Week 27: March 4 - March 8

Welcome to another week in first grade. Thank you so much for reading our weekly news. Last we had such a busy week beginning two new units and finishing off our Social Studies work on families. It was exciting to see our own reviews in the library. They were so popular that our librarian asked if she could keep them on display for 3 more days. Wow! Great work first grade students!

From the Curriculum Corner

Readers Workshop

Dramatizing Characters

Essential Questions:

- How do you bring characters to life?
- What is the role of the director?

This week we will begin to look at Character Inference. In our books we will be stopping and thinking about how the character feels and how our voice should sound when the character is speaking. We will be exploring tag words (eg: shouted & cried) and punctuation. These are both tools that guide the reader to understand how the characters are feeling.

Writers Workshop

From Scenes to Series: Writing Fiction

Essential Question:

- How can I use what I have learnt from other authors to help me?

- When I want to tell my story to other people, what steps can I take to revise my first draft to make it better?
This week writers will be taking stock and asking themselves, "What am I doing well?" and "What do I want to improve on?" After reflecting on their writing students will begin to learn about how to write a series book. Writers will discover how to introduce their character in book one and how to make their characters come alive by using dialogue.

Sharing realistic fiction stories

HELP NEEDED

If you are a family that eats cereal for breakfast, please save the boxes. We are needing cereal boxes for our writing unit. Please start saving them now and send them to school when it is convenient for you.

Math

Essential Question:

- What are efficient ways to count?
- How does counting by tens and ones help you count larger numbers?
- What is place value?
- How does a digit's position affect it's place value?
- How can numbers be expressed and compared?
- In what way can numbers be composed and decomposed?

This week our first grade mathematicians will use their knowledge of place value to add two-digit numbers by adding like place value units. They will need to use all they have learnt to add a pair of two-digit numbers when the ones digit has a sum that is greater than 10.
We will end the week with our module 4 assessment to see what our first graders have learnt.

                                

Parent Tips Topic E

Parent Tips Topic F

Science

Essential Question: Why and how do scientists change matter?

In this unit students will understand that solids and liquids have properties that can be changed. This week we will be introducing the concept of matter and learning about the different types of matter. Students will see that matter can either be a solid, liquid or gas. For this unit, we will focus on just solids and liquids. Students will be introduced to lots of different scientific vocabulary and gain an understanding about what a scientist is and does.

Counseling Corner

Dear CAC Parents,

In guidance we are discussing strong emotions, how they make our bodies feel and calming down strategies. It is important for kids to understand that everyone gets upset but that we are still responsible for our behaviors.

We discussed the concept of “flipping our lids” and how to calm down when our emotions take over our thinking.  We are sharing calming down strategies and practicing different ways to calm ourselves down when upset.  Grade one students  will make a stress ball that they can use as another strategy for calming down. 

Please share with your children strategies that you use when you have a strong emotion.

Best Wishes,

Ms. Purpura

CIRCLE SOLUTIONS:

1C Unfortunately 1C will not be having circle time this week due to the CAC holiday on March 8

1M  In our lives we all find challenging situations that we call "amygdala moments". This week we will continue to talk about those situations, and how we can best react to them, acknowledging our feelings and taking a moment to think and not react. 

1S  This week we will be focusing on emotional knowledge, students will learn about different feelings and how to understand these feelings. Students will brainstorm different strategies that can help us to manage these feelings. 

Shelter Drill

We will be having a drill on March 12 to practice shelter procedures. Teachers will discuss this as “shelter practice” with students in age-appropriate ways, but you may also want to also talk to your child about the subject. Last year, we shared this article with helpful suggestions for talking to children about safety procedures and practices. One of the things addressed is the impact of the terminology we use. Staff members will be going over this in advance, as we work together to ensure that students feel safe, protected, and aware of what to do in different situations.

Talking to your kids about a lock down

- The drill will be held at 12:00 pm, so if you are on campus, we ask that you follow instructions when asked to go to a safe place.
- Everyone who is outside will be moved to the ES Hall.

Important Dates to Remember:

March 4 - 10: ASA session 3 sign up
March 7: Early release day (Students dismissed at 11:30)
March 8: CAC holiday
March 12: Shelter Drill
March 14: Parent / Teacher Conferences (No school for students)
March 18: ASA session 3 begins


If you have any other questions or concerns about this week, please don't hesitate to contact your classroom teacher.

Your Partners in Learning,

Taryn Carr (tcarr@cacegypt.org)
Gaby Morales (gmorales@cacegypt.org)

Charlie Saunders (csaunders@cacegypt.org)