Ms. Lewis and Ms. Tolisano were SO proud of how well we did!  We all got to move our clips up for doing a great practice drill!

We finished our spelling bee and then it was time to pack up for Jewish studies.

Tomorrow is Thursday.  We have PE, AR quizzes, and music.  DO NOT FORGET YOUR AR BOOK!

We started out our morning with the journal question (which we all got to share!), the weather, and the days of the week.  Since we shared our journals, we didn’t have very much time after we finished our morning work!  We went right to PE after the pledge and hatikvah.

After we came back from PE we started science.  We talked about the nonliving parts of a pond.  SOme of the examples we came up with are the sunlight, soil, and rocks.

After science we had snack and got to watch some of ‘Cyberchase.’  Once we finished snack it was time for library.

We came back from library and started math.  We completed our problem of the day first and got a pirate sticker!  After POTD we started working in our textbook.  We continued to learn about money!  We are still getting familiar with the coins, bills, and values.  Once we finished textbook we had some independent work in our workbook.  We worked on math up until it was time for lunch.

When we came back from lunch we started language arts.  In our practice book we worked with a lot of words that end in ‘le’.  We also got some practice with our high frequency words.  In our grammar book we talked and learned about commands.  A command is a sentence that tells someone to do something (nicely). We specifically discussed that by adding ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ to a command, it can be much more polite.  We also practiced our ABC order!

Tomorrow we will be having a mystery skype.  We know who we are skyping with, but the mystery is the location.  We are skyping with Mike Fisher!  As some of you may know, Mike Fisher has been working with our 4th grade at MJGDS.  He is an author and wrote many poems; our fourth graders are illustrating his poems and they will be published together!  So, to get ready for our skype session with Mr. Fisher, some of the 4th graders came to talk to us about what they have done with him!

Once the 4th graders left it was time to go to Jewish studies.

We had a bright, sunny, cheerful Monday!  We really enjoyed a day of no rain!!  We started our Monday morning with our journal questions, days of the week, and the weather.  Our journal question this morning was quite thought provoking…’When does a problem need a clever solution?’  Feel free to share more responses as a comment!

We started language arts with our practice book.  It was a great introduction to our new spelling words!  We took our spelling pre-test after we finished in our practice book.  Once we finished our spelling pre-test we talked about advice.  We talked about what it is and how we can give it.  Then Ms. Lewis gave us a situation: ‘Dear 1st Grade Advice Team, My neighbor’s dog barks all night long.  I cannot get any sleep.   What should I do? From, Tired.’  We wrote back to Tired!  We gave him great advice.  Some of the examples were talking tot he dog owner, closing the windows, playing soft music, or getting earplugs.  Once we finished language arts it was time for art!

When we came back from art we had snack and then started math.  We started a new unit in math…MONEY!  We are SO excited about starting our money unit.  We had only a brief introduction today and will continue to work on this new talent through next week.  We helped Ms. Lewis count the change she had in her purse and we helped her count her cash!  We had a bit of recess time before lunch.

After lunch we had science.  During science we learned all about ponds.  We learned why we need them, what they look like, and even what’s in them!  We are hoping to get some tadpoles from Ms. Lewis’ friend so we can watch them grow.  If you have tadpoles in your backyard, let Ms. Lewis know and maybe we can watch THEM grow too!!  We got to take a mini field trip to a pond behind the school.  We saw all sorts of stuff that we already talked about in our book!  We saw bugs, fish, ducks, geese, and even a turtle!!

When we came back inside it was time for Jewish studies.

Tomorrow is Tuesday.  We have PE and library.  We are your sneakers and don’t forget your library books!

We started our morning with the journal, weather, and days of the week.  We jumped right into language arts and started with our grammar book. In our grammar book we had practice with identifying comparing adjectives.  In our practice book we got to review some of our spelling words before we took our test!  We went to library and came back to take our test.

During library we worked on our research project!

After we finished our spelling test we had snack.  We did math after snack.  Since we had worked SO hard on math during the whole week we had very little to do in math today.  We did our problem of the day and we got to watch a BrainPop video!  Then we started social studies.  During social studies we read a weekly reader all about the eggs of different animals!

Once we finished social studies we got to have show and tell!  A lot of people brought in some really cool things to share!  It was very exciting

After show and tell we got to have recess until lunchtime.

After lunch we had our Jerry drawing.  Congratulations Jacob M.  We know that Jerry will have a great time with you!!!  Our ticket winners were Jett, Jacob G., and Jake.  (So many ‘J’ winners today!) Great work boys!

BIG ‘thank you’ to our (last minute) mystery reader!  We had such a great time reading books with……………………….

Lily’s dad!  He brought some silly books, it was a lot of fun!

Have a great weekend and a good Shabbos!!!