• Mrs. Gallagher's
     First Grade News
     fall
    October 3-7, 2016
     
     kids   
    Don't forget: 
     
    This Wednesday is Early Release day!  We dismiss at 1:00.
     
    Interim Reports came home Thursday.  Please sign and return these this week if you haven't done so already.
     
    Our reading buddies, Charlie and Ruby, will continue to go home with the kids this week!  There is a book written and illustrated by the kids in the bag.  The kids can keep them for 2 nights.  Please make sure they come back to school after their second night.  ALL the kids are very excited for their turn!
     
     
    word
      
    This weeks words are:
     
    had
    in
    it
    did
     
     
     
     
     read
    Language Arts
     
    This week we will review short u and the diagraph ck.  We will talk about how ck makes one sound.
     
    Don't forget the importance of reading with your children at home!  Keep asking those good questions like: "Who is the main character in this book?"  "What is the setting?"  and before you turn the page, "What is your prediction?"  Ask your child what "connection" they have to the story.  We have connections when we read either text to text, text to self, or text to world.  That simply means something we have experienced or seen before from another story, or in our world.  
     
     
    In writing, we are continuing to write narrative pieces.  This means we are writing about ourselves.  Right now our focus is planning with a picture, writing many sentences about one topic, and trying to remember good finger spacing and attempting to use punctuation.
     
     
    Mathmath
     
     
    Our focus this week continues to be addition and subtraction within 20. We are working on problem solving with word problems this week.  You will see a book come home in homework folders titled, "My Little Book of Addition Strategies."  You will need to work with your child throughout the week completing this book.  This will give you a great idea of all the ways we can solve addition problems.  Each page is a different 'strategy' (that's a big word for first graders, so we define this as a trick to help us solve problems).  Some other BIG words from this book are SUM (the answer in addition) and EQUATION (an addition or subtraction sentence).  
    science Social Studies and/or Science  
     
    I am happy to report my little scientist seem to completely understand FRICTION!  Last week we had another fun week exploring big concepts in science.  To learn why the carpet seems to slow things down we went 'ice skating' through the room on different surfaces.  We cut folders, baggies, and paper to fit under our feet and explored what happened when we tried to 'ice skate' around the room.  Just like the slick floor (that made our cars go really far) our feet slipped all around on the baggies, and were a little harder to move with the paper.  Slick surfaces means less 'grip' or friction.  We watched a fun video about what the world would be like without friction, and thanks to friction we are able to sit, walk, run, play etc.