Grade 1 B Newsletter #22

Day 6 PE Day 7 MUSIC Day 8 PE Day 1 ART Library

Things to look out for this coming week: -No school on Sunday- Enjoy the extra day at home - Field Trip to Al Tamimi Stables- Tuesday 04.03.2014
Please bring your lunch in a plastic packet labeled with your name as well as lots of water. Please wear sunscreen and your GEMS hat as it is now starting to heat up a bit!
We had a wonderful week Sailing down the Nile Students were able to make connections to how the Nile was vital to the Egyptian civilization and different systems such as the farming system and the transport system. Students used their imaginations and working in small groups created the different scenarios they would see such as houses ot of clay, farming wheat, flax, papyrus, animals, different boats transporting different goods and trading as well as some students working on the laptops to create a power point about the different systems in Ancient Egypt. In phonics this week we will learn about Y says e such as mommy, daddy, happy and emergency. Children will rotate through different language centers that will focus on developing a deep understanding of this sound while guided reading is taking place. In writing we have started the writing process. We listened to a story called Sailing Down the Nile. We then started to write our own stories about what we would see if we took a trip down the Nile. The writing process has 5 steps: brainstorm, writing it down, making it better, editing and publishing. We have completed the first 3 steps. Children will receive their drafts back next week and will edit their work and publish it. We will then stain the paper with tea so that it resembles a papyrus scroll from long ago. Children will also recount their weekend news by using time connectives to order and sequence the events i.e. first, next, after that, then, last and finally. We will also focus on connecting sentences with and, so and because. This week will be a Grammar focus week where children will work in differentiated groups using nouns for people, places, animals and things. Children will also focus on applying capital letters, punctuation and using adjectives to describe nouns.

In Mathematics we will have our progress assessment as we have concluded Chapter 4. We will be focusing on the following concepts: Counting forward and back by 2s to 100, ordering whole numbers to 100, knowing addition facts, solving number stories, demonstrate parts and wholes, estimating and compare objects of length, showing and telling time to the half past and quarter hour, continuing non numeric patterns and solving problems involving simple function in frames and arrow routines. We will then begin chapter 5. Chapter 5 will focus on Place value, greater than, equal to, measurement, exploring the area and weight of objects and continue with differentiated addition and subtraction facts. This week we will focus on place value. Children will engage in differentiated activities that meet their abilities while learning about Place Value. We will use base 10 blocks to model and compare whole numbers to 100 and beyond as well as focus on addition and subtraction within place value. This week in the UOI Where We Are in Place and Time we will explore different systems in Ancient Egypt. Children will explore the different tools used in a farming system and the different types of farming systems as well as predict what they think they will see at Al Tamimi stable farms. We will draw their attention to how Al Tamimi stable farms gets their water, from a tap? Or a river? Are the animals working to plough the field like they did in Ancient times or do tractors do the work instead? Following the field trip we will compare our predictions and discuss what we saw at Al Tamimi. We will link this with our current language unit on Nouns and Adjectives. In the upcoming weeks we will turn our focus from Egyptian Civilization and we will move to Ancient Greek civilization. With this in mind we want to expose students to the concept of different civilizations so for homework this week students will need to do a small quick research project on different farms from different ancient civilizations. We will then break off into groups and students will discuss and compare what they learnt about either Ancient Roman, Mayan, Aztek, Chinese or Greek farming methods. Enjoy your week from the Grade 1 Team