Friday Update 11/7

Happy Friday!  We had a productive and busy week in room 7!  Here's a little update and make sure you read the whole post for a glimpse of some Halloween goodies at the end!  Also- I'm back on my A-Game and updated the side links!  So sorry about that!

Reading:

• We read the story "Boots for Beth" about a pig who has grown out of her favorite pair of red cowgirl boots.  Her friends try to help her by having her try on their boots. Unfortunately none of their boots are a good fit, so Beth remains sad she doesn't have any boots.  Her friends come through at the end with a big surprise.... a new pair of boots!  The students enjoyed this story very much and did a great job reading it. 
• We focused on the comprehension skill of Cause and Effect.  We will continue to dive deeper into this skill next week, but the students did a great job matching the causes to the effects in the story.  We made a special chart on our Mimioteach to help us with this skill.
• We also focused on the Grammar skill of Telling Parts of sentences this week.  A telling part is what first graders call the predicate of a sentence.  We learned that the telling part is what happens in a sentence.  In order to have a complete sentence, we need a naming part (subject- who or what) and a telling part (predicate- what is happening/the action).  This is something we will continue to work on for the rest of the year.

Spelling:

• We focused on the "th" sound this week.  The students did a great job distinguishing between the spoken "th" sound as in "the" and the whispered "th" sound as in "thin".  We spent A LOT of time on this skill since it is a more difficult sound to master in spelling.
• We also started spelling dictation this week.  This is found on the back of your child's spelling test.  I dictate a sentence to the class and they are responsible for writing down the sentence that is said aloud.  I repeat the sentence MANY times since this is a newer component to their test.  I also will review what is required for them in order to get a good grade.  
• They need to start their sentence with a capital letter, end with a period, have appropriate spacing between words and spell all their spelling words (current and previous) correctly.  If they do that, they will get a "2" (meets expectations).  
• There is a bonus word in there as well.  If they spell the bonus word correctly AND meet all the requirements for the "2" grade, they will get a "3"(above expectations).  
• If they do not meet the requirements for a "2", then they will receive a "1" (below expectations).  
• They will receive 2 grades for dictation- one for spelling and one for grammar.  You will see those grades located at the bottom of the dictation portion of their test.  The top grade is for spelling in their sentence and the bottom grade is for the grammar in their sentence.
• In 2nd quarter we will write only one dictation sentence, 3rd quarter we will write two dictation sentences and 4th quarter we will write all three dictation sentences.
• The front of the spelling test will be graded the same as it was in first quarter.
• If you have any questions, please let me know!

Math:

• We have been doing A LOT of problem solving this week with subtraction.  We have learned about three different types of subtraction problems: Take-Away stories, Missing Part stories and Comparing stories.  We dove deep into each one, looked for clues and key words, and figured out strategies to solve each type of problem.  By the end, we were masters at solving these stories!
• We have 2 more lessons in Topic 2, a review day and our test is on Thursday.  We will start Topic 6 (also a subtraction topic) on Friday.

Social Studies:

• We continued our unit on Government this week, which coordinated very well with Election Day on Tuesday!  We have a couple more lessons to finish up and then we will venture into learning about the explorers who helped make our country what it is today.... starting with the Pilgrims!  After we learn about our country's history, we will start our Health unit on the Food Groups and healthy eating.

Ok... that's what we did this week!  Here are some SPOOKTACULAR pictures from our Halloween Party!  Enjoy!

Decorating some fantastic looking pumpkins!

More pumpkin decorating!

Getting mummified!

Who's hiding under all that wrapping??

Now that's how to make a mummy!

All wrapped up nice and snug!

What a fantastic looking mummy!

The mummy and the mummy creator!

Switched places!

When did Elsa become a mummy??

Don't forget to wrap the head!

Where'd the Elsa go?

Oh my! We are getting very mummified!

Busting out of the mummy wrap is WAY more fun than getting wrapped!

The Spanish Dancer is fully wrapped!

Our spooky class!

Happy Halloween!

Silly faces!!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures and the update!  Have a fantastic weekend!  Stay warm!!!!

:) Ms. Petrucci