1A - Miss Grunau

     What a busy 3rd Quarter our first graders have experienced. Throughout the past few months, it has been wonderful to see all of our little ones fully engaged in their daily routines, while immersed in their classroom studies.  In Religion, we began the season of Lent by attending Ash Wednesday services and by praying one Station of the Cross each day.  In Math, we are exploring topics such as telling time by the hour/half-hour, counting by 1s, 5s, and 10s, and singing poems to help us remember the value of pennies, nickels, and dimes.  We are, also, working on a PBL project where the students are using unfix cubes to measure and construct their King/Rockhopper Penguins a hide-out, with a built-in pully system to connect to their Social Studies unit on the forces of push and pull.  In Reading, we continue to explore a variety of story genres, while discussing topics such as story structure, sequencing, and cause and effect.  We, also, engaged, in weekly reading centers, where small groups of students come together to read a variety of short stories that focus on the weekly reading topics and word/spelling patterns.  For Phonics, our students have been introduced to diagraph, letter blends, and r-controlled vowel sounds.  In English, our students practice identifying and writing different subjects and verbs in a sentence, while building a variety of contractions.  In Spelling, we practice spelling words with a different mixture of diagraphs, vowels, and letter blends.  In Health, we've explored the functions of our teeth and how we can best take care of our teeth.  Lastly, in Social Studies we celebrate Black History Month by recognizing several inventors and their inventions, such as George Washington Carver and Garrett A. Morgan.
     Overall, it has been a very busy, but fun-filled 3rd quarter and we look forward to the 4th quarter, where we will begin exploring life cycles, 2D/3D shapes, and embarking on a fun-filled trip to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo! In the meantime, we hope you start to enjoy this warmer weather!
 

<3, Miss Grunau