First Grade Blog 2024-2025: December 16

Calendar

December 19 - Winter party at 2:00. Parents are welcome!

December 20 - January 6- Winter Break - - We will miss you!!

January 7 - Return to school

January 10 - Report cards emailed home

January 20 - No School

January 27th - PTO meeting 6:00

January 28th - TCE Cultural Night (more information to come) 5:30 - 6:30

Weekly Announcements

Next week holiday fun..................

Monday - Wear your pajamas to school for some holiday fun

Tuesday - Game Day! Bring a game to school to share with friends (no electronics)

Wednesday - Bring a small stuffed animal and small blanket/beach towel for a Magic School Bus treat

Thursday - Class Party and sit at any table for lunch

What Will We Be Learning Next Week?

Language Arts

Phonics/Grammar - Next week we will review past spelling rules and will not have a spelling test. We will also review nouns and verbs and wait until after winter break to move on to adjectives.

Reading/Writing - We will spend next week doing some fun activities to celebrate the last week before winter break. I will also be assessing reading levels and finishing up literacy assessments for report cards.

Math

We will continue working on solving word problems with unknowns in various positions. For example:

Jack has some ornaments. He gives 8 to his sister. Now Jack has 12 ornaments. How many did Jack have in the beginning? (? - 8 =12 )
Jack has 20 ornaments. He gives some to his sister. Now he has 12 ornaments. How many ornaments did he give to his sister? 20 - ? = 12

In addition, we will begin writing our own word problems. This skill is challenging for first graders, and your child will benefit from practicing it at home. Thank you for your support in helping your child develop this skill!

Mystery Number Challenge Game

Objective: Guess the mystery number based on clues related to place value, even and odd numbers, and greater than, less than skills.

Instructions:

Choose a Mystery Number:

One player (the "Mystery Master") secretly chooses a number within a certain range (e.g., 1-120).

Provide Clues:
Example Clues:

The Mystery Master gives a series of clues about the mystery number. These clues should relate to place value, even or odd, and comparisons.
"The number is greater than 50."
"It is an odd number."
"The tens digit is 7."
"The ones digit is less than 5."

Guess the Number:

The other players (the "Guessers") take turns guessing the mystery number based on the clues provided. The Mystery Master can confirm the guess or provide additional clues to help narrow it down.

Winning the Game:

The first player to correctly guess the mystery number wins and becomes the next Mystery Master, or you can set a timer and see how many numbers can be guessed correctly within a certain time limit.

Variations:

To make the game more challenging, increase the range of numbers.
Add additional math concepts, such as multiples to the clues.
Incorporate a storytelling element where each clue is part of a larger narrative or adventure.

This game reinforces math skills and encourages communication and critical thinking, making it a wonderful way for families to learn and have fun together.

Math games using a deck of card

Addition War: Similar to the classic card game War, each player flips over two cards and adds the values together. The player with the highest sum wins that round and takes the cards. If there's a tie, continue drawing cards until there's a winner.
Make Ten: Lay out nine cards face up. Players take turns picking pairs of cards that add up to ten. If players can't make ten, they draw a card from the deck and replace one on the table. The game ends when no more pairs can be made, and the player with the most pairs wins.

Number Practice

Help your child practice counting to 120 by ones, twos, fives, and tens to reinforce their number skills! Let's work together to build a strong foundation in math that will help us in all areas of life. Happy counting!

Fun math videos to watch with your child:

Science

We will be exploring all things coding next week. Students will start with some "unplugged" activities on how a sequence of commands can create a path from start to finish. Then we will apply our knowledge and engage in hour of code week activities using our devices. We will also have the opportunity to pair up with kindergarten and apply our coding knowledge with our upcoming weather unit!

Social Studies

Students will consist of comparing similarities between different cultural traditions. We will also finish our parent holiday gifts and make sure they have been sent home.

Great Information

To Know For The Year

School begins at 7:40. If your child arrives after 7:40 they will need to go to the office and receive a tardy pass. Please make sure your child arrives in the building before 7:40 each day.

Please make sure to look at your child's daily behavior calendar. Our goal is for the children to color in the day with the appropriate behavior. Many times, the children forget. If it is not colored, please assume it is a great day. If you see a teacher comment, we would love for you to have a conversation with your child about what happened to receive the comment. Please know many warnings were given before a comment was written. :-)
Please review and take out all papers from their take-home folder each day.

Teacher Emails

The best way to get in touch with your teacher is by email. Please email the teacher that can best answer the subject of your question. If it is a general question, please email your homeroom teacher.

1A Mrs. Vincenzo (language arts teacher) lvincenzo@coppellisd.com

1B Mrs. Brown (science and social studies teacher) ebrown@coppellisd.com

1C Mrs. Sork (math teacher) msork@coppellisd.com

School Lunches

District guidelines limit lunchroom visitors at the elementary level to parents, immediate family members with written permission from a parent, and campus mentors. Immediate family members are defined as the student’s parents/step-parents, siblings, grandparents, or any person residing in the home. A parent can list the person(s) who have permission to have lunch for the entire school year. If anyone other than the parent(s) listed as guardians in our district e-school system is eating with the child, we will need written documentation of your approval. Please fill out a form in the office for any visitors other than who is listed as guardians in your child's record.

Dismissal

If you change the way your child goes home at the end of the day, please email your teacher. Children will be sent home their "usual" way unless we hear directly from a parent. Also, please make sure that the teacher has responded to your email to ensure that we got the message. If you don't hear back from your teacher, please call the office to let them know about dismissal changes.

Birthday Treats

We will celebrate your child’s birthday with a spotlight on our daily school-wide announcements and a goody bag from the school that contains several items, including a coupon for a free treat in the cafeteria. If you choose to send birthday food treats to school, they will need to be store bought and in their original packaging that lists the ingredients. Please send the treats to our school nurse. She will look over the ingredients and then deliver them to your child's homeroom class. These treats will be eaten at school. Please have all treats brought to school first thing in the morning.

Volunteering

If you think you would like to volunteer at TCE this year, please fill out the volunteer background check. The sooner the better! You can find information about how to fill out the form and the actual form on our TCE webpage. This needs to be done each. year. You will need a background check to help in the classroom, field trips, field day, etc.

Photos From The Week