Fifty-Eighth Day of School

Reminder: It would be helpful if no one wore green on Monday.

Hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween.

Fifty-Seventh Day of School

Some students who have completed their Informational Writing Unit Project have begun to learn Java Script computer coding using "drag and drop" technology.

Five students have completed their Unit Project. The projects are posted in the classroom.

Fifty-Second Day of School

District Math Tests have been scored and are available for review in the classroom. The 4 questions were scored on a rubric with 4 points maximum for each question making 4 the lowest overall score possible (1 point for each question) to 16 the highest attainable score possible (4 points for each question).

Week 12 fluency scores will be compiled and posted in the classroom by Wednesday.

Science and Social Science Tests

Students have taken their notes home to study.

Concepts for the Social Science test:

• Our climate and environment dictates the nature of needs. People who live in cold climates will need warmer clothes and shelter. Children will do different things for fun depending on their climate.
• Living beings have specific survival needs: air, water, food, and shelter (necessarily in that order).
• Some occupations/businesses provide goods (market, bakery, toy store) some provide services (library, bank, salon).
• A tradition is an activity (behavior) that is often repeated through generations. In the United States, many people celebrate holidays such as Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter, and Independence Day (Fourth of July).
• We can find differences and similarities in the past and the present.
• Education/School: 
• In the past, many schools only had one room with one teacher teaching several grades without computers.
• In the present, teachers and students of the same age use computers to learn in schools with many rooms.
• Transportation:
• In the past, people used beasts of burden/animal power for their transportation needs.
• In the present, most forms of road transportation use fuel powered engines.
• Commerce/Stores:
• In the past, people may have shopped in "general stores" which sold a variety of goods and services.
• In the present, there are many more specialty-type stores (grocery stores, clothing stores, toy stores, etc.).

Students will have the opportunity to explain their understanding of the Social Science principles with words and labeled pictures.

Concepts for the Science Test:

• There are 3 states of matter: solid, liquid, and gas.
• Matter can change from one state to another by adding or removing heat.
• Some examples of solids are: stone, wood, paper, rubber, and ice.
• Some examples of liquids are: water, gasoline, and milk.
• Some examples of gases are: steam, oxygen, and helium.
• Forms of matter have observable properties;
• liquids take the shape of their container and can be colorless, opaque, bubbly, viscous, transparent, translucent, etc.
• solids do not take the shape of their container and can be hard, cold, soft, flexible, rigid, etc.

Unit 2 Week 4 Preview

Continuing our exploration of families and neighbors, we ask the question: what is a home? Our oral vocabulary words are collapse, company, construct, entire, and material. Our high-frequency focus words are again, could, make, one, then, three. For spelling we will focus on short-vowel 'u'. Our grammar rule will be proper nouns and capitalization.

For discussion: What constitutes a home? (A family or dweller, the building materials, and the neighborhood or community.)

Week 12 fluency assessments will be administered this week.

Reading logs due Friday.

Reminders:

Every year Room 11 has the tradition of electing a class president. This supports the government portion of our Social Science standards. Those students interested in running for Room 11 Class President 2014-15 will work on a speech at home to be delivered to the class on November 3, 2014. Speeches will be filmed using chroma key technology and saved to flash drives.

Students who would like to have their videos edited, will make sure they are not wearing any shade of green in any part of their outfit.

On this day we will also try to film our expert interviews. Those students wanting their interviews to be edited will also need to remember not to wear green on that Monday. Make sure to practice these and these questions to improve oral fluency.

Topic 4 Math Test Results

Of 22 recorded tests taken, 18 students passed with a score of 12 or better, with 3 perfect scores and 1 near perfect 22.

Soon we will begin taking timed math fact tests. Tomorrow we will take the first portion of the district math test.

Unit 2 Week 3 Preview

We begin looking at maps to find our place in the neighborhood, city, state, country, and world. We review the strategies of finding main idea and details to aid comprehension and continue our work with summarizing. Our oral vocabulary words are amazed, frequently, service, useful, variety. Our sight words are live, many, out, place. In spelling we take a look at blends with 's' and 'r' (spill, still, grab, drip).

We will review concepts learned so far in Science and Social Studies in preparation for testing.

Topic 3 Math Test this week.

Forty-Third Day of School

In Social Science today, we learned how living in a different climate can change one's lifestyle and alter one's needs (food, clothing, shelter)(tested).

We were also joined by Principal Brooks for our writing lesson today on editing/proofreading for punctuation and run-on sentences.

In language arts we worked in teams to compose concise summaries of this weeks selection, The Little Red Hen. Our work is posted in the classroom for interested parents. It was interesting to see how man ways a simple story could be concisely summarized by 1st graders.

Remember to practice writing (saying) summaries at home. Try this: Read aloud a story as a family. Have everyone in the family write a concise summary. See who can write the most concise (fewest words) summary or the most interesting. Then, work together to write a group summary. Make sure to include all elements including theme. Look here for a more detailed explanation of summary. If you subscribe to Netflix, there are many examples (both good and bad) of concise summaries used as movie descriptions.

Keep in mind a non-fiction informative-piece (article, documentary) summary has a somewhat different structure. It will often tell how the author's information was collected, possibly how the information is organized, and the author's purpose for the work's creation.

Cumulative Math Practice (Important)

• A family of 7 walks through the park together. Two parents are followed by their children.  How many children are there? Explain your thinking using pictures (a model), numbers or words. Write a number sentence that shows how you solved the problem.
• Greg says, "It's easy to do subtraction; just use addition." He says, " To solve 8-5= _, just add 8+5." Explain how Greg is right and wrong using words, pictures, and numbers.
• Vanna is confused by this problem: _=12-5. Write 2 addition number sentences that might help her understand and solve it. Also, use words, pictures, or numbers.
• In the classroom, there are 8 friends playing a game. Some more classmates join them. Now there are 10 playing together. How many friends came? Write an addition and a subtraction sentence to match the story. Use the same numbers to write 3 more number sentences.

Please comment below or contact the teacher if you have any questions.

At-Home Project

Every year Room 11 has the tradition of electing a class president. This supports the government portion of our Social Science standards. Those students interested in running for Room 11 Class President 2013-14 will work on a speech at home to be delivered to the class. Speeches will be due on Monday November 3rd. Voting will take place on Tuesday November 4th. Credit for this At-Home Project will count towards the second reporting period.

Unit 2 Week 2 Preview

This week we discuss cooperation and our role in helping out. We discuss families and neighbors working together to help each other. Our oral vocabulary words are appreciate, partner, cooperate, responsibility, and delectable. This week we will continue with the comprehension strategy of summarizing. We will focus on short vowel 'e' (tell, went) in spelling and touch on long 'o' spelled 'o_e' (hope, note). Our sight vocabulary words are eat, no, of, some, who. For grammar we will pluralize nouns requiring '-es' (lunches, dishes).

 It is expected for parents to know the neighborhood worker of their child's choosing and to be discussing the tools, dress, and duties of the worker in order to facilitate and improve writing fluency. 

In Social Science we will discuss at length how physical environments affect the way people live (food, shelter, clothing, transportation, recreation) (HSS 1.2.4) (tested). We will compare the environments of Alaska, Spain, and California.

Notes on Topic 4 Math

In case you haven't noticed, this topic in math is about process, or strategies to help solve math equations. As discussed at Back-to-School Night, children should memorize and be fluent with doubles facts. One parent asked that evening, "How far?" The response was: "As far as possible; at least to 20" (2+2, and 3+3, etc.).

The reason for this is that many of the other strategies depend on a child knowing these facts quickly. If a child knows 6+6, then it is not a far leap to 6+7. Likewise if faced with 6+8 (numbers separated by 2) this can be thought of as 7+7 since 1 from the 8 given to the 6 will make 7 and 7. Hence, 7+9 is like 8+8 and so forth. These strategies are only employed for numbers separated by 1 or 2 since there are better strategies for numbers with greater differences, such as making ten. That means that it is also greatly important (as discussed) that the children also know the parts of 10 fluently (i.e., 1 and 9, 2 and 8, etc.).

Not to mention the fact that following this topic, we will begin our speed math tests. If children do not have to rely on the very slow strategy of counting on their fingers, they should be able to pass math fact tests with greater ease.

Unit 2 Week 1 Preview

Our weekly themes in this second unit will center around our families and our neighbors having already examined ourselves, our abilities, and our growth. Our last idea about teams was that families are the most important kind of team. This week, we will explore the idea of families taking care of each other. For a Unit Project students will focus on a worker of their choice and write an expository piece about them. Our oral vocabulary words are guide, protect, provide, separate, wild. Our sight words are her, our, they, two. Our comprehension strategy this week will be to focus on summarizing a selection. We learn to summarize by developing the skill of distinguishing main ideas from details. Summarizing a selection is a different skill than a retell. Where a retell would be to tell a story in our own words with as much interesting detail as possible, a summary isolates only the most important ideas answering the basic questions of who? what? where? when? why? and perhaps how? This story is about a girl walking in the forest who seeks food and rest in the home of 3 bears. In phonics and spelling, will take a more detailed look at some long vowel spellings this week beginning with 'a_e'  (cane) and 'i_e' (ride) along with inflectional ending '-ed'. In grammar we will discuss sentence subjects and nouns.

For Social Science we will continue comparing and contrasting the past with the present (HSS 1.1.4) (tested). We will examine photos of schools long ago.

In Science we will explore a liquid which seems to possess some properties of a solid.

In PE we will combine several skills practiced so far to play a fast-paced, high-energy game of sockball.

Topic 3 Math Test Results

Of 23 recorded tests, 19 students passed with an adjusted score of 12 or better. Two students achieved a perfect score.

Thirty-Fifth Day of School

No homework tonight.

We took the Topic 3 Math Test today. We also worked on our 4th Math Report counting collections.

Reminder: Do not send candy as a snack for nutrition.

Thirty-Fourth Day of School

There is no homework today. Prepare for Math Test.

For Oral Language practice:

• How did Roberto Clemente grow up?
• What was he known for?
• What type of person was Roberto Clemente?
• What did Roberto Clemente want to do once he achieved his dream?
• How did Roberto Clemente die?

These are the questions we generated for Oral Language practice and every child should be able to answer these questions in detailed complete sentences (graded).