It's Finally Fall!

Fall officially started on September 23rd, but it wasn't til this week started (the week after our fall break) that we actually got some cooler weather! :) It is so nice to get to wear a sweater in the morning, and shoes and socks again! I love it when its cooler out; the heat is no fun at all! But I still love Phoenix and would never leave it!

I just wanted to update on what has been happening in our classroom over the past month since I last wrote. Here are some highlights from our 1st grade class:

Reading: We've read "All that Corn", "Todd's Box", "Boots for Beth", and this week's story is "Space Pup". We've been learning the short vowel sounds for o, and u, and the digraph th. This week we are learning the short u sound.

Writing: We write in our journals almost every day. We usually write about what we discussed in our morning message, in our whole group time. Then we draw a picture to go with our journal entry.

Math: We have been reviewing addition, how to use different ways of adding to remember the answers fast. This week we will be reviewing subtraction, and using strategies to solve subtraction problems quickly, as well. We will be learning about fact families soon, too!

Science: We have math and science centers almost daily, but sometimes we get to do experiments or work with the FOSS science kit in our room. They have a lot of cool stuff to help us learn! Over the past couple weeks we have learned about solids. Next is liquids!

Social Studies: We haven't had much time for social studies this year, but when we do, we have talked about communities, and people who work in our communities to help make it safe and to provide us with things that we need: like a police officer, or a grocer. We need police to make sure we are safe, and we need grocers to provide our families with food to eat.

LRE (Law-Related Education): Mrs. Hanson comes into our room every other Wednesday and teaches us about the law and how we can keep ourselves safe every day. We have learned about what to do if we find a gun, and we have also learned about bullies and what we can do to stop someone from bullying us. We will be learning about Good-Touch, Bad-Touch this week.

I don't have permission to post any pictures yet, so I need to get on that and ask about some permission slips to send home with my students, so I can post pictures of the ones whose parents are okay with it. I took some of us making towers with our solid objects during science the other day, and I want to post them! I will be working on that in the next few weeks...

Thanks for reading our update! Check back with us again soon!

~Ms. Stewart
1st grade teacher
Edison School
Phoenix, AZ