Always Wonder, Always Question!

A Classroom Science Grant2017-2018Funded by

The Foundation for Allen Schools

Regena Bell – Kerr Elementary First Grade

Allen, Texas Graphics by Graphic

Garden.com and gr

Always Wonder, Always Question is grant program in our first grade classroom provided by The Foundation for Allen Schools. We have received monies that support science learning by providing new manipulatives for science experimentation, books, and live organisms for science investigations. We wish to thank

the Grant Foundation for their generous gift and their insight into progressive educational practices.

Our units of science study this year: Science Safety Force and Motion Weather Watchers Space; Changes in Matter Energy Living and Non-Living Environments/Food Chains Animals Life Cycles Conservations Plants; Rocks, Soil and Natural Resources.

Each first grader will record their observations, data, and reflect in their personal science journal. Thanks to the Foundation of Allen Schools for the opportunity to request supplementary materials for the classroom. Students learn best when multiple instructional strategies are implemented in the classroom. It is appreciated that we are given the chance to obtain these assessable tools for our children.

Below are suggestions to help your first grader continue the learning process at home in additional academic areas:

Reading Strategies

To become better at anything we attempt, it takes practice. To become a better reader we must read everyday.

What should I do if I get stuck on a word?The common answer to that question is “sound it out!” Research has confirmed that’s the last strategy we want to teach our children when they come to an unknown word. There are too many irregular words in our language for this to be effective. Below are strategies the children are learning at school and can be reinforced at home: Get your mouth ready. Get your mouth ready to make the first sound and reread from the beginning of the sentence. Your mouth will be ready to say the tricky word. Look for key clues. Look for clues in the pictures that my help you solve the unknown word. Does it make sense? What do you think the word might be? Does that make sense in the sentence? Look for patterns. Look for a pattern in the word. Does it have the same pattern that you have seen in another word? Look for chunks or parts. Look for chunks in the word. Do you see a smaller word or a chunk inside the larger word? Read again. If you come to a word you don’t know, go back and read the sentence again. You may notice clues you missed the first time. Try it and go on – make a good guess. If you don’t know a word, try something and keep reading the sentence. Does it look and sound right? Happy Reading!

The “Write-Foot Forward”The “Write-Foot Forward” was a past grant received also sponsored by the Allen Foundation to encourage writing and reading at home. The following offers suggestions for promoting writing activities at home.

Provide your first grader with a writing box (a plastic shoe box) filled with fun writing materials; markers, pens, pencils, writing pads, and shaped paper. You may like to add items to the box for incentives. For example, a stapler, scented markers, a hole punch, a clip board, stationery, scissors, and stickers may spark interest in writing more frequently.

Keep the writing box available for your child. An office area may be set up for your child to write. Maybe your child would like to write during commercials watching a television program. In such a case, keep the writing box close to the TV. You may encourage the writing box to be used while traveling in the car. Your child may bring their writings to school to share.

Below is a suggested list of writing activities that children may do at home:

riddles birthday cards grocery listsdiaries recipes journalsletters thank you notes signspoetry dinner menus jokesmaps lists of names rules for gamesnotes e-mail messages retold storiesmazes rhymes seek and find puzzles

Strategies for Encouraging Writing: Make a point to involve your child with your

own writing activities: “I’m writing a letter to Grandma. Is there anything you would like put on it?”

Make writing portable. If you have paper and pencil attached to a clipboard, your child can carry it easily in the car, outside, or anywhere in the house.

Connect drawing to writing. Have your child dictate a story to you from their drawing.

Compliment your child’s thoughts and write them yourself. Respond to something your child may say:“That is so interesting. I want to write that down so I don’t forget.”

Then, write it. This invites a youngster to suggest other things for you to write. Before long, you may hear your child say: “You don’t want to forget this. I’d better write it down for you.”

Hopefully, an outburst of reading and writing will take place at home and school. With that in mind, this handbook was compiled. We encourage your child to take risks with language. If children become “risk-takers” at home and school, there will be a steady growth of language construction in reading and writing. Research has shown that writing is an effective way to develop reading skills. Authoring and reading a text gives a child a sense of competence with print that encourages further interest in writing and reading.

Before a baby could walk, the child had to crawl first. The same process may be applied to reading and writing. As parents and

educators, we have to accept the attempts the children are making as “risk-takers.” We must provide an environment where the

children will want to read and write. As we go through the writing process, we will learn strategies to help in revision of our work. Continuing to correct mistakes is discouraging, but accepting attempts is encouraging. We need to facilitate learning by

supporting the curiosity in children, praising efforts, and by providing new and challenging experiences for children to explore. It is hopes

that you will enjoy the time with your child and their writing creations that will be forth coming!

Suggested Math Activities at Home

At the toy box: Sorting – place toys how they are alike and different

in groups Comparing – place toys in order from large to smallest Greatest/least – how many more horses than cows / which group

has the least Addition and subtraction – How many legs on 2 horses and 3

chickens / If 2 tires went flat on 2 race cars, how many good tires are left?

In the kitchen: Measurement/Comparing volumes – cups, pints, quarts, gallons,

teaspoons, tablespoons / Which container will hold more/the least water / How many cans do you think it will take to fill this cooking pot

Plane figures – place a napkin at the left of each plate. Fold the napkins as rectangles one day and triangles the next

Dimensional shapes – find shapes of cones, pyramids, cubes, rectangular prisms, spheres

Fractions / Sets – Compute how much of an item is needed to prepare for a meal given the amount for each person. Compute the amount needed if a recipe is doubled, tripled, or halved

Around the house: Classifying; describing: Sort one kind of item (e.g. socks) by size,

color, or other attributeDescribe the features: fuzzy, soft, hard, smooth, rough, transparent, translucent, sticky, light, heavy Keep records of weight and height, make a graph and keep it

current; find differences from time to time Measure items around the house; use metric measurements

whenever possible Money: let children count the change in your pocket; play

Monopoly and let child be the banker with your help; play store and let child calculate the cost, overhead, and profit

Estimate: Estimate the length, width, and area of a room by pacing it off

Chart reading: read schedules of information, the television guide, bus, train, or plane schedules

Play games – Chutes and Ladders for counting to one hundred, Connect Four (as examples) logic games, jumping rope and skip

count by twos, fives, tens

Educational Websites

http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/math_games/addition/math-lines-10.html

www.sumdog.com

www.spellingcity.com

www.storylineonline.net