Thrilling Thursday Fun!

Hi Parents,

As we discussed last week we have the schedule for Thrilling Thursday! Check out the activities and timings below. Also remember students can wear pajamas, bring a flash light, bring a sleeping back, and other items that the homeroom teacher may have suggested. We look forward to all the fun.

8:00-8:30           Homeroom set up and morning gathering
8:30-9:00           Dance Party
9:00-10:00         Field Games at the playground
10:00-10:30       Scary Story
10:30-11:00       Campfire Songs
11:00-11:45       Specials
11:45-12:50       Lunch and Recess
12:50-1:30         Homeroom Fun
1:30- 2:20          Specials
2:20-3:00           Continue Homeroom Fun
3:05                   Home Time

Thank you again for your flexibility.

The First Grade Team

Overnight Experience Update

Hi Parents,

Due to unfortunate events that have been occurring in Brazil, the school will be closed on Friday. Therefore, the overnight experience will be modified. Students will still be able to enjoy the same activities, during school hours, that would have occurred this Friday afternoon and evening. 

On Thursday, June 7 students can come to school wearing their pajamas and they can bring items from their "packing list." The schedule of Thursday activities will be posted on the blog early next week. Teachers will ensure that this end of year celebration will be memorable and special for all the first grade students. 

We appreciate your understanding and flexibility. 

The First Grade Team

At Home Work

For those students who are unable to join us at school due to the gasoline shortage, please work on the following websites at home:

READING: RAZkids.com -build your stamina and try to read for at least 30 minutes without stopping. Be sure to answer all the comprehension questions.

MATH: Students can practice their math by checking out these sites below:

 http://www.abcya.com/first_grade_computers.htm#numbers-cat

link to mathletics Logins were sent home in Aug. It's also a free app

SCIENCE: Watch the Brain popjr video about seasons: https://jr.brainpop.com/science/weather/seasons/

www.brainpopjr.com 

Login: graded2   Password: graded

Also students can explore matter by making  Oobleck:

How to make Oobleck Slime
Materials: corn flour, water, food coloring for color, and a big bowl

Instructions:
1. Pour about a 1/4 cup (30g) of corn flour into a bowl
2. Put a drop of food coloring into the water
3. Add about 2 tablespoons (30 mL) of colored water
4. Stir well
5. If mixture is too dry, add more water
6. Play with the Oobleck!

Things to think about:
· What words would you use to describe Oobleck? (its properties)
· How is Oobleck similar to a liquid?
· How is Oobleck similar to a solid?
· Do you think Oobleck is more like a solid or a liquid?

To learn more, check out these websites:
http://weirdsciencekids.com/glurch.html
http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/phenom/zlime.html
http://sciencecafe.org/content/2008/12/22/how-to-make-oobleck/

WRITING: Students can do a small moment story about how they are spending their day at home. Then they can bring it in and share it with the class. 

Thank you, 

1st Grade Team

Donations

Donations for Casa COTIC

The upper school student have a fundraiser this week and they need our help! Please read the below sign and donate whatever you are able. Thank you!

Curriculum Update: Whats Going on in First Grade

Literacy: Students are continuing to bring characters to life in both reading and writing. During reading, this entails reading with lots of fluency and expression. In writing, this includes adding actions and speech to their characters. If you have not done so already, please send in a cereal box for your child to use to hold their series books.

Math: Students continue to work on the understanding of place value up to one hundred. They are exploring the idea that fractional parts of a whole must be equal and will identify shapes as divided into halves, thirds, and fourths.

Social Studies: Students are finishing learning about family traditions and beginning to learn how things change overtime with a specific focus on the vocabulary of past, present, and future.

Portuguese PLA: Os alunos continuam escrevendo suas aventuras em série, enquanto trabalham com os elementos da narrativa. Depois de criar um personagem e descrevê-lo com detalhes, estão fazendo o mesmo para o lugar onde cada história acontece. Além disso, criam problemas que os personagens vão enfrentar e desenvolvem soluções criativas para eles.

Portuguese PAL: Students in PAL continue working with the letters of the alphabet in Portuguese. Next week, we will start “Diário de Leitura”. We will read a book in class and each day, a student will take the book home and draw their favorite part. On the following day, they will share their work with the class and another student will take the book home.

Important Updates

Upcoming this Month is the First Grade Math Mall! On May 25 students will be selling items in their classroom. It is a showcase of their learning of money. They will be adding and subtracting to make change. More information will be sent by your homeroom teacher so please keep an eye out!

Our overnight experience will be happening June 1st and information along with a permission slip will be sent to you on Monday. When you receive the form please keep the first page and send back the second page with the emergency contact information. If you have any further questions please email your homeroom teacher. 

Ms. Wilker brought Lovely Lucy to visit our class

Community A's awesome presentation on KINDNESS !

Reading peacefully early in the morning.

Curriculum Update: What's Going on in First Grade

Literacy: Students are learning to bring characters to life in both reading and writing. During reading, this entails reading with lots of expression. In writing, this includes adding actions and speech to their characters.

Math: Students continue to work on place value concepts to hundreds. They are solving number stories that involve addition and subtraction and are learning to count up as a strategy for making change.

Social Studies: Students are continuing to learn about families by focusing on the different homes they live in and the different activities they do. This week they will be learning about family traditions and we are looking for your help by working with the students to fill out their family traditions homework sheet.

Portuguese PLA:  Na leitura, lemos livros de diversas séries para observar as características dos personagens, os conflitos das histórias e suas soluções. Na escrita, os alunos já criaram seus personagens e pensaram em problemas e soluções para suas histórias. Na próxima semana, eles começarão a escrever seus livros, com o mesmo personagem em diferentes aventuras.

Portuguese PAL: Students in PAL classes are practicing the alphabet and the correct names of the letters. We have been watching this video and singing this song. In order to acquire more vocabulary, students will be writing lists of foods, toys, animals, school supplies and fruits in alphabetical order.
They will also celebrate their Não Confunda books, reading their rhymes to their friends.

Save the Date! First Grade Sleepover Will Be on June 1st!

Please save the date for our First Grade Sleep Over! It will be on Friday, June 1 as an end of the year celebration. More detailed information will be sent to you in April and May so stay tuned. 


     

Community A Assembly

Last Friday, March 9 was community A's assembly. Our class performed NÃO CONFUNDA on the stage. We did a great job! Afterwards, we hosted grandparents and parents in the classroom for a family tree activity. It was fun to work together. Success!  Enjoy these pictures with our grandparents!

1st Grade Music Program

As children become mature, they grow in their ability to make finer distinctions about the sounds they hear; consequently, their musical understanding increases. In the first grade, students are old enough to become familiar with music terminology, which enables them to develop a greater sense of consciousness over the musical material introduced in preschool. The primary goal of the first grade, thus, is to attach a name to the musical material taught previously. While the first section of the course is dedicated to distinguishing the properties of music (loud/soft, long/short, tone color, and high/low), later sequences teach the major pentatonic scale, ascending and descending diatonic scales, accurate singing of two-tone intervals 

(“sol-mi” solfege), greeting songs, music conversations, and echo games. 

Field Trip Tomorrow

Hi Parents,

Here are a few reminders for tomorrow's field trip. 

• Students should not bring backpacks or water bottles to school on the day of the field trip.They may bring a hat or cap, free hands please.
• Please apply sunblock and/or insect repellent before they leave the house in the morning. 
• Please wear old and comfortable clothes and shoes. Long pants are recommended due to the hike in the Mata Atlantica and the flour slide.
• Students should arrive at 7:15 am at the student center and meet their teachers there. They should not go down to the classrooms! We will be boarding the buses at 7:20am and the buses will leave the school at 7:30 am. 
• We plan on arriving back at school around 2:20. Dismissal will be at regular time, 3:05.

Regards,

The First Grade Team

Curriculum Update: What's going on in First Grade

Literacy: In Reader’s Workshop students are working on building their fluency and comprehension skills. During Writer’s Workshop students continue to work on opinion writing and convincing their readers to take their opinions.

Math: We will continue to develop automaticity with basic addition and subtraction. Strategies such as doubles, doubles plus one, and doubles plus two will be reviewed. As we move into unit 6, we will also review coin values, measurements, and time.

Social Studies: Students are continuing to learn about the community helpers at school and how they are important. Also they are working on more ways they can be helpful at school.

Science: Students are learning about the life cycle of a plant and about the parts and jobs of the plant. Students will be able to apply their knowledge during a hike through Mata Atlantica at Toca da Raposa.

Portuguese PLA:  Continuamos nosso estudo de rimas a partir dos livros da autora Eva Furnari. Nosso foco a partir de agora serão as rimas compostas por um substantivo e um adjetivo, como em "Não confunda picolé salgado com jacaré mimado".

Portuguese PAL: Students were excited writing and sharing about what they did on the Carnaval break. For the next weeks, we will dive into the book “Não Confunda” by Eva Furnari, work with rhyming words and make new rhymes.

Internet Safety

Internet Use and Your Family

By Heather Purcell, LS Librarian

 

Technology can be a wonderful tool for accessing a wealth of information. It can also be a pathway to many things we aren't yet ready for our children to see. Children can stumble upon inappropriate images, excessive advertising, and negative social interactions.

In the library, we are currently talking about how there are "just right" places to go on the Internet, just like there are "just right" books for us. This includes having age-appropriate content that interests us, text that isn't too hard, and clear navigation tools (buttons, menus). We are looking at a variety of sites and rating them based on these things. In the coming weeks, we'll also talk about some basics of online safety, like keeping personal information private. 

It's never to soon to talk as a family about your expectations for Internet use. Some recommendations for healthy use include: set limits for screen-time, balance online time with active time, make use of filtering software (but realize it won't catch everything), talk openly about things the kids are doing online, and have screen use be in a common area of your home. Even finding something you wish they hadn't can lead to important discussions. 

Commonsense Media is a free site that has excellent resources for parents (and teachers) about various types of media, including advice about healthy media habits for younger children and movie/TV/game/app/website reviews for families. Reviews include discussion topics and things for parents to be aware of. You might also want to look at some of the resources on Safe Kids, like the language in their family contracts for online safety. 

Field Trip Reminder

Hi Parents,
Thank you to those who remembered to bring in the field trip form and attached copy of the student's documents. Unfortunately, we are missing quite a few forms or documents so we have asked for a small extension for students to bring it tomorrow morning. Please bring in a filled-in and signed contract (Portuguese version) and  a simple copy of their document (RG, RNE, or Passport) stapled to the contract if you have not done so already. This is a great experience and we would not want any students to miss out. Thank you for your time and support!
Sincerely,
The First grade Team

Carnival Celebrations at Graded

Before leaving for a week off in celebration of carnival, the Portuguese staff put together a wonderful carnival assembly. The students all learned about the history of carnival, learned a few dances, and then had the opportunity to practice their dance moves. Thank you to the amazing Portuguese teachers for organizing such a spectacular assembly! A fun time was had by all!!

Have a safe and fun week holiday! 

Please remember your field trip slip when you return on Feb. 19th!!!

Field Trip Cover Letter! Signed contract due Feb. 19th!!!

                                              Field Trip To Toca da Raposa

Please return contract in Portuguese on Feb. 19th! ( scroll down for PDF of contract)

Toca da Raposa website​ http://www.tocadaraposa.com.br/

Please read this letter carefully.

Dear Parents,

We are so excited to announce the First Grade field trip to Toca da Raposa: a culmination of a

lot of learning in both science and Portuguese!

In science, students are studying plants and, at Toca da Raposa, they will be able to learn how

scientists study plants and how plants grow and change in Brazil.

In Portuguese, students will be studying about endangered Brazilian animals (mainly those from

Mata Atlantica and Floresta Amazonica) and how we can protect them at the last trimester. At

Toca da Raposa students will be able to see some of these animals!

A filled-in and signed contract (Portuguese version) must be returned to school by February 19.

Along with the contract, students must bring a simple copy of their document (RG, RNE,

or Passport) stapled to the contract.

On the day ​before​ the field trip, February 26, students must bring their original document.

This is required by law. Teachers will keep students’ documents and return them upon

their return from Toca da Raposa on the following day. NO DOCUMENT, NO FIELD TRIP.

On the day of the field trip, students will meet at the Jose Galante parking lot (back gate/bus

parking lot) at 7:00 am. Buses will leave promptly at 7:30. Students should not go down to their

classrooms! Students will be served breakfast and lunch at Toca da Raposa. We will leave the

site at 1:45 pm and arrive at school before dismissal.

Students should wear comfortable clothes and shoes. Sunscreen and bug repellant should be

applied at home. Students will not take anything with them except for a hat/cap and light

sweater, if needed.

Thank you for all of your support,
The First Grade Team


 Link to contract in English

Link to contract in Portuguese- Please turn this one in by Feb 19th

Ms. Burnquist's class celebrates 100 days of school