First Grade updates courtesy of our parent newsletter
You may overhear a first grader describe in detail the waxing and waning phases of the moon on one of these winter evenings. The lunar cycle is this month’s science topic, and enhances the yearlong cultural study of China, aligning with a grade-wide Lunar New Year celebration to highlight special holiday customs and crafts.
On stage, Ms. Amanda Grundy has all fifty students collaborating on the March 15th presentation of The Tale of the Chinese Zodiac, a musical play retelling the legend of how the twelve animals came to represent the 12-year cycle of the lunar calendar. In studio, motifs of Chinese art inspire projects, such as teacups and opera masks.
In conjunction with nurturing public speaking in theater, the first grade teachers have facilitated numerous opportunities to hone oral presentation skills in such areas as STEAM, and our children have become quite adept at giving and receiving constructive criticism. These STEAM challenges reinforce planning, process, and mental stamina to test hypotheses in a given amount of time.
With improved literary fluency, the students are readily translating word problems into mathematical equations, and illustrating the concepts with accompanying diagrams. Their mastery of skip counting and place values is apparent in their knowledge of counting money and telling time on a clock.
As our eager readers are attaining fluency, their teachers are asking questions to strengthen reading comprehension. A vocabulary exercise also accompanies the increasingly complex weekly spelling challenge words, as students have acquired advanced decoding strategies this year. Synonyms have been introduced to expand first grade vocabulary.
In writing workshops, they are making final edits to the personal narratives of small moments written during the last trimester. Moreover, first graders have learned about sentence structure, using appropriate capitalization, and punctuation, and are continuing to learn about nouns, verbs, and adjectives.
Beyond the classroom, they welcomed author Mo O’Hara, and await Raúl Colón at the library. This week’s gallery experience transported them to A City for Corduroy: Don Freeman’s New York at the Museum of the City of New York. While commemorating half a century of the beloved storybook bear, this exhibition explores Freeman’s appreciation of the diversity of the city’s inhabitants through his depictions of ordinary New Yorkers and observations of Broadway backstage hands before Corduroy’s time. Equipped with such stimulating supplements to the school day, our first graders continue to embrace their interdisciplinary curriculum.
First Grade updates courtesy of Ms. Guss
What’s Happening in 1st Grade
February 10, 2019
Reading:
The children are reading a variety of books in their reading groups. They are working on decoding and comprehension strategies. The children are learning how to discuss and answer questions about their reading.
Writing:
The children are using picture prompts to write stories.
Mathematics:
We are practicing adding multi-digit numbers. We are also practicing how to answer word problems.
Science:
The children are learning about the moon. We have discussed the phases of the moon and the moon
landing.
Social Studies:
The children are learning about Martin Luther King, Jr. They are discussing and writing about their dreams for the world.
In writing workshops, they are making final edits to the personal narratives of small moments written during the last trimester. Moreover, first graders have learned about sentence structure, using appropriate capitalization, and punctuation, and are continuing to learn about nouns, verbs, and adjectives.
Beyond the classroom, they welcomed author Mo O’Hara, and await Raúl Colón at the library. This week’s gallery experience transported them to A City for Corduroy: Don Freeman’s New York at the Museum of the City of New York. While commemorating half a century of the beloved storybook bear, this exhibition explores Freeman’s appreciation of the diversity of the city’s inhabitants through his depictions of ordinary New Yorkers and observations of Broadway backstage hands before Corduroy’s time. Equipped with such stimulating supplements to the school day, our first graders continue to embrace their interdisciplinary curriculum.
First Grade updates courtesy of Ms. Guss
What’s Happening in 1st Grade
February 10, 2019
Reading:
The children are reading a variety of books in their reading groups. They are working on decoding and comprehension strategies. The children are learning how to discuss and answer questions about their reading.
Writing:
The children are using picture prompts to write stories.
Mathematics:
We are practicing adding multi-digit numbers. We are also practicing how to answer word problems.
Science:
The children are learning about the moon. We have discussed the phases of the moon and the moon
landing.
Social Studies:
The children are learning about Martin Luther King, Jr. They are discussing and writing about their dreams for the world.
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