Hello 1JB Families,

Happy spring break! We hope everyone has a restorative and enjoyable break.

Please check out our 1JB folder for resources and helpful worksheets to do over break!

For example, if you have dice at home you can play Roll a Story or Roll and Add.

If your child is a fan of the New York Times Spelling games, check out a printable version they can do on their own! Spelling Bee

Post Office Parent Letter

Other Post office info: When returning from break students should bring in some change that can be used in the Post Office! All the money that will be made during the Post Office will be donated to charity! High Schoolers will be visiting 1JB with charity suggestions and students in 1JB will then discuss and come to a consensus.

Important dates and reminders: 

• Upper School Culture Clubs Hosting Lower School Students:
  • Muslim Culture Club | March 11
  • Jewish Culture Club | March 14
• Friday, March 15: Spring Break Begins- Dismissal at the end of Day
• Monday, April 1: School Re-opens
• Friday, April 12: Eid Potluck Dinner 6pm-8pm
• Wednesday, April 17th, 9:00-9:30 (following MFW): Family Visiting/Post Office
• Thursday, April 18th/ Friday, April 19th: Parent Conferences- no school for students
• May 10: Grandparents/ Special Friends Day

Post Office

1JB had a special visit from Natalia’s grandma last week! Edith brought in her wonderful stamp collection and taught students how to carefully get a stamp off envelope paper without breaking it. 1JB is so grateful for all the special visitors who have come to our classroom this year to share their stamp knowledge and collections with us!

Our stamps have officially been created! We are so proud of all the hard work that students have put into creating their stamps and we can’t wait to share them with you when the post office opens! As you can see from some pictures, our block area has started to transform into the post office! Last week students began to organize their stamps, create envelopes, and make the mailboxes for the offices and classrooms around the school. Ask your child which classroom or office they wrote the address of.

Check out how to fold an envelope to see how the students learned to make envelopes!

Writing

Students received their very own Words I Use When I Write dictionaries. These are dictionaries specifically made for young spellers as they use more high-frequency words in their writing. Each dictionary has a page of blank lines where students can add words that they use often in their writing. For example, if a student loves a certain sport or activity they may add the name of it into their dictionary so they can use it in their journal writing. Ask your child about what they wrote about in their journals. What words did they add to their dictionary?

This week during Writing students completed their All About books (also called How To Books). Each student picked a classroom material to write about and explain how to use. During this process, students learned how to go back and edit their work with a teacher. Asking questions like, did I start every sentence with a capital letter? Did I use punctuation? Did I check my dictionary for tricky words? Ask your child about the topic they wrote about.

Another activity students took part in this week was a writing activity dedicated to Women’s History Month. Students learned about a handful of inspiring women who have made an impact on the world, like Malala Yousafzai, Frida Kahlo, Katherine Johnson, and Wangari Maathai. Students also had the opportunity to discuss and share about women in their lives that they look up to or love. Ask your child about who they wrote about for our writing activity. Why does the woman inspire them?

Math

Children have continued to examine and learn about each coin individually. We learned the names, values, and fun facts about each. Since the silver coins are hard to distinguish, we had the children discuss ways they can identify the different coins. As students began to feel more comfortable with each coin, we practiced counting coins! Counting coins includes the skill of counting by 1s, 5s, 10s, and 25. We recommend that you practice these counting skills over break as well as studying and discussing the different coins. Some questions you can ask your child: “Can you show me the counting by 25 macarena dance?” “How many quarters make a dollar?” “How many quarters do I need to make $1.50?” “If I have 6 nickels, how much money do I have?”

Check out some students doing the Quarter Macarena!

Students also learned a game called Sparkle! Sparkle is a highly engaging game that’s great for building students’ skip-counting fluency. Most recently we have played a version where we count by 1s and if you get a number that is 5 or a multiple of 5, you have to say sparkle and sit down. (Using a number like 5 or 10 supports students’ ability to count coins like nickles and dimes). Eventually, two students are left, and they continue to count until one student is left standing! This is a cooperative practice game that requires listening skills. If you are with a large group of people, give this game a try!

Reading

This week students took turns reading aloud to one another. This activity supports students’ active listening skills, reading fluency, and provides opportunities for students to see what their peers are reading. Over spring break, you can look for opportunities for your child to read aloud to you or others!

Spelling

What have we been up to in FUNdations?

R-controlled Vowels: Ask your child to read this poster aloud to you. Why are these called r-controlled vowels?

Students continued to practice digraph blends. Examples of words with digraph blends are lunch & shrub.

These words also have four sounds. A digraph (ch, sh) is blended with another consonant. Ask your child about the word pinch. Can they find the digraph blend?

Trick words to practice: would, should, could

1JB Enjoying the beautiful weather!

Celebrating and Learning about Nowruz!

Thank you, Ali, Roxanne’s dad for visiting 1JB and teaching us all about Nowruz. Students learned about the different traditions and celebrations that happen during this special holiday. Following learning about Nowruz, Roxanne taught 1JB how to make spring crowns! Ask your child about how they made their crown. How does it represent the start of spring?

Another big thank you to Sisi for inviting 1JB to the Business office to learn about Nowruz. Students were able to see a decorated Haftseen and learn about the different elements on the table. Sisi even had goldfish on the table! Ask your child if they remember what goldfish represent during Nowruz.

Creative Computing with Katherine

This week during creative computing, students continued learning and programming their bee bot robots! The goal this time was to find the shortest and longest route for the bee bot. Ask your child if they were able to successfully find these routes with their partner.

St Patrick’s Day Celebration 

What a way to end our Friday! Lilly’s mom Alexis came to 1JB to teach us about St. Patrick’s Day! 1JB learned about the history of St Patrick’s Day, words in Gaelic, and discussed how they would catch a leprechaun. Students all decorated their own festive glasses to wear on St. Patrick’s Day! What a blast!

Hello 1JB Families,

Happy March! The end of February was a busy time for students in 1JB. Learning about money, creating our stamps, new FUNdations concepts, and the 100th day of school! Below you will find pictures, resources, information, and updates.

Important Dates & Reminders: 

• Friday, March 1: Family Visiting
• Friday, March 1: Falafel Friday hosted by Muslim Culture Club and Jewish Culture Club
• Monday, March 4: After Owls Tri 3 starts
• Upper School Culture Clubs Hosting Lower School Students:
  • Black Culture Club | Feb. 27
  • Muslim Culture Club | March 11
  • Jewish Culture Club | March 14
• Friday, March 15: Spring Break Begins- Dismissal at the end of Day
• Monday, April 1: School Re-opens
• Friday, April 12: Eid Potluck Dinner 6pm-8pm
• Wednesday, April 17th, 9:00-9:30 (following MFW): Family Visiting/Post Office
• Thursday, April 18th/ Friday, April 19th: Parent Conferences- no school for students

Celebrating the 100th day 

1JB was thrilled to celebrate 100 days of first grade! We started our day by answering fun 100-related prompts like, “I would love to eat 100…” “If I was 100 years old…” “I wish I had 100…” Ask your child about these prompts. How did they answer them?

We continued our celebration of 100 days with 100 words! Students worked together to write 100 words that contained FUNdations concepts (trick words, glued sounds, digraphs, suffix s, or double letters). Ask your child what words they added to our list.

To end our day of celebration we joined together with other first-grade classrooms to do 100-day activities! We built 100 with pattern blocks and figured out how many times we could do different actions in 100 seconds. Ask your child how many times they wrote their name in 100 seconds!

Creative Computing with Katherine

To support students’ understanding of programming robots, they were able to step into the body of a bee bot (robot)! With partners, students took turns either being the programmer or the robot. When students took on the role of programmer, they had to create different instructions for the robot to follow. The goal was for the robot to make it from a start point to a stop point. When students took the role of a bee bot, they had to follow the programmer’s instructions and only move when they were “programmed”. To find out more about this activity ask your child some of the following questions- How it was being the programmer? How was it being the robot? What was tricky about this activity? What was fun about it?

Social Studies: Creating our stamps!

Our post office stamps have been created! Students went through the process of sketching out their stamp ideas, discussing them with teachers, and creating final drafts. Ask your child about their stamp process. What is the title of their stamp? What was it like doing the final draft? How did they come up with their idea?

Special Visitors

There is no better way to learn about the post office than from the students who know it best! Students from Jennifer’s class last year, visited 1JB Friday afternoon. The second graders explained the different jobs of the post office, showed us their post office binders, and answered our burning post office questions!

Thank you, second graders!

Math

We have completed our unit on place value and begun learning about money.

Children had the opportunity to examine and learn about each coin individually. We learned the names, values, and fun facts about each. Since the silver coins are hard to distinguish, we had the children discuss ways they can identify the different coins. Check out some of our observations: Nickel & Dimes.

We encourage you to have your children practice identifying coins! Once your child has mastered this, have them practice having them count from largest value to smallest value.

If you are looking for a math game to play at home, check out this game called Number Order.

Weather Graph

Students completed the weather graphs from February. Ask your child about the weather they recorded from the month. What predictions do they have for the next month?

Community Period: Lunar New Year Celebration

During the community period, we listened to upper school students read the story The Great Race (the story of the Chinese zodiac).

Following the story we learned more about why the dragon is central to Chinese culture. Here is the video we watched during the community period (we didn’t have a chance to finish the video, so your child may be curious about what other information this video has).

Language Arts

This week students continued practicing fluency skills like scooping sentences and reading with expression. To develop fluency and speed of reading, students learn how to read in phrases that connect meaning. Fundations uses a scooping technique to provide a graphical representation of phrasing. Ask your child to practice scooping with their finger while they read at home.

Another skill we practiced this week was retelling. Retelling is a short, consistent routine students can use to recall, order, and summarize a text. When reading a story called The Pink Dress, students discussed the difference between key details and supporting details. Key details consist of the important information we need to know as readers to understand a story, like the main characters, setting, and main events. We also use key details to retell a story and show our understanding of a text. After reading The Pink Dress, students sketched out the main events of the story to support their retelling to a partner. Ask your child about the key details of The Pink Dress story.

FUNdations

This week we continued to review glued sounds and suffixes. We discussed that the suffix s can be an action (sings) and it can also mean plural (kings). Sometimes we need to listen to the word used in a sentence to know whether it is an action or plural. For example, “Becca wears a lot of rings” vs. “Her phone rings when someone is calling”.

On Thursday we began learning about blends. Students learned the difference between a blend and a digraph. A digraph contains two consonants and only makes one sound, such as sh, /sh/. A blend, however, contains two or more consonants but they each make their own sound, such as /s/ and /l/. Blends can come before a vowel like the word flip or after a vowel like the word past. 

Trick words: some, come, would 

Upcoming: should, could, her, over, number

Check out some worksheets and games you can play at home!

Roll & Write Trick Words

Pick the Right Word

Another important concept we have been discussing is r-controlled vowels. R-controlled vowels are also known as the bossy r. When a syllable has a vowel that is followed by r, the vowel is “controlled” by the r and makes a new sound. Ask your child about this concept.

Family Visiting

Thank you families for coming to visit 1JB this morning! Students had a blast showing you all the different things that they’ve been learning and doing. We look forward to our next family visiting day on April 17th, 9:00-9:30. During this visit the post office will be open!! We can’t wait!

Check out these creative creations during activities: