Over the past month the first grade has continued to work on their reading comprehension and phonics skills.  They are now reading and spelling many multisyllabic words and are able to read books on their level independently.  During our shared reading we have read and examined books such as Owl Babies and Quick as a Cricket.  These books have enabled us to work on our sounds and comprehension as a class.  We work on our writing everyday by constructing sentences using the word families.  We have learned three types of sentences and are now working on nouns.  In order to increase our oral vocabulary we have been introducing 5 new words every two weeks and are rewarded for using them throughout the day. In October a few of our words were: honorable, chattering, and puzzled. 

In the afternoon we work on math and all students can now do both addition and subtraction.  It has been fun using dominos to make up addition and subtraction sentences as well as using fake bugs and other manipulatives to make word problems easier to solve. 

Each day begins and ends with religion.  In the morning we say our prayers and make special intentions for people who are in need.  In the afternoon we study about Jesus and then sing religious songs together. We have learned about the apostles and heard stories about the miracles that Jesus performed.

To celebrate thanksgiving we will learn about the pilgrims and the Indians and have our own thanksgiving feast!