Mrs. Cavett Counseling Lessons

Mrs. Cavettt comes to our class throughout the year to talk about how special we are. Her goals are for students to recognize they are special and diversity is to be celebrated.

Literacy Night

First Grade Literacy Night
                               Monday, Sept. 17th

          6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

 First Grade students are developing their enthusiasm for reading. As they continue to grow as readers, we are inviting all 18-19 first grade families to be a part of a special night about reading at home with your child. At Literacy Night, we will discuss just-right books, reading strategies, and introduce the take-home library. You might even see some super reading heroes in action!

Poet visit- Joe Mohr

Poet and Author Joe Mohr visited our classroom today.  He is a Clayton parent, published author and is in a band.  http://www.joemohr.com/

To see the video of Joe's Song. Superfluous

Mealworms

Mealworm

In Science we are learning about insects. The first insect we are studying is the Mealworm. Mealworms are the larva of beetles. Mealworms go through 4 life stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult beetle. The eat meal such as wheat meal, oat meal, or rye meal. The get their water through plants like potatoes and carrots. Mealworms burrow in their food and do not like light. Each student will get a habitat on his or her desk and is in charge of taking care of the mealworm. Usually, many children will even name their mealworms!

We have the first pupa.

The mealworm sheds its skin to reveal it is a pupa now.

Number Bonds

Number bonds is a way for students  to visualize numbers and compose/decompose numbers. 

Being able to visualize numbers is the key, and giving the students a graphic like the number bound is one way to help them do this.

Another way for students to think about numbers is to play “Bears in a Cave” 
"If I have 9 bears (cubes or beans)  and 6 are outside the cup (cave) how many went in to the cup/cave? "(3)

Students can access gregtangmath.com for great math games. 

These are the games that are perfect for first grade students right now.

First Week

This has been a magical week getting to know each other. We have practiced saying each others names in Morning Meeting.  One of our chants has been,

Say your name and when you do.

We will say it back to you.

Hi_________!

We talked about the school and classroom rules. All the rules can be under the umbrella of BE KIND. The students already know: walk in halls, wait their turn, share, raise hands, not interrupt, and listen. 

They have demonstrated these skills even before the lesson on rules. Way to go parents!

Reading: We read several books together. The students love to hear a story. Many commented that they also love when their parents read to them! The students are already reading books at their tables every day. Students will "shop"(choose) books that are at the just-right level for each reader. Next week, each child has a book basket with 10 books. About two or three times a week, the students will be able to trade the books and get new ones so they are never bored with their books. Engagement is key is learning to read. We have lots of books in our classroom library at the just-right level to help your child be excited about reading and grow as a reader.  In addition, students will go to the library every C day. Starting in October, students will be able to get two books at a time and go to the library almost every day!

Math: This week students explored with math manipulatives. They demonstrated they could count one-to-one and make patterns. We played ten frame flash as a class and many were very successful with identifying numbers up to 10 just by looking at the ten frame.
LINK:     Ten Frame Flash




We compared numbers using the words: greater then, fewer then, more, less and same. One game we played with cards is "Top-It".  Players take a deck of cards mix them up and put them face down in a pile. One player goes first and turns over a card. The next player turns over a card. Whoever has the greater number on the card wins.  We also played whoever has the  number that is fewer on the card wins. Jack, King Queen are considered a ten and the ace is considered a one. If both cards are the same number, then each player flips over another card.

Winner is on left because 10 is greater then the ace (one).

Social Studies: Each day that we could we  had a get-along recess. We are working on including everyone in play and building a class community. Children build community by playing! After recess the students gather to reflect as a class on how well they played together and how much fun they had with each other. This week we taught/encouraged the children to be assertive and ask for a play partner and learn their partner's name.

Bucket Filling

In Social Studies, we have been teaching a unit called:  How We Can All Get Along. 
We talk about "filling some one's bucket" which means being kind to someone. If we forget, then we talk about how the other person feels- usually bad or sad. Plus, we talk about how we feel when we are not nice- usually bad or sad. Developing empathy in our students allows them to understand how the other person is feeling.  One main take away from today's lesson is fixing the problem that one creates.  We are teaching that it is not enough to just say, "I'm sorry" when we hurt our friends. We also have to ask, "How can I fix it?" 

I feel_______ When you_________ and I need for you to___________.

One student today said that she needed for the person to say something nice that they like about her to make her feel okay along with saying "I'm Sorry."  This goes right along with our work on Filling Each Others Buckets. 

Some books we have read to help us understand are: 

Books about Bucket Filling