First Grade: Week of October 23rd

First graders published their first stories this week! They each chose their favorite small moment story to revise, edit and, finally, publish. On Thursday we had a mini publishing party to celebrate all of their hard work! Their published stories are now in our own classroom library.

First grade mathematicians worked on subtractions strategies this week. They learned how count up, count back, and use their knowledge of number bonds to subtract.

We started reading groups this week. Reading group are a chance to practice reading and share books with a small group of peers.

We read the book “My Mouth is a Volcano” this week. It’s about a boy named Louis who can’t help but interrupt people because his mouth is a volcano! Eventually Louis realizes how it feels to be interrupted, and learns strategies to try and save his words for when it’s his turn to talk. In our classroom we talked about how a good listener can listen with their whole body. We also practiced our listening skills with a round of Simon Says.

In Social Studies we continued to learn about community helpers. First graders are looking forward to our neighborhood scavenger hunt next week!

First grade scientists learned about how we use a thermometer to measure temperature. They practiced reading a thermometer and made their own thermometers to take home!

In Hebrew, we learned the letters hey, shin and sin.We kept practicing our reading and writing with all the letters that we have learned so far. We also learned the verbs shar (sing masculine) and sharah (sing feminine).

In Yahadut, we learned about the amidah prayer. We learned about the meaning of the prayer, when to bow, and how we stand.  We also talked about our forefathers (Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov) and our foremothers (Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel and Leah) and we added one more page to our siddurim.

In Parashah, we learned the Lech Licha story where God tells Avraham to leave his home to go to a new land.  As a class, we went on a journey to a new classroom and reflected on how it felt. We thought about how Avraham might have felt and realized that he had a lot of faith and trust in God.

We had so much fun doing meditation with our fifth grade teacher, Laura. Enjoy the pictures below!

Art with Iviva:

We’re learning about character development and storywriting through drawing. After making masks, we learned about adjectives, and how to select words to describe a person, place, or thing. We chose adjectives to describe the character we created through our mask, and then used a comic-book form to draw stories. Some of us are starting to work together to create new storyboards about our characters meeting. Characters include Egyptian Queens, gorillas, cats, and more.