From Indian prints to Thanksgiving bracelets, candle and kite making,

check out some of this week’s student-centered activities.

            

First in Math Rankings: 1st place in first grade at Rocky Mount; 11th place school-wide; 3rd place in Cobb county; 12th place in Georgia; 67th place in U.S.A.

Remember to RSVP for the Thanksgiving Lunch, which is scheduled for Thursday, November 19 at 12:15 pm. A sign-out sheet will be made available for those families who wish to check their child out after lunch. Please let us know if you are NOT able to attend lunch with your child, so that we can make arrangements to join them for lunch.

In keeping with Rocky Mount’s annual tradition, this year’s Veteran’s Day celebration was fantastic! New to the program format, this year, one student from each grade level represented their class by posing a pre-selected question to the veteran who was the keynote speaker — Sergeant Washington, the husband of Rocky Mount’s very own kindergarten teacher, Kristin Washington. Our class’s question was: To become a veteran, did you retire from service or were you injured during service? Our class representative was very poised and did an excellent job of presenting the question!

In Science, students have been working with magnets. They have been enjoying seeing what items magnets attract and those which they repel. They will continue investigating magnets and magnetic properties. The week will conclude with a visit to the Science Lab, where students will have the opportunity to create the kites they sketched during our class’s prior visit. What an exciting opportunity for some hands-on, project-based learning and collaboration!

In Math, students will continue to practice solving word problems and providing a written explanation of their thinking. They will work with true/false statements of addition and subtraction problems and try their hand at creating some of their own true/false statements. In keeping with the season, students will perform an exercise where they put together a feast of food items for a Thanksgiving meal, given a pre-determined budget amount and taking into consideration the amounts for each item they plan to serve. They will experience, on a small scale, what their families must take into consideration when planning for a meal.

In Reading, students will compare and contrast, discuss story elements, make connections (text-to-text, text-to-self) and engage in reflective literary discussions. Thanksgiving activity rotations will take place on Tuesday and literacy centers will be on-going, wrapping up with final activities on Friday.

In Writing, students are still working on creating informational passages (i.e. How To passages and I’m an expert on …). Creating introductions and conclusions will be an area of focus for this week. Students will continue the practice of sharing their writing with peers and preparing cover sheets for their final drafts. They have been so proud of their chapter books!

This week, students will visit the Computer Lab, have a Guidance lesson with our fabulous counselor, and visit the Media Center on Friday. Please be sure to return all books, so that your child can check out books to read over the break. With the assistance of many volunteers, the Media Center is converting over to Lexiles. For most of the books in the Media Center’s Destiny catalogue, when you select the desired text, click on the link, then scroll down to view the Lexile number. Thanks to all of you who have helped to research books on your child’s level! It has been a tremendous help for them to be more efficient during book selection time and check-out, when our class visits the Media Center. It has been interesting to see how for many books in a series, Lexile numbers can greatly vary. Thanks for your patience and continued support with this process!

 

   

Rocky Mount’s annual VETERAN’S DAY CELEBRATION, for active vets and their families, is Wednesday, November 11. There will be an assembly in the cafeteria to honor our vets and active military. Each grade level was asked to prepare a question to ask a vet, and our class’s question was selected for our grade. Questions will be read during the day’s program. Click on the link below to view more information.

http://www.cobbk12.org/RockyMount/2015-16HomePageFiles/VeteransDayInvitationFlyer2015.pdf

Thanksgiving Lunch is Thursday, November 19 at 12:15 pm. Reservations are required. A flyer went home in your child’s folder on Tuesday and a link to the online flyer is provided below. If you are unable to join your child, please just drop us an email to let us know, so that we can coordinate having lunch with them. Thanks!

http://www.cobbk12.org/RockyMount/2015-16LunchSchedules/ThanksgivingLunch2015.pdf

First in Math Rankings: 1st place for first grade at Rocky Mount; 3rd place in Cobb county; 9th place in Georgia; 45th place in the U.S.

Continuing the seasonal theme, in Reading, students will be exposed to a few Thanksgiving stories. They will continue to practice their prediction and story mapping skills. Students will be analyzing characters’ feelings, identifying cause & effect and problem & solution. They will continue to make literary connections as they consider story components with which they can identify on a personal level, making text-to-self connections. Seasonal poems will also be read, and students will work with this genre of text in an interactive format, breaking apart the text to extrapolate details and further their learning through the application of prior knowledge around syllabication, rhyme, etc.

In our Writer’s Workshop, students will work on not just stating details in passages which they’ve created, but also incorporating descriptions to help their readers to visualize that which they (the writer) have written. Students will be learning just how writers pull from their prior experiences and knowledge base to teach their readers, incorporating how-to details and using persuasion in their writing. And, what would a written piece be without a proper introduction and conclusion?! Students will contemplate some concrete examples from their own lives (such as the beginning and end to their daily routine) to help them to incorporate these elements into their writing.

In Math, students will be comparing different methods of counting (ten-frame versus number line) and comparing/contrasting these counting tools. We will be working on subtraction and discussing the various terms/key phrases that are synonymous with subtraction. Students will be exposed to “related facts,” learning that the relationship between addition and subtraction can be used to double check final answers. They will have math fact fluency drills to check for speed and accuracy. As they continue to progress in this area, having a strong grasp of their basic math facts will prove to be particularly important when solving multi-step, word problems. A solid math facts foundation will help to free up space in students’ mental filing cabinet, as they advance through problem solving steps and as they continue to advance in school.

With the completion of the Landform assessment, which concludes this geographic unit, students will begin learning about magnets and sound in Science. During the next visit to the Science Lab, they will have the opportunity to construct a kite with a peer. Based upon the recent sketches, they have contemplated how their kite will look and what materials they will need to construct it. We can’t wait to see their final products!

Please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Enjoy your family time!

First in Math Rankings: 1st place at Rocky Mount; 3rd place in Cobb county; 8th place in Georgia; 42nd place in USA.

It’s hard to believe that it’s November already! It’s that time of year when we tend to be more cognizant of those people and things in our life for which we are grateful. And accordingly, students have been focusing on this topic in their writing, in addition to creating various informational pieces.

In Reading, we are discussing themed books of the season, continuing to hone reading skills/strategies in the areas of: making predictions, determining story elements, problem & solution, making connections (text, self, & world), and visualization. For Table Talk, ask your child to share with you what Fletcher’s dilemma was and how he tried to fix it. They’ve shared their own personal connections regarding a time when they tried to help someone.

In Math, students are working on understanding different ways in which quantities and equations can be expressed on either side of the equal sign, analyzing whether the number sentences are equivalent, and providing a written explanation of what more/less is needed to make a false equation true. They are working out problems, going from one whole and two parts (sum = addend + addend) and learning about how to identify the missing part when they know one addend and the sum. Students will be working on subtraction sentences.

Guidance and Science Lab will take place this week. In Guidance, students discussed the impact of how it feels to be the recipient of another person’s meanness. They had a lesson in kindness.  For Table Talk, ask your child what it means to be an “upstander.” Landforms assessment is Wednesday, and later in the week, in Science Lab, students will be making kites, an extension of the Ben Franklin unit.

Rocky Mount’s annual Veteran’s Day celebration, for active vets and their families, is next Wednesday, 11/11. There will be an assembly in the cafeteria. Each grade level was asked to prepare a question to ask a vet, and our class’s question was selected for our grade (!).  Questions will be read during the assembly that day.

Thanksgiving Lunch is Thursday, 11/19 at 12:15 pm. If you are unable to join your child, please let us know so that we can coordinate having lunch with them. As always, let us know if you have any questions. It is a joy and a privilege to be able to work with your children!

Note: Children’s coats, sweaters, lunch bags, water bottles, etc. need to have their names in them so they can be returned to them from the Lost and Found.  Rocky Mount has begun donating unclaimed items.