Miss Heuberger's First Grade Class

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Visit the TeacherWeb® videos to learn about the features, modifications, and customizations available on your website. Click here to learn more. Newsletters small medium large February 19, 2010 Dear Room 8 Parents, Hynes School is focusing on the value of caring throughout the month of February. Students are encouraged to display acts of caring and will receive a caring heart to place on the bulletin board when they do so. Feel free to reinforce this character trait at home as well! Reading: This week we completed our sixth theme in our reading series entitled, Animal Adventures. We read a new story this week called The Red- Eyed Tree Frog. Our comprehension skill was making predictions. We practiced this skill by making predictions before, during, and after reading our stories this week. Next week we will begin our seventh theme entitled, We Can Work it Out. Language/Phonics: This week we learned about the “long a” sound. The students realized that this sound can be represented in three different ways: with the “magic e” at the end, “ai” and “ay”. The students sorted many “long a” words into these three categories to help them recognize these different letter patterns. Math: Our class continued our seventh unit on money this week in math. The students compared the value of sets of coins, counted sets of coins to make purchases and added and subtracted money. We will conclude this unit next week with our chapter 7 test and cumulative review. Our next math unit will focus on relating addition and subtraction. Science/Social Studies: This week the students continued to learn about dental health and healthy habits. We have also been discussing some of our country’s most famous presidents. The students have been very interested in learning about Abraham Lincoln and George Washington! In addition, the class discussed the traditions of the Chinese New Year. We will continue these units next week! Have a great weekend! Miss Heuberger February 12, 2010 Dear Room 8 Parents, It was wonderful to see many of you at parent/teacher conferences last Monday! Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. I look forward to seeing many of you next Thursday evening! Reading: This week we continued our sixth theme in our reading series entitled, Animal Adventures. We read two new stories this week, Eek, There’s a Mouse in the House! and the math link, Animals Big and Small. Our comprehension skill was noting details. We practiced this skill by reading stories and discussing details from our stories. The students had the opportunity to draw different details from our story on a story mat as well. Language/Phonics: This week we learned about the “long e” sound. The students realized that this sound can be represented in three different ways: with the “magic e” at the end, “ee” and “ea”. The students sorted many “long e” words into these three categories to help them recognize these different letter patterns. Math: The students continued our unit on money this week. Our focus was counting groups of quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. This can be a very challenging skill so it would be a great idea to reinforce this skill at home using real coins. Science: We concluded our fish unit this week. We have also started two mini-units focusing on teeth and famous American presidents. February is dental health month and President’s Day is on Monday, so this is the perfect time for us to become immersed in these topics. We will continue to learn about teeth and presidents next week. Have a wonderful long weekend! Miss Heuberger January 29, 2010 Dear Room 8 Parents, I will be holding winter parent/teacher conferences on Monday, February 1st and Thursday, February 18th. If you would like to schedule a conference with me and have not yet done so, please visit our district website to schedule one at your earliest convenience. I am looking forward to seeing everyone! Reading: This week we started our sixth theme in our reading series entitled, Animal Adventures. We read a new story this week called, The Sleeping Pig. Our comprehension skill was story structure: setting, characters, problem, events and solution. We practiced this skill by participating in group discussions and sorting story words into the different elements of a fiction story. We will continue this theme next week. Language/Phonics: This week we learned about the long o sound as in words like home and note and the long u sound as in cute and tube. We reviewed the rule “the magic e makes the vowel say its name.” The students also learned about the endings –ft, -nt and –lk. The students practiced reading, writing and identifying words with these endings this week. In grammar, we learned how to identify nouns or “naming words” that identify people and animals. The students practiced sorting words into these two categories this week. Math: The students continued learning about money this week. This week the students counted groups nickels, dimes and nickels and pennies. The students also practiced identifying pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. Please continue to practice counting coins with your child at home as this skill can be very challenging for the first grade students. Science: This week we started a new science unit on fish in anticipation of our field trip to the Shedd Aquarium. We have read many non-fiction books to gain more information into fish. This week we specifically learned about characteristics of fish and sharks. We will continue to learn about fish next week. Have a great weekend! Miss Heuberger January 15, 2010 Dear Room 8 Parents, This week we spent some time discussing the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr. The students learned how he changed our country in a peaceful way. Our class had a great discussion about civil rights as well. Reading: This week we completed our fifth theme in our reading series entitled, Home Sweet Home. We read a new story this week called The Kite. Our comprehension skill was cause and effect. We practiced this skill by having discussions about the cause and effect relationships in the stories we read this week. Language/Phonics: This week we learned about the “long i” sound. We reviewed the rule “the magic e makes the vowel say its name.” We also learned about common contractions. The students practiced reading and identifying contractions by identifying, blending, reading and writing these words. In grammar we learned how to use the words “I” and “me” correctly in sentences. The students discovered that if a sentence does not sound right, they make have to interchange these two words. Math: This week in math we continued our sixth chapter on patterns and numbers to 100. This week the students indentified numbers as greater than or less than given numbers, identified numbers that come before, after or in between given numbers, recognized numbers on a hundreds chart and skip counted by two, five and ten. We will complete this unit next week. Our next chapter will focus on money. Science: We continued to learn about polar animals this week. Our class has been busy reading many fiction and non-fiction books about penguins, polar bears, walruses, seals, wolves and reindeer. The students are discovering a lot of very interesting information about penguins. We have learned about the life cycle of penguins and how father Empire Penguins actually keep their eggs warm on their feet while the mothers go off looking for food. We will wrap up our unit on polar animals next week. Have a wonderful long weekend! Miss Heuberger January 8, 2010 Dear Room 8 Parents, Welcome back everybody! I hope you all had a very happy New Year and a relaxing winter vacation! We have gotten right back into the learning this week, and the students, as always, are working hard and doing a great job! Reading: This week we continued our fifth theme in our reading series entitled, Home Sweet Home. We read two new stories this week, Me on the Map and the social studies link, Children of the World. Our comprehension skill was making generalizations. We used these stories to make generalizations about maps. Language/Phonics: We talked about the “long a” sound this week as in words such as make and grade. The students learned that “the magic e makes the ‘a’ say ‘a”. The students practiced reading, writing and identifying these words this week. We learned about the “soft c” sound as in city and the “soft g” sound as in giant. The students learned that when a ‘c’ or a ‘g’ is followed by an ‘i’, ‘e’ or ‘y’ it will make the “soft” sound. The students also practiced reading, writing and identifying words with the endings ‘ng’, ‘nk’ and ‘nd’. Math: This week in math we started our sixth chapter on patterns and numbers to 100. This week the students counted and wrote numbers to twelve, explored counting by tens through 90, explored tens and ones through 50, identified and wrote numbers through 50 and identified and wrote numbers to 100. We will continue this chapter next week. Science: We started a new science unit focusing on polar animals this week. We have started by learning about polar bears. The students have learned different ways polar bears adapt to their harsh climate. They have also discovered that many polar animals camouflage into their white environment. The class also discussed the fascinating lives of penguins. We will continue to learn about polar animals next week! Have a wonderful snowy weekend! Miss Heuberger December 18, 2009 Dear Room 8 Parents, As the holiday season is upon us, the students in Room 8 have been busy making some special gifts for their families. The students worked very hard on their gifts, and I hope you enjoy them! Reading: We started Theme 5 in our reading series entitled, Home Sweet Home. We read a new story this week called Moving Day. While reading this and other stories we focused on the skill of comparing and contrasting. The students practiced this skill by completing Venn Diagrams comparing different aspects of our story. Language/Phonics: In language this week the students learned how to identify “exclamation sentences”. “Exclamation sentences” are sentences that show surprise or excitement. The students practiced writing and identifying exclamation sentences this week. This week we also learned about the consonant diagraphs: ch, tch, sh, th and wh. We practiced blending, reading, writing and identifying words with these sounds this week. Math: This week in math we completed our fifth chapter on geometry and fractions. This week the students identified and showed thirds and fourths of regions, identified fractional parts of a group, and solved problems involving fair shares. We will begin chapter 6 focusing on numbers and patterns to 100 after the winter vacation. Social Studies: We concluded our unit on winter holidays this week in Social Studies. This week our class spent some time talking about the traditions of Christmas, Eid and New Years. The students also had a chance to switch classrooms to learn about different holidays from around the world. They visited Ms. Reiner to learn about the Swedish holiday, St. Lucia Day and Ms. Epstein to learn about Kwanzaa. Finally, the class stayed in our room to learn about the Mexican celebration of Las Posadas. There was a special project to accompany each holiday as well. After vacation, we will begin a new science unit on polar animals. Have a wonderful winter vacation! I hope everyone has a very happy holiday and a happy and healthy new year! See you in 2010! Miss Heuberger December 11, 2009 Dear Room 8 Parents, Thank you to all of the students and parents who brought in donations for our “Letters to Santa” program. Due to your kindness we were able to buy our first grade girl two Disney Sparkle Princess dolls for Christmas. In fact, our class was so generous we were able to donate ten pairs of gloves and ten hats to the children with our leftover money! Reading: We completed Theme 4 in our reading series entitled, Family and Friends. We read two new stories this week: Dog School and the social studies link, Daycare for Dogs. While reading these and other stories we focused on the skill of sequencing. The students practiced this skill by putting events from different stories in the correct order or sequence. We will start Theme 5, Home Sweet Home next week. Language/Phonics: In language this week the students learned how to identify asking sentences. Asking sentences are sentences that ask something and end with a question mark. The students practiced writing and identifying asking sentences this week. In phonics, the students learned about the “s triple cluster” str, spl, scr, squ and spr. The students practiced blending and decoding words with these letter patterns this week. Math: This week in math we continued our unit on geometry and fractions. The students identified shapes that have the same size and shape, used logical reasoning to solve problems, explored the meaning of symmetry, identified equal and unequal parts of a region and identified and showed one half of regions. We will conclude this unit next week. After the break, we will focus on patterns and numbers to 100. Science/ Social Studies: We continued our unit on winter holidays this week in Social Studies. This week, we continued to learn about the traditions of Diwali and Hanukkah and discussed Christmas traditions. We will continue to learn how the holidays are celebrated around the world next week. Have a wonderful weekend! Miss Heuberger December 5, 2009 Dear Room 8 Parents, The word “trustworthiness” has been a big focus in our classroom and school during the month of December. The students have been involved in many discussions regarding trustworthiness as this is the value for December and January at Hynes School. When the students display trustworthy behavior, they earn a trustworthy hand that is placed on a bulletin board at the front of the school. Reading: We continued Theme 4 in our reading series entitled, Family and Friends. We read two new stories this week: Two Best Friends and the social studies link, How Mail Gets to You. While reading these and other stories we focused on the skill of comparing and contrasting. The students learned how to use Venn Diagrams to compare and contrast ideas and characters from our stories. Language/Phonics: In language this week the students learned how to identify telling sentences. Telling sentences are sentences that tell us something and end with a period. The students practiced reading and identifying telling sentences this week. In phonics, the students learned about the “s blends” sk, sl, sm, sn, sp, sl, st and sw. The students practiced blending and decoding words with these letter patterns this week. The students also learned about the sounds the letters kn and wr make. The students learned that there is a silent letter in each one of these letter patterns. Math: This week in math we continued our unit on geometry and fractions. The students identified and compared space shapes, identified characteristics of space shapes, identified plane shapes that make up space shapes, identified characteristics of plane shapes and identified open and closed shapes. We will complete this unit next week. Social Studies: We began a new unit focusing on winter holidays this week. The students are really excited about this special time in the year. If any student has special items for his or her special holiday, I encourage them to bring them in to share with the class! Have a wonderful weekend! Stay warm! Miss Heuberger November 20, 2009 Dear Room 8 Parents, It is the time of year to be thankful, and I just wanted to take a moment to share some of my thanks with all of you. I am incredibly thankful to be working in a school with such respectful and hard-working students, caring and supportive parents and encouraging and helpful principal and superintendent. Take some time over the holidays to have your child share what he or she is thankful for as well! Reading: This week we started Theme 4 in our reading series entitled, Family and Friends. We read a new story this week called, Go Away, Otto. While reading this and other stories we focused on the strategy of drawing conclusions. The students learned that they can use clues from the stories, pictures and knowledge from their own lives to help to draw conclusions about what is happening in a story and how the characters are feeling. Language/Phonics: In phonics, the students learned about the “l blends” bl, cl, fl, gl, pl and sl. The students practiced blending and decoding words with these letter patterns this week. In language this week the students learned how to identify sentences that are complete. The students have learned that every sentence must contain both a naming part and an action part in order to be complete. We practiced this by identify and building complete sentences. Math: In math this week we wrapped up our fourth unit on basic fact strategies. This week we focused on using doubles to subtract, writing fact families for numbers through 12. While fact families can be challenging for the students at this time, this is a skill that we will re-visit throughout the school year. The students also read word problems and decided whether they were addition or subtraction problems. We will take our chapter 4 test and cumulative review on Monday and will start our fifth chapter focusing on geometry and fractions after the Thanksgiving holiday. Social Studies: This week we discussed the story of the first Thanksgiving. The students learned how the Pilgrims came to America to start new lives and how the Native Americans helped them learn to live off of the land. Have a great weekend and a Happy Thanksgiving! Miss Heuberger November 13, 2009 Dear Room 8 Parents, It was so wonderful to see most of you at our recent parent/teacher conferences. I know that together we can make the most out of your child’s education in first grade! Reading: We concluded Theme 3 of our new reading series entitled, Look Around this week. We read a new story: At the Aquarium. While reading this and other stories we focused on the strategy of categorizing and classifying different things found in the stories. The students were given many opportunities to practice this skill this week and really did a fantastic job! Language/Phonics: In phonics, the students learned about the “r blends” br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr and tr. The students practiced blending and decoding words with these letter patterns this week. We also learned about contractions with “s” such as in the words who’s, where’s, it’s, what’s and let’s. The first graders learned that contractions are words that combine two common words into one. Math: In math this week we continued our fourth unit on basic fact strategies. Our focus switched to subtraction strategies this week. The students counted back 1 and 2 from a given number and used number lines to count back as well. We will conclude this unit before the Thanksgiving holiday. Our next unit will focus on geometry and fractions. Science/Social Studies: We wrapped up a science unit on spiders this week. The students continue to show a great deal of enthusiasm for this interesting science unit. Next week we will discuss Native Americans, the Pilgrims and the story of the first Thanksgiving just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. Have a great weekend! Miss Heuberger November 5, 2009 Dear Room 8 Parents, I am looking forward to seeing everyone at our upcoming parent/teacher conferences this evening. I am so proud of everything my students have accomplished this year already. I look forward to seeing the rest of you on Tuesday, November 10th. If you have not yet signed up for a conference, I still have some openings on that date. Please sign up for a conference through our webpage or call me to schedule a time over the phone. Reading: This week we continued Theme 3 of our new reading series entitled, Look Around. We read two new stories this week: Miss Jill’s Ice Cream Shop and the social studies link, Making Ice Cream. While reading these and other stories we focused on the strategy of making predictions. The students learned that in order to make reasonable predictions one must use the cues in the story, title and pictures along with their own real-life experiences. We practiced this skill by applying it to the stories we read this week. Language/Phonics: In phonics this week the students learned about possessive nouns. They learned that when someone owns something you must add an ‘s to the end of the word to show ownership. We also practiced reading and writing verbs with the endings, -s, -ed and –ing as in jumps, jumped and jumping. Math: We continued our fourth unit on exploring basic fact strategies this week in math. The students used doubles to add, used near doubles to add, made and used drawings to solve problems and explored counting back as a subtraction strategy. We will continue to learn fact strategies next week. Science: This week we started a new science unit on spiders. The students are intrigued with learning how spiders trick other insects to get their meals. We will continue to discuss spiders next week. Have a great weekend! Miss Heuberger October 30, 2009 Dear Room 8 Parents, It is hard to believe that it is already Halloween! Our class had a great time celebrating Halloween today. A big thanks to our parent volunteers for coming in and helping us with our Halloween party! Reading: This week we started Theme 3 of our new reading series entitled, Look Around. We read two new stories this week: Seasons and a joke link, Ha!, Ha!, Ha!. While reading we focused on the strategy of finding the topic, main idea and supporting details of non-fiction stories. The students discovered that non-fiction stories do not have characters, settings, problems and solutions like fiction stories do. We read non-fiction stories to gather information on a specific topic. The students practiced this skill by finding the topic, main idea and supporting details of different stories we read this week. Language/Phonics: In language this week the students learned about complete sentences. The students discovered that a sentence is a complete thought. The students know that in order to tell if a sentence is complete they must read it in isolation and think if it makes sense. We practiced this skill by reading, writing and identifying complete sentences. In phonics, the students learned about double final consonants as in the words mess and pack. The students learned that final double consonants sound the same as single final consonants. Our class practiced writing and identifying these words this week. We also learned about plurals with –s as in cats. Math: This week in math we started a new chapter on using basic fact strategies. The students were introduced to some strategies to help them with addition facts this week. The students explored counting on as an addition strategy, counted on one, two or three to add and used number lines to count on one, two or three. We will continue to learn more addition and subtraction strategies next week. Science/ Social Studies: This week the students used their bat knowledge to write fantastic bat free verse poetry. We will start collecting our poetry in poetry folders this school year. The students did a fantastic job with this activity and we will be writing more free verse poetry during literacy center time. Next week we will start a new unit on spiders! Have a great weekend! Happy Halloween! Miss Heuberger October 23, 2009 Dear Room 8 Parents, It was so wonderful to see everyone last night at the Hynes Music Festival. I am so proud of my first graders; their performance was a huge success! Reading: : This week we completed Theme 2 of our new reading series entitled, Surprise. We read two new stories this week: A Surprise for Zig Bug and the science link, Insects. While we read these and other stories we focused on the skill of story structure. The students learned about different elements of a story including characters, setting, problem and solution. We will start Theme 3 entitled, Look Around next week. The students are very excited to move on to our second reading books! Language/Phonics: In language this week the students learned about verbs or “action words”. The students discovered that verbs name something we can do. We practiced this skill by sorting words into two categories: “naming words” or nouns and “action words” or verbs. They learned that verbs are things that we can do and nouns are words that we can touch. In phonics, the students learned to blend words with the “short u” sound as in “umbrella”. The class reviewed the letters J, Q and Z this week as well. Math: We completed our third unit on exploring subtraction this week. The students explored different ways to solve subtraction problems, solved subtraction problems with zero, decided whether to use addition or subtraction to solve problems and took their chapter 3 test and cumulative review this week. We will start our fourth unit on basic fact strategies on Monday. Science: The students continued to be immersed in all things bats in science. They are really interested in learning as much as they can about these interesting creatures of the night. We will continue to learn about bats next week. Volunteer Training: Mrs. Westley will be holding a volunteer training session at Hynes on Monday, November 4th at 4:30 pm. Parents must attend one of these sessions to accompany us on class field trips. If you have not already attended a volunteer training session and would like to be trained, please contact the office to confirm your attendance. Thanks! Have a fantastic weekend! Miss Heuberger October 16, 2009 Dear Room 8 Parents, All about this week in our classroom: Reading: : We continued Theme 2 of our new reading series entitled Surprise. We read two new stories this week: The Bunnies and the Fox and the science link, Woodland Animals. While we read these and other stories we focused on the skill of distinguishing if a story is reality story or a fantasy. The students learned that it only takes one thing that could not happen in real life to make a story a fantasy. When reading stories this week, the students had to decide whether the story was a fantasy story or a reality story and give reasons for their choice. Language/Phonics: In language this week the students learned about nouns or “naming words”. The students discovered that nouns are words that name a person, animal, place or thing. We practiced this skill by deciding if certain words were nouns and sorting them into the different noun categories. In phonics, the students learned to blend words with the “short e” sound as in “elephant”. The class reviewed the letters “k”, “v” and “y” this week as well. Math: We continued to practice our subtraction skills this week in math. The students used pictures to explore the meaning of subtraction, used to symbols to write and solve subtraction sentences, wrote number sentences to solve problems and wrote subtraction sentences using horizontal and vertical forms. We will conclude this unit next week with our Chapter 3 tests. Our next chapter will focus on using basic fact strategies. Science: This week we started a new science unit on bats. The students have been exposed to many fiction and non-fiction books about bats to gain information on these fascinating animals. We have been learning some pretty impressive bat vocabulary such as: hibernation, migration, echolocation, mammal, and nocturnal. We will continue this unit next week! Have a great weekend! Miss Heuberger October 9, 2009 Dear Room 8 Parents, It has been another exciting week in Room 8. The students have been involved in many different learning activities over the course of this school week. Reading: We started Theme 2 of our new reading series entitled Surprise. We read three stories about parties; A Lot!, A Lot!, A Party for Bob, and a math link, Shapes are Everywhere! While reading these stories we focused on the skill of noting details. The students learned that many times the pictures can tell more details about a story than the words. We practiced this skill while recording story details and discussing the details of our stories as we read. Language/Phonics: In language this week we discussed the proper way to write names. The students understand that every special name of a person should start with a capital letter. We played a name game to reinforce this skill. In phonics, the students learned how to blend words with the “short o” sound as in octopus and hot. The students practiced blending these words by making words with this sound and reading our story selections for the week. The class also reviewed the letters “w”, “x”, “d” and “l”. Math: This week the students completed their unit on addition with their chapter 2 test and cumulative review. They also explored the order property of addition and used data from pictures to solve problems. We dove right into our next unit on subtraction as well. The students used counters to explore the meaning of subtraction. We will continue subtracting next week! Science: Our class completed our unit on the four seasons this week with our four seasons test. We also were able to go on a nature walk outside of the school to observe the changes of the fall season. Our next unit will focus on bats, just in time for Halloween! Have a nice long weekend! Miss Heuberger October 2, 2009 Dear Room 8 Parents, It was great to see some of you at the Hynes Family Literacy Night last night. Thank you for taking the time to learn about helping your child with reading at home! Reading: : We completed Theme 1 of our new reading series entitled All Together Now. We read three stories from our first readers in the series; A Big Hit!, a social studies link Let’s Go to the Fair! and the main story, Pigs in a Rig. While reading these stories we focused on the skill of cause and effect. The class had great discussions about cause (what makes something happen) and effect (what happens as a result) relationships in everyday life. The students also talked about cause and effect relationships in the stories we read this week. Next week, we will start Theme 2 entitled, Surprise! Language/Phonics: In language this week we learned about different punctuation marks used to end a sentence. The students discovered that a period ends most sentences, but sentences with excitement end with an exclamation mark and “asking sentences” end with a question mark. We practiced identifying and reading these different types of sentences this week. Our class is also focusing on writing sentences that begin with a capital letter and end with a punctuation mark. In phonics we practiced reading, writing, blending and identifying words with the “short i” sound as in the word pig. Math: This week in math we continued our second chapter on exploring addition. The students wrote addition sentences using horizontal and vertical forms, explored different ways to solve addition sentences, used the “act it out” strategy to solve problems and solved addition problems with the addend of zero. We will conclude this unit next week with our chapter 2 tests. Our next unit will focus on exploring subtraction. Science: This week we continued our science unit on the four seasons. We learned that there are four seasons in this year and are currently exploring the characteristics of each season. We will complete this unit next week. Our next science unit will focus on bats, just in time for Halloween! Have a wonderful weekend! Miss Heuberger September 25, 2009 Dear Room 8 Parents, We have had a busy and exciting week in first grade. The students continue to work hard. They have a lot to be proud of! Reading: We continued Theme 1 of our new reading series entitled All Together Now. We read three stories from our first readers in the series; Cam and Pat, School Poems and the main story, A Day at School. While reading these stories we focused on the skill of comparing and contrasting. We utilized this important skill while comparing different ideas with the use of Venn Diagrams. Math: This week in math we completed our first chapter on exploring numbers and patterns. We also started our second chapter focusing on exploring addition. The students used counters and pictures to explore the meaning of addition and wrote and solved addition sentences. We will continue to explore addition next week. Language/Phonics: In language this week we continued to discuss capital letters. The students are learning how to write sentences that begin with capital letters and use capital letters for the names of people and animals. We learned a song to help us remember that sentences and names of people start with capital letters. The students also continued to learn how to read and write words with the short a sound as in the word apple. The students practiced blending these words by sorting word families with this sound and reading our story selections for the week. The class also reviewed the letters N, F and P. Science: We started a new unit on the four seasons this week in science. The students have been discussing different characteristics of each season. Many students have brought in special items or projects to share relating to the four seasons. I encourage students to continue this practice if they wish! We will continue this unit next week. Have a great fall weekend! Miss Heuberger September 18, 2009 Dear Room 8 Parents, It was a fun and busy week here in first grade. We started reading out of our reading series books and continued to participate in Writer’s Workshop and our spelling program. The first graders continue to work hard and are excited about all the new activities that first grade brings! Reading: This week we started Theme 1 of our new reading series entitled All Together Now. We read three stories from our first readers in the series; On the Go, Big Cats and Little Cats and the main story, Mac the Cat. While reading these stories we focused on the skill on sequencing. The class had discussions about how every story and everyday event has a specific sequence. The students sequenced the stories using the words first, next and last. Language/Phonics: In language this week, we discussed capital letters. The students learned that every sentence starts with a capital letter. We also started discussing the fact that special names of people begin with capital letters as well. In phonics, the students learned how to blend words with the short a sound as in the word cat. The students practiced blending these words by making words with this sound and reading our story selections for the week. The class also reviewed the letters “m”, “s”, “c” and “t”. Math: This week in math we continued our first unit on exploring numbers and patterns. The students identified numbers as greater than or less than a given number, put the numbers 1-12 in order, identified and continued patterns, identified ordinal numbers to the tenth and explored bar graphs. We will conclude this unit early next week with our chapter 1 test and cumulative review test. Our next unit focuses on exploring addition. We will begin to explore addition next week. Science: This week in science we wrapped up our first unit on apples. The students were able to participate in a special apple tasting activity. Each student sampled red, green and yellow apples and then the class graphed their favorites. The students really enjoyed this fun and delicious activity! Next week, we will begin a new science unit focusing on the four seasons and seasonal changes! Have a wonderful weekend! Miss Heuberger September 11, 2009 Dear Room 8 Parents, It was a fun and busy week here in first grade. We had our first spelling test and the students did a terrific job! Thanks to everyone for studying at home with your children. Just a reminder, inappropriate capital letters and backwards letters will not count as correct. Please reinforce this with your child when practicing at home. Reading: The students continued to listen to stories to enhance their listening comprehension skills. We also completed our review of the alphabet sounds this week in phonics. We will start Theme 1, entitled All Together Now, of our reading series on Monday. The class will begin guided and shared reading activities as we read stories as a class, in small groups or as partners. The students will still be working on the important skills of predicting, inferencing, summarizing, making connections, sequencing and asking questions while reading these stories. Math: This week in math we continued to work on our first chapter, exploring numbers and patterns. This week the students learned how to identify groups of 10-12, read and write numbers 10-12, use words, numbers and objects to write numbers 1-12 and identify numbers as greater than or less than a given number. We will continue this unit next week. Science: This week in science we continued our unit on apples. We have discussed the life cycle of an apple tree and what apple trees look like during the different seasons of the year. The students have also learned how apples grow. We have been learning some new vocabulary words, so make sure to ask your child what the words ripe, core, orchard, apple blossom and cider mean. We will continue to learn about apples next week. If any student would like to bring in related materials or projects for this or any science or social studies unit to share with the class, they are encouraged to do so! Have a great weekend! Miss Heuberger September 6, 2008 Dear Room 8 Parents, Thanks to everyone who attended the Hynes Open House last night. It was great to see everyone and I hope it was informative for you all. Reading: This week we learned some new sight words to add to our classroom word wall. The students also continue to be exposed to many different types of literature. They have been strengthening their listening skills by listening to story “read alouds”. We continue to work on the important skills of predicting, inferencing, summarizing and asking questions as we read these fun stories. Language/Phonics: This week, we continued to review our letter sounds. The letters we reviewed this week included h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s and t. We learned how to recognize words that begin with each of these letters, and continued using our “sound arm” to help us sound out words. We read a special poem for each one of these letters. We have also started phonemic awareness this week. The students have been working with words and their sounds. Math: This week in math we continued our first chapter on exploring numbers and patterns. The students learned how to identify groups of zero, create and use a pictograph, identify and illustrate sets of 6-9 and write numbers 6- 9. We will continue this unit next week. Science: We started a new science unit focusing on apples this week. The students have been exposed to both fiction and non-fiction text to gain an understanding of apples, how they grow and the products that are made from this delicious fruit. We will continue to learn more about apples next week! Have a wonderful long weekend! Miss Heuberger August 28, 2009 Dear Room 8 Parents, We have had a truly great first week of first grade. I am really looking forward to another great year at Hynes and I look forward to getting to know you and your children this year. This is what has been keeping us busy this week: Reading: This week in reading we have been working on our listening comprehension skills. I have been reading many stories out loud to the class and asking the students to answer questions and make predictions when listening to these stories. We have also started learning some sight words this week. These are words that every student should be able to read automatically by sight as they occur frequently in our reading and writing and are not easy to decode. We practiced reading and writing sentences with our new sight words. Each Friday, I will attach sight word cards to the back of my newsletter. It would be beneficial to use these cards or make your own to practice these sight words with your child. Language/Phonics: We started our quick review of the alphabet this week, reviewing the letters a, b, c, d, e, f, and g. We talked about the sounds each letter makes and practiced identifying and brainstorming words starting with these letters. The students also learned special first grade “sign language” for the short vowel sounds “a” and “e”. We will continue to review the alphabet next week. Math: This week in math we started our first chapter on exploring numbers and patterns. The students learned how to identify groups with the same, more and fewer items than other groups, identify and show sets of 1-5, write numbers 1-5, identify number patterns and identify and show zero. We will continue this unit next week. Social Studies: In Social Studies we are learning about ourselves and each other. The students are working hard on “All About Me” books that we will share with each other. We also shared our “All About Me” bags on Friday. We have also spent some time discussing and reading books about friendship. We will continue to discuss these topics next week. We have had a great first week! Have a wonderful weekend! Miss Heuberger August 25, 2009 Dear Room 8 Parents, Welcome to first grade! I just wanted to take a quick moment to introduce myself. This is my sixth year teaching first grade at Hynes, and I can’t wait for another great school year to begin. I love teaching first grade and can’t wait to see all of the achievements your children are sure to accomplish this year. I am not only a certified teacher, but a certified Reading Specialist as well. I completed my Master’s degree in Reading at National-Louis University. Teaching beginning readers is a passion of mine, and together I am sure we will witness a great deal of growth in all areas of your child’s reading development over the course of the school year! Communication between home and school is very important to me. Please feel free to contact me at any time. You can e-mail me at lheuberger@golf67.net or call my room at (847)-965-4500, extension # 114. I also send home newsletters every Friday to inform parents of the week’s events, upcoming units and dates to remember. I am very much looking forward to another wonderful year in first grade! Sincerely, Miss Heuberger Automatically clean input to optimize for the web. 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Miss Heuberger's First Grade Class

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