Starfish Gazette- February 6, 2015

Happy Friday!

Can you believe that we had five full days of school with no delays and snow days! It was quite refreshing to have the time to sink our teeth into new units of reading, writing, science, and math after February vacation.  I hope your family had a great vacation last week.  The kids came back with big smiles on their faces and many with fresh haircuts!  

We had an exciting week back.  I wanted to share some of the learning activities that we accomplished this week.

• We began learning about digital and analogue clocks this week.  We learned the difference between the minute hand and the hour hand.  I told kids a story how the hour hand is so bossy that he always speaks first.  The minute hand is quite shy is always speaks second.  We watched some quick videos on the internet and sang some songs to help reinforce the concept.  A few kids even had the chance to be the clock master to quiz the class on telling time with the analogue clock.  One afternoon this week, the kids had to chance to use their creativity and transform an analogue clock into their own creation.  Some creations include a black cat, a castle, a cupcake, and a 'watch' dog named Spike! While at home and in the car, I encourage you to point out the time on your digital and analogue clocks. Telling time is a tricky concept and takes a lot of practice to master.
• Children develop fact fluency in different ways.  While some may simply rely on memory, most children use a variety of strategies to master math facts.  This week we emphasized on our doubles facts.  Knowing doubles facts can help solve other facts as well.  For example 5+6.  We can solve this by saying 5+5 is 10 and one more is 6.  We have been calling the doubles the 'helper fact' to solve more challenging equations.
• We are excited to announce that we have begun practicing for our 1st grade musical.  This year all the first grade classes will be coming together to perform GO FISH on April 2.  Please mark your calendars!  More information will be coming home shortly!
• We celebrated Bailey as the Starfish of the Week.  We had fun creating her book this afternoon.  It's so wonderful to observe the children be so thoughtful when writing their letters to their classmates. 
• We used our sort words this week to formulate sentences.  I taught the starfish strategies to improve their sentences.  We used the questions who, what, where, and when to help write our sentences.  The kids worked so hard and enjoyed sharing with their peers. 
• The children are working in small groups to practice Reader's Theater in the classroom during reader's workshop.  This is a great way to practice fluency and reading with the Author's intent.  We are looking forward to performing our reader's theater for our classmates next week.

I hope you have a nice weekend,

Megan