Dear Team Ward Parents,

Spring is in full swing and that means a lot of plant and animal science for Team Ward!  These are the questions we're studying:
-How are parents and offspring alike and different?
-How do the behaviors of parents and offspring help the offspring grow and survive?
-How to structures of organisms help them survive?
-How do humans mimic the structures and functions of organisms to solve problems?

We're beginning the unit by growing mystery seeds and studying them as they grow.  Our goal is to figure out what they are by observing the characteristics of each young plant.  We're also observing a mother eagle and her eaglets in Decorah, IA on a live cam.  The students have asked that I share the website with you so they might be able see the action after school and on weekends.  It is: explore.org/live-cams/player/decorah-eagles-north-nest.  

As a part of the unit we'll be studying various animals, learning about parent-offspring relationships and the specific structures of plants and animals that help them survive.  This will be integrated with our informational writing unit in May when the students choose an animal to research.  Then they will write a non-fiction chapter book about what they learned.  Should be great!

Happy Spring!

Team Ward enjoyed learning about family traditions together.  Thank you to the families who volunteered to come teach us about their special traditions.  The children loved having special visitors and learned a lot!  Each child also created a special project in class describing his/her own holiday traditions.  

We had so much fun celebrating the 100th day of school.  We made crowns and did class activities like doing 100 jumping jacks, collectively reading 100 books, doing 100 math problems, making pictures of ourselves at 100 years old, and explaining what we would do with 100 dollars!  
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Hello Team Ward!

Thanks for taking the time to check our class news!  

Last week we started a new unit in writer's workshop on personal narratives.  Our goal is for first to be able to tell a story from their lives with a beginning, middle, and end, and some details along the way.  I will be inviting the children to try new things to "bring their stories to life," like inserting dialogue, using feeling words, and describing specific actions.

Please continue to review and practice spelling words that are sent home on Mondays.  Extra practice with sorting, reading, and writing the words at home has great benefits!  

Children should continue to read one or two good-fit books nightly.  Please listen to your child read out loud and fill in the reading log for your child.  If you notice a book is a bit slow or choppy on the first read, encourage him/her to read it again until it sounds smooth and expressive.  If you notice your child is reading too fast, remind him/her to slow down.  Thanks for your support!

In math we are working on addition strategies and developing better fact fluency.  This means we would like the children to be able to recall math facts up to 10 quickly and easily.  I sent home flashcards last week so that children to practice at home.  

We just wrapped up our science unit on sound and light.  The really enjoyed this unit and learned a lot in the process!   

As always, please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.  Thanks again for your continued support!

Mrs. Ward

Thank you all for taking the time to meet with me during parent-teacher conferences.  I enjoyed sharing about your child's experience in first grade so far.  I continue to be amazed by this group of learners each and every day:-)

November was another busy month!  We learned about maps in social studies and even made our own pretend neighborhood maps.  We may have some future urban planners on our hands ;)  Team Ward also studied plane and 3-dimensional shapes in math and learned numerous reading strategies (and added the corresponding cards to our collections!).  We also continued weekly lessons in our social emotional curriculum, learning about feelings and how to recognize them by reading people's body language.  

In December we will start our second science unit on sound and light.  This is a very engaging, hands-on unit that is both educational and fun for all students.  I will send home a home-school connection letter which details our study a bit more.  Our next math unit is all about measurement, using standard and non-standard units (blocks, paper clips, etc.)  

Thanks for your continued support with listening to your child read good-fit books and fill in the daily reading log.  I have been meeting with different students each day to check on their "book shopping" and I am hoping that many students will start breaking away from those comfortable books from last trimester.  It's hard to let go of those favorite books, but we'll be looking for some new favorites this trimeser:)

Lastly, the students were sad to say goodbye to a friend in our class who moved away earlier this week.  Surprisingly we had a new student join us the next day!   Team Ward has been extremely supportive, helping to teach the classroom routines and procedures.  

Thanks again for all of your support.  Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.  Happy December!

It's amazing how time flies when you're having fun!  Team Ward had a great October full of new learning experience and ended with fun Halloween festivities.  Here is a brief update of Team Ward happenings.
-Wrote reviews of our favorite things in our opinion unit
-Started Team Literacy, our small group literacy model for first grade
-Filled in many reading logs!!
-Started using iPads!!
-Finished "All About Me" posters and class books
-Learned about Number Bonds and how to use them for addition and subtraction
-Learned about Fact families and made Halloween themed fact family haunted houses
-Continued collecting data about hours of daylight and discussed changes from month to month

​Happy November!

Enjoy the pictures from Rivershire, World Read Aloud Week, and More!