Run, run, as fast as you can....

During Literacy this week we will be learning about story elements using The Gingerbread Man and other variations of this familiar story.  We will identify the characters, setting, and the beginning, middle, and end of all our gingerbread man stories.  We will also compare and contrast these stories to find similarities and differences between them. 

In writing, last week, we started working on making our writing more interesting to read.  We used different books to help us find great ways to start a story.  We are calling these great story starters-- Beautiful Beginnings.  Some beautiful beginnings we started using were:

One day
Last night
The other day
Once upon a time
When
In the beginning
On Monday, Tuesday, etc...
A long time ago

We also learned about Terrific Transitions.  These would be:
Next
Also
Then
After
Soon
While
First, second, third

When we work on our writing this week, we will be describing our very own gingerbread men and then use a "Beautiful Beginning" and some "Terrific Transitions" to write some of our own gingerbread stories.  If you are doing some sort of writing at home, encourage your first grader to start using these great words to enhance his or her writing!

In Math we have been learning about addition and subtraction and how to tell the difference.  We have been talking about how you now have to watch for sign of which to do and if our answers will "get bigger" by adding or "get smaller" when we subtract.  We have also been working on counting by 5s and 10s and we have been working hard on making groups of 10s and counting on from 10.  This week in math we will do something different with some gingerbread babies...aaawhhh!  We will use some gingerbread babies to measure things in our room including ourselves!! Can you predict how many gingerbread babies tall your 1st grader will be??  You just may find out this week!!

We have started our Simple Machines unit for Science and are currently learning about pulleys.  We learned that a pulley lifts objects either up or down and makes work easier for us.  We found out pulleys are found on flagpoles, sailboats, and window blinds.  See if you can find more pulleys around your house that makes your work easier. 

I was very excited to send home the permission slip for our OMSI fieldtrip in January!!  Apparently I was soo excited that I did not do a FINAL read through on it and there is a mistake with the date that we are going....ooops!  January 26th is the correct date of our fieldtrip.  We were not able to book all 4 classes of 1st graders so two classes will be going on January 12th and two classes will follow behind on January 26th.  We are the followers going on January 26th along with Mrs. Brenner's class.  I am soo sorry if it caused any confusion.  I was just too excited to get those out there that I did not make one last revision! 

I hope everyone is enjoying the little bit of warmer weather courtesy of the Pineapple Express weather front that has blown into the Valley!  Is this what Christmas in Hawaii feels like?? It's kind of nice...

Aloha??
Mrs. Berry