Happy Thanksgiving!

Enjoy the break! 

Curriculum

Reading:
This week, students continued to practice their decoding strategies and digraphs.  Next week, we will begin learning about fluency.  Students will learn what fluency is and how to read accurately and with expression.    

Book Baggies:
Please remind students to return their book baggies on Friday along with bookmarks and tracking sheets.  That way, if needed, I can change their levels and we can keep track of the books they are taking home.

Writing:
Students continued to draft their writing this week.  They also had an opportunity to revise and edit their own writing.  Next week, we will work on publishing and sharing our personal narratives.

Math:
This week, we learned about frames and arrows.  We learned how they can be used to add, subtract and skip count.  Next week, we will wrap up Unit 3 with our assessment on Wednesday.  We will then reflect on our Unit 3 Math Goal and take a pretest for Unit 4.  Finally, we will make goals for Unit 4.

Unit 3 Skills
o I can use diagrams to solve number stories
o I can solve number stories
o I can skip count
o I can add and subtract on number lines
o I can figure out frames and arrows rules
o I can keep trying when problems are hard

Unit 3 IXL Skills - Students may use IXL to help them practice these skills.
Unit 3 Study Guide

Science/Social Studies:
Needs/Wants:
The first graders have been working very hard to plan a December Service Project.  We've been calling it our Empathy Project.  Below are some of the details.

1st Grade Community Service Project

While reading books and discussing empathy, the first graders decided they want to help a family in need right here in Novi. 

Who: A family found through Novi Youth Assistance
What: Penny Drive! Each penny you put in your grade level bucket is worth 1 point. Every silver coin that you put in another grades bucket will subtract that many points from them (example: if you put a nickel in another grades bucket they will subtract 5 points).
Where: Buckets labeled by grade will be on tables near the office.
When: Tuesday, November 29 through Tuesday, December 6th. 

Why: To show our empathy for a family that does not have enough money to buy what they need. 

We are hoping to have volunteers come in to count coins and/or take coins to be counted at a bank.  Please sign up to help if you are available! http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a44a4a92ea5fe3-empathy We will then buy food and clothing for the boy and his mother using the money from the Penny Drive.

Below are some books we read about Empathy and Homelessness to teach students that not everyone has everything they need.

Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting
December by Eve Bunting
The Lady in the Box by Ann McGovern

MakerSpace/Play
We are learning a lot about how to problem solve and work together during play!

November Homework
Here is a link to the November Play Based Homework! 

Important Dates

November 24 and 25: No School (Enjoy the holiday!)
November 29-December 6: 1st Grade Empathy Project Penny Drive
December 8: (9:45-10:15am) Assembly to share with the rest of the school all of the first graders hard work on their service project. Parents are welcome to come!
December 9: Scholastic Book Orders Due
December 22: Holiday Celebrations (more information to come)

Thank you all for attending Conferences!!

Thank you very much for making the time to meet with Ms. Surzyn and me on Tuesday for conferences!  We really appreciate your time!  

Curriculum

**Friday Sharers**
We will have Friday sharers share on Wednesday due to the short week!

Reading:
This week, students chose one decoding strategy to focus on and continue to practice.  We also practiced sorting and writing words with digraphs (two letters that make one sound; i.e. ph, wh, sh, ch, and th).  Next week, we will continue to review our decoding strategies and digraphs.  

Book Baggies:
We will not be returning our book baggies next week due to the short week!

Writing:
In writing, we worked on drafting our personal narratives.  Next week, I hope to have students revise, edit and begin publishing their personal narratives.

Math:
In math we focused on using number lines as tools to add, subtract and skip count.  Next week, we will learn about Frames and Arrows diagrams (they basically work on skip counting).  We will also learn to figure out frames and arrows rules.

Unit 3 Skills
o I can use diagrams to solve number stories
o I can solve number stories
o I can skip count
o I can add and subtract on number lines
o I can figure out frames and arrows rules
o I can keep trying when problems are hard

Unit 3 IXL Skills - Students may use IXL to help them practice these skills.
Unit 3 Study Guide

Science/Social Studies:
Needs/Wants:
The first graders have been working very hard to plan a December Service Project.  We've been calling it our Empathy Project.  Below are some of the details.

1st Grade Community Service Project

While reading books and discussing empathy, the first graders decided they want to help a family in need right here in Novi. 

Who: A family found through Novi Youth Assistance
What: Penny Drive! Each penny you put in your grade level bucket is worth 1 point. Every silver coin that you put in another grades bucket will subtract that many points from them (example: if you put a nickel in another grades bucket they will subtract 5 points).
Where: Buckets labeled by grade will be on tables near the office.
When: Tuesday, November 29 through Tuesday, December 6th. 

Why: To show our empathy for a family that does not have enough money to buy what they need. 

We are hoping to have volunteers come in to count coins and/or take coins to be counted at a bank.  Please let us know if you can help us with this or if you know a bank that does coin counting without a charge!! We will then buy food and clothing for the boy and his mother using the money from the Penny Drive.

Below are some books we read about Empathy and Homelessness to teach students that not everyone has everything they need.

Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting
December by Eve Bunting
The Lady in the Box by Ann McGovern

MakerSpace/Play
We are learning a lot about how to problem solve and work together during play!

November Homework
Here is a link to the November Play Based Homework! 

Important Dates

November 21: Multicultural Feast - Please sign up if you are willing to help or bring in food.  You should have received a note and a card to write your food on if you are choosing to make a dish for the feast.  http://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e084eaca72ca0f58-multicultural
November 23: 1/2 Day of School
November 24 and 25: No School (Enjoy the holiday!)
November 29-December 6: 1st Grade Empathy Project Penny Drive
December 8: Assembly to share with the rest of the school all of the first graders hard work on their service project. Parents will be welcome to come!
December 22: Holiday Celebrations (more information to come)

Happy Veteran's Day!

Curriculum

Reading:
The decoding strategy we learned about this week was Skippy Frog.  Students learned to skip the word they don't know, read the rest of the sentence and return to the word to see what makes sense.  Students also learned words with the short u vowel pattern.  Next week, we will take what we've learned about decoding strategies and make a reading goal to work on.  We will also learn about digraphs (two letters that make one sound; i.e. ph, wh, sh, ch, and th).

Book Baggies:
Please remember, we change out our book baggie books every Friday.  Please help the students keep their books organized by always keeping them in their baggie.  Included in the bag, was a bookmark and a tracking sheet.  Please keep these with the bag.  One side is for us to track how many books each student has and for you to verify that they did bring these books home. The other side is for students to track their reading at home.  For each day they read 15-20 minutes, students should color in a star. 

Writing:
In writing, we learned a little about dialogue and how to show someone is talking in our writing.  We also did some writing to thank our Veteran's and to say what we are thankful for.  Next week, we will return to our personal narrative writing.  We will continue to look at how to use dialogue in our writing and finish drafting our stories.  

Math:
This week, we began Unit 3.  Students learned about a new diagram called Parts-and-Total that can help them organize their thinking when solving number stories.  We also tried to write our own number stories to match a number model.  Next week, we will learn to use number lines to skip count and add and subtract.  

Unit 3 Skills
o I can use diagrams to solve number stories
o I can solve number stories
o I can skip count
o I can add and subtract on number lines
o I can figure out frames and arrows rules
o I can keep trying when problems are hard

Unit 3 IXL Skills - Students may use IXL to help them practice these skills.
Unit 3 Study Guide

Science/Social Studies:
Needs/Wants:
This week, we read stories that dealt with empathy and needs and wants.  As a first grade team, the students talked a lot about how there are people here in Novi who need help getting the things they need.  We decided that we would like to help those people.  Students chose to hold a Penny Drive in December to raise money to help people in Novi.  We are currently working on deciding what we will spend the money on after we raise it and where we will donate items. If you have any suggestions please talk with your children about it so that they can share it with the rest of the first graders! The students will be talking to the rest of the school about this at Cabins next Thursday in order to introduce our December Service Project.  

MakerSpace/Play
We are learning a lot about how to problem solve and work together during play!

Cardboard Play:
Students really enjoy playing with cardboard and being creative with it!  If you have any old shoe, cereal, tissue, etc. boxes, please send them in any time for us to use!  We could also use egg cartons or paper towel/toilet paper rolls.

November Homework
Here is a link to the November Play Based Homework! 

Important Dates

November 15: 1/2 Day for Students (12:30 Dismissal - students will NOT have lunch at school)
November 15: Conferences (1-4pm, 5-7pm)
November 18: Pie Day - Some of our top Fun Run earners will have an opportunity to "pie" a teacher or Mrs. Bedford!
November 21: Multicultural Feast (more information will be coming)
November 23: 1/2 Day of School
November 24 and 25: No School (Enjoy the holiday!)

Report Card and Conference Information

Report Cards

Report Cards will come home tomorrow with students.  Please remember to sign the back of the envelope and return it to school.  You may keep everything inside the envelope.  Below is a note about the new report card and what you expect as far as grading!  

Report Card Explanation

Conferences

Conferences are next Tuesday, November 15.  If you do not remember your time, please refer to the Sign Up Genius.  Also, I sent home a Compass Points page with students (N - What do you Need to know to make this a successful/beneficial conference?, E - What are you excited to hear/discuss?, S - What suggestions do you have for conferences or how the year is going?, W - What do you wonder or have questions about?).  Please fill it out and send it in by Monday, November 14 if you have any specific items you'd like to discuss at our conference.  

It's getting cooler!

Curriculum

Reading:
The decoding strategy we learned about this week was Chunky Monkey.  Students learned to point to the word and look for chunks they know in the unknown word.  Students also learned words with the short o vowel pattern.  Next week, we will learn about Skippy the Frog (skip the word, read the rest of the sentence, and come back to the word), and the short u vowel pattern.

Book Baggies:
Please remember, we change out our book baggie books every Friday.  Please help the students keep their books organized by always keeping them in their baggie.  Included in the bag, was a bookmark and a tracking sheet.  Please keep these with the bag.  One side is for us to track how many books each student has and for you to verify that they did bring these books home. The other side is for students to track their reading at home.  For each day they read 15-20 minutes, students should color in a star. 

Writing:
In writing, we began writing a new personal narrative.  We have been talking about the writing process and learning how important each part is (pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing).  Our focus this week was on pre-writing and why we need a plan before we start writing.  Today we also had a chance to begin drafting our lead.  We will continue to draft our stories next week and hopefully get an opportunity to revise and edit them as well.

Math:
This week, we took our Unit 2 Assessment.  We then looked at our assessments and revisited our goals for Unit 2 to see if we had met our goals or if we needed to keep working on them.  Students tracked this information in their Leadership Binders.  Finally, we took our Unit 3 Pretest and we made goals for this Unit.  Check out their goals on Seesaw.  Next week, we will begin Unit 3 with lesson 3.1.  We will get through Lesson 3.4 next week.

Unit 3 Skills
o I can use diagrams to solve number stories
o I can solve number stories
o I can skip count
o I can add and subtract on number lines
o I can figure out frames and arrows rules
o I can keep trying when problems are hard

Unit 3 IXL Skills - Students may use IXL to help them practice these skills.
Unit 3 Study Guide

Science/Social Studies:
Sinking and Floating Unit:
Thank you so much for sending in all of the candy!  We had a great day Tuesday learning about Sinking and Floating.  Students learned to describe their candy based on attributes (color, shape, size, flexible/rigid, sink/float).  We made predictions on what we thought would happen with the different candy and finally, we tested it!  The students were very surprised when some candy sank and others floated!  We also discussed that the reason some candies sink/float depends on the candy's density.  We really had a great day; ask your child what they learned!

Family Unit:
We will wrap up our family unit next week Monday discussing family roles and responsibilities.  Please make sure your child has his/her homework so that they can discuss these topics with their group. 

Needs/Wants:
Next week, we will be reading stories that deal with needs and wants.  1st grade is in charge of the December Service Project for the school.  We are hoping to tie in our service project with our Needs/Wants social studies unit.  We want the students to help guide the service project by coming up with what people need and how we can help them get what they need.

MakerSpace/Play
Cardboard Play:
Students really enjoy playing with cardboard and being creative with it!  If you have any old shoe, cereal, tissue, etc. boxes, please send them in any time for us to use!  We could also use egg cartons or paper towel/toilet paper rolls.

November Homework
Here is a link to the November Play Based Homework! 

Important Dates

November 8: Election Day (No School)
November 10: Buddy Time (Wear Deerfield shirts or green)
November 11: Report Cards go Home
November 15: 1/2 Day for Students (12:30 Dismissal - students will NOT have lunch at school)
November 15: Conferences (1-4pm, 5-7pm)