First Grade: Week of October 16th

We had a fun and productive full week in first grade!

First grade writers are almost ready to publish their small moment stories. This week we studied the book “Night of the Veggie Monster” by George McClements to try and see how he makes his writing exciting. We noticed that he uses ellipses to build excitement and tells exact motions to help the reader make a movie in her mind. We also picked out stories to publish. We revised them on Thursday, and will start to edit on Monday.

In Math we are working on addition. First graders have learned three addition strategies: counting on, using a number line, and using our knowledge of number bonds. This week we applied those strategies when solving word problems.

On Friday we went to personal space camp! Using hula hoops, we practiced noticing our own personal space and being respectful of the personal space of our friends.

In Reading we learned a new strategy: look for chunks. When using this strategy, first graders can look for letter combinations they already know such as “at,” “un,” or “ish” to decode unfamiliar words. We practiced this strategy with a new phonics game.

First grade scientists practiced measuring wind strength. They made flags and noticed how they moved in no wind, some wind, and lots of wind.

As part of our neighborhood study, first graders started to learn about all of the people who help our neighborhood thrive: community helpers. Using their own observations and classroom books, first graders made community helper trading cards.

In Hebrew, we learned the letters alef, lamed and yud and we added lots of new words to our word wall. We also learned the verbs, ba (come masculine) and ba’ah (come feminine) and each student shared how he/she comes to school verbally and in writing: by rakevet (train), ofanaeim (bicycle), mechonit (car), otobus (bus) or baregel (walking). Check out our bulletin board for their impressive work! We also went over all of the letters that we have learned so far and realized how much we have learned in such a short amount of time!

In Tefilah, we started learning the Amidah. The Amidah has 19 parts and we are going to learn all of them. Our first graders are definitely up to the challenge! During this prayer we need to stand, by standing we show respect (kavod) to god. This week we learned the introduction to the Amidah, “Adonai Sefatai Tiftach.” which we ask god to open our lips and mouth in meaningful prayer.

In Parasha, we learned about the Noah’s Ark story.  We learned the Hebrew names for a bunch of the animals that Noah took with him on the ark. We also learned that God sent a rainbow to show that he promised never to destroy the world again, and we made our own rainbows and wrote a promise that we wanted to make to someone we care about.

Shabbat Shalom!

Rebecca, Ilana, and Jeanette