A month of growth!

This past month we have been very busy learning engaging content and working extremely hard to be successful learners!

Some exciting things to note about our class:

-The children have filled their class rock jar by working together as a TEAM! They decided to celebrate by having a toy day! Great work first graders! Keep working as a team!

-"Book it!" Many of our students read 12 or more books at home this past month! Turn in your book it calendar for a free pizza hut coupon! I will be sending out the November calendars this week.

-Thank you to all of our field trip volunteers! The children had a wonderful time learning about various habitats on our trip.

This past month we have been busy learning...

In foundational skills, we have focused our word work on vowel teams (ee, ai and ay.) We have learned the sounds these vowels make in words and practiced spelling words with these sounds. We also have been working with different word families to help decode words easier. We learned what a contraction is and the words that make up contractions (/she/ /is/ makes /she's/, etc) The children have grown so much in reading and are using their reading strategies to figure out unknown words. Thank you for reading every night with your child! Their growth is showing.

Our comprehension focus has been working with the text features in informational text and asking and answering questions within a text. We have tied a lot of social studies and science content with our reading time. For example, when learning about animal adaptations, we have asked various questions about an informational article on animals and then explored in science to find out the answers to our questions. The children are very good at asking questions and their curiosity leads to ownership of their learning! Keep asking!

In writing, we have been working on writing opinion pieces as well as informational writing pieces. For our informational writing, each child chose a habitat to research. They researched using the internet and developed a short paragraph about their habitat. We then used a computer program called "pixie" to make a diagram of our habitats which included plants and animals found in the habitat. Children had an opportunity to share their finished writing product with their classmates and were very proud of their work! We have also practiced a lot with editing our finished writing. We used a checklist to help us remember what to look for when editing.

In math, we have been working on subtraction strategies and word problems. Please check out the new "math magician" website on the right hand side of the blog. The children are becoming more fluent with their math facts with this website and love to print out a certificate when they get 95% or higher with their math facts! We have also been working with analyzing and interpreting data within bar graphs, pictographs and picture graphs. The children were able to apply real life data when they conducted their own survey with their classmates and then constructed a bar graph with their data.

In social studies we have been learning about the various US symbols and their meaning.

In science, we learned about the food chain in different ecosystems. We have also been working on identifying and reasoning with how animals stay safe. We experimented with an octopus experiment and a camouflage experiment. We learned about animal adaptations to help animals function in life, such as different beaks, feet and teeth. The children LOVE science and the hands on application to learning!

Other information:
November 11, 12- Parent Teacher Conferences. Half day for students
I sent out a confirmation with a reserved date and time. Please send back to school to either confirm or re-schedule.
November 5- PTA 5:30-6:30
November 21-Math and Science Night 630-800pm

As always, thank you for your dedication to your child's success in school! It is true teamwork between the home and school that ensures a successful learner! Have a great week!
Angelina_K_Ferri@mcpsmd.org

Reading Night!!!

Join me in South Lake's Reading Night!
Tonight! 6:30-8:00pm will be an evening filled with reading games and snacks!
Hope to see all of my families there!

Together!

What an exciting night last evening! Over 30 South Lake families attended our PTA meeting! Thank you for your support! I enjoyed spending time with our wonderful families!

International Night!

Friday, September 27th from 6:00-8:00pm will be South Lake's International Night!

 

The evening will be filled with a tour around the world. Many different countires will be represented. Children may try food from around the world, enjoy cultural music, watch a fashion show and have a blast learning about different cultures and our world!

I hope to see you all there!

A love for learning!

Our class truly shows a love to learn! They are always asking for an extra challenge and work hard to persevere through difficult problems.

My apologies for being a bit behind on our academic updates!

These past few weeks we have been very busy in class...

In foundational skills, we have continued to build our recognition and spelling of first grade sight words. Sight words are words that students may not be able to sound out (said, there, etc.) We work on both reading these words and spelling these words. We have also worked on chunking words when we may not know what the word is. We use "reading animals' to help us decode words we may not know. "Chunky Monkey" is the animal who helps us look for word chunks in words. For example, in the word "spot" a child may read the chunk /ot/ and be able to decode the word more effectively. We have also worked on the "silent e" sound. We refer to this letter as "sneaky e."

Our comprehension focus has been recognizing text features and their purpose in non-fiction articles and books. Text features are found in non-fiction and help the reader find facts and information. Some of the text features that we have learned so far are : titles, photographs, illustrations, captions, labels, glossary and the table of contents. The children are very knowledgeable about text features and their purpose!

In writing we have been practicing becoming natural editors to our finished work. This includes going back to our writing and looking for punctuation marks, capital letters, good spacing, nice handwriting and any misspelled words that we should know. We completed our very first informational/explanatory writing piece! The children chose their own animal to research. After discussing how to research, the children used www.pebblego.com to research information about their animal, such as its appearance, its habitat, what it eats and any additional cool facts. They then put their research notes into a short paragraph. They illustrated their animal and some  children even added labels to their animal. I will be sending these home shortly. I am so proud of this first informational writing piece and they children are too!

In math, we have worked on place value within numbers and using tens and ones to compose various numbers. We compared two digit numbers by using the greater than, less than and equal symbols. We also discussed and analyzed what is "10 more" than any number within 100 and "10 less" than any number. We looked at different patterns within the 100's chart and how to figure out quickly what ten more or ten less is. The children are very good at articulating how they problem solve through their answers. I expect them daily to tell me how they came up with an answer and to share their problem solving strategy with their peers.

In science we have been describing evidence that living things have parts not seen by the eye. We experimented with using a magnify glass and the importance of using different tools in science. We have also discussed habitats and looked more closely at the parts of a seed and the basic functions of a plant.

In social studies we have discussed the different roles and responsibilities of community members and who makes up a community: our school community and our community where we live.

Important Dates to remember:
Sept. 27th- International Night 6-8pm
Sept. 27th- Early Dismissal day
Oct. 1 - PTA Meeting 5:30-6:30pm
Oct. 10th- Reading/Writing Night 6:30-8:00pm

Thank you for helping your child every night with their homework and their reading! I appreciate your time and dedication to your child's education.
Angelina_K_Ferri@mcpsmd.org

Thank you!

Thank you to all of the families who were able to attend our back to school night! Your time is greatly appreciated. I hope you enjoyed learning about your child's learning environment and what we do everyday.
Hope to see you soon!
Angelina_K_Ferri@mcpsmd.org

"Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is a progress, working together is success," Henry Ford

I think this quote sums up our week very perfectly. The children have almost filled their class rock jar by working together as a TEAM in various ways. This may look like sharing materials, helping one another spell a word, or by working towards a common math goal or behavioral goal. They are very proud of their teamwork skills as so am I!

This past week...

In foundational skills, we have worked with deleting and adding sounds to words. We also worked with all of the vowel sounds and worked on making words with these sounds. We continued to work on blends and sight words. The children have been enjoying playing "word war" where they practice their first  grade sight words with quick recognition. It makes it even more fun since it is "game like" for the children. We also have been discussing and practicing daily in reading groups the different decoding strategies when reading words.

Here are the different decoding strategies we use when we can not figure out a word

 

 

Our comprehension focus has been discussing the elements of a story using details. We discussed the difference between fictional and non-fictional texts and the different story elements that are found in fictional stories. We have used visuals such story wheels, icons and other organizers to help us with the elements. The children picked up this skill very quickly! Try asking your child after they read at night... What was the setting? Who were the characters? Was there a problem? What was the solution?

 

 Story Elements

 

 

 

In writing, we learned what a personal narrative is and how to write one. A personal narrative is a story of something that happened to you. We first brainstormed some ideas of things that happened in our lives. We talked with our classmates about our ideas. After choosing one thing that happened in their life, the children first organized their thoughts by pre-writing their ideas in an organizer. They then wrote a paragraph of their ideas. They did a great job for their first writing piece!

 

In math, we have been working on building a solid number sense. We have identified patterns in the hundreds chart, worked with "one more and one less" with numbers 1-120 and have been continuing to work on our number recognition. By having a solid sense of numbers, this will make math a lot easier when working on solving problems.

 

In social studies, we have been discussing the responsibilities of being a member of a community and school. The students have been demonstrating wonderful responsibility throughout the day!

 

In science, we have been discussing what the basic needs are for living things. The children are able to identify living things and explain how they know it is living. We will be looking at plants this week and how a plant meets its basic needs! The children LOVE SCIENCE!

 

Important Dates

Sept. 10th- Back to school night K-2. I hope to see each of you!! 6:00-8:00pm.

Sept.27th- Early Release for students

October 1- PTA meeting

 

Homework Note: I will be sending home homework Monday-Thursday in your child's take home folder. The homework will have a "HW" in the corner for the paper just for your reference.

Thank you for helping your child with their homework and reading!

 

If you ever have any questions, concerns or just want to say hi, please contact me at Angelina_K_Ferri@mcpsmd.org.



"I can do it, I can do it, I can do it!"

This past week was one of many fun and challenging activities. As we dove deeper into our curriculum and started to think more about questions, answers and solving various problems throughout the day, I noticed many of the children were saying "I can't do this Miss. Ferri." Once I heard this, we immediately came together as a class and discussed changing our mindset. I told the class a story about when I started playing basketball, I did not make any shots that I took. I let them know that I thought just like they did often telling myself "I can't do it! I better give up!" I then explained to them that I decided I would not give up and keep trying and practicing and eventually I started to get better at my shot and made many baskets to win games and become a better player. They were very engaged in my personal story and could relate that sports are just like school. We will not always be good at first, but if we don't give up and keep trying, we CAN do it. We implemented a short chant in our classroom, "I can do it, I can do it, I can do it." When the children are struggling, they must keep trying, of course ask for help and give their best. It is funny, because after we discussed persevering through problems, the children often COULD solve the problems on their own. When I told them , "See! You can do it, you did it on your own!" They were nothing but smiles. :) "I can't" is now an outdated phrase in our classroom. The children are very aware that I believe in them and that they must believe in one another and themselves. They often read the magnet that hangs behind our reading table, "Never never never give up." You are awesome my first graders, believe in yourself and you will be amazed at what you can do.

A first great week!

Happy Labor Day!

As we enjoy this long weekend of resting from a busy, yet positive week, I am using this time to reflect on our first week of first grade. We started off with a great start as the children got accustomed to their new learning environment, learned about one another, adjusted to high expectations and dove right into learning and working hard... at the same time as having fun with smiles and excitement of all this year will bring.

This past week...

In foundational skills (phonics) we have reviewed the sight words from Kindergarten and began to learn some of the new first grade sight words. We have reviewed the sounds of the letters and started working with short vowel sounds and blends. Based on what each child's needs are and where their reading level is, I base my lessons and activities around each child. I find that working in small groups during phonics time allows each child to learn on their level and learn more effectively in a small group.

Our comprehension focus for this week has been "asking and answering key questions from a text" and reviewing good reading strategies. We have discussed different ways to decode words and get our lips ready for the sounds. We have also practiced making predictions (we call this a fancy word for guessing) of what the story may be about. Have your child make a prediction to you before you read your reading book at night!

In writing,we have reviewed handwriting skills and the proper way to form letters and numbers. We have discussed what good sentences have (capital letters, spaces, punctuation marks and nice handwriting) Each child has a writing journal in class. We have been also working with thinking of ideas to write about. We glued in an "ideas" paper in the front of our writing journal to help us think of ideas to write about. Research shows, that reading and writing are tightly connected in building a good reader. Children learn to read both from reading and writing. I am excited, because this group loves to write!!!!

In math, we have been building a strong number sense. We are working on counting to 120, starting with any number. We are also working on recognizing and writing any number within 120. We have worked with the number line and the 100's chart, two very important tools in our classroom that will help the children all year long build a solid foundation of numbers. Math is filled with lots of small group instruction, fun activities and perseverance to work hard!

In social studies, we have discussed why we need rules and what are our school and classroom rules. The children were able to come up with our classroom rules. They performed some of the rules in a skit with their classmates this week and also created a poster of our rules.

In science, we have been learning about living things and their basic needs for growth and survival.


Important Dates:
Sept. 3rd- PTA 6:30-7:30
Sept. 5th- Schools Closed
Sept. 27th- Early release day for students
Sept. 27th- International Night 6:30-8:00


I thank each of you for your communication and time with your child. Thank you for having them come to school ready to learn! Our teamwork is so important and I look forward to working with your family very closely this year.
If you have any questions, email me at Angelina_K_Ferri@mcpsmd.org
Have a great rest of the weekend!

Welcome students and families!

Welcome to Miss. Ferri's First Grade Classroom!

The children have had such a wonderful first week of school thus far! We are learning about one another, making new friends and learning our daily routines. This is a wonderful group of children and they have so much excitement and potential to learn!

A few things to note:

Homework- we have started our first grade homework. Each night the children will read a reading book found in their "reading bags." You may help your child or they may read it on their own. The reading bag with the book should be returned the next school day.

-We will also have other homework, which depending on the day of the week, may be math, science or writing. This will come home in your child's "take home folder."


Take Home Folder- This is the folder that comes home every night and is returned to school every day. In this, is any homework for the night, any important papers from me or the school and any work that your child completed. You may send in notes as well to me in this folder.

If you have any questions, please email me at Angelina_K_Ferri@mcpsmd.org

Thank you for your support at home to make your child a success!