Our Scholastic News App...Today, your child is taking home our first Scholastic News magazine and a letter that includes an online password for our Scholastic News app that you can use at home. On Thursday, we read about fire safety and how goats can stop fires (who knew?). If you decide to go online with your first grader to view the magazine, video and/or games, please use the archived magazine topics (last month) and/or the magazine that we had just read. We would like to save October's magazines for the next few weeks during school. Thank you!
Our October Scholastic Book Order...due next Friday!
Our Shutterfly Account...You should have received an email last week inviting you to join our free (private) class account on Shutterfly. If you did not receive an invitation, please let me know! Because I invited you, you automatically have access to this site. Through Shutterfly, you establish your own personal password. For field trips and class parties, please feel free to upload pictures to the Shutterfly account as well. As always, please refrain from posting any pictures that you take on social media sites without the permission from all the parents of the children in the pictures. Thank you!
Our math...we've been working on "turn-around facts" (the commutative property of addition). We know that when you have two addends (4+3) and you change the order of the addends (3+4), they will equal the same sum. We have also been exploring different ways to make the same sum (9+1, 8+2, 7+3, 6+4...all equal 10). More addition strategies are on the dock for next week!
Our reading...for our author study, we've been focusing on Kevin Henkes books this month. We've focused in on explaining characters, setting, problem, solution and the heart of the story (what we can learn). As you are reading to your child, ask if they have connections to another book that they have read. They have been experts in finding connections to their lives and to other books:
- Who does this character remind you of? How are they the same/different?
- Is the setting/problem/solution of this story like any other stories we have read?
Our first field trip...is coming up this Friday! We will be taking the bus to the Fulton Street Farmer's Market in the morning. Please check the weather as we might need hats & gloves since we will be outside all morning. We will have a scavenger hunt, looking for various goods, services, consumers, producers, and many more impressive economic resources. Volunteers: please look for an email early in the week explaining our trip in more detail. Please be ready to bring a camera device to take pictures during our scavenger hunt!
Our first expert of the week...Catherine Grin was our first expert of the week this week! She brought in a variety of Richard Scarry books and showed us the wonderful characters and small moments in his books. Each week, we randomly choose a new expert for the following week. Usually, we will have the expert present on the following Thursday around 3pm. Any family member(s) are welcome to attend. If that time does not work for you, please let me know and we can make adjustments!
Enjoy this beautiful October weekend! Please look for conference times (for November) to come home next week!
