Friday News for the Week of Oct 15-19

Happy Friday!

We had another great week in 1st grade!

We finally took a whole group photo! Look at this lovely class!

This Week:

Reading: This week we focused on “Characters.” We learned that characters are the people, animals, and things in a story that think, feel, and act in a story. We read some fun Curious George stories to point out the characters. We also started full on Daily 5 sessions this week. The students practiced Word Work, Read to Someone, Book Shopping, and Listen to Reading. Next week they will get to choose which of the 4 activities they will get to do and they will rotate throughout the week to improve their reading skills while I will be meeting in small groups with students.

Writing: This week we talked about letting the reader know who is talking in a story. We learned about how to add dialogue into our story which was so fun! We also learned how to tell our stories in Itsy Bitsy Steps kind of like the Itsy Bitsy Spider! We sang the song and tried to think of little steps that we could write about in our story. Next week the students will pick a story to start to revise and publish.

Math: We started SUBTRACTION this week. It was a little tricky to switch our brains into taking away instead of adding, but all the students got it pretty quick. We are learning some new vocabulary that goes with subtraction and soon we will learn the relationship between addition and subtraction.

Bible: We followed Jacob as he ran away from home because his brother, Esau, was angry at him. Jacob ran away to his mother Rebekah’s hometown. On his way he had a dream where he saw some angels and God promised that he would take care of him. Later he married two sister, Rachel and Leah, and had many sons. God blessed him and increased his family and wealth. Later he wanted to return home but his uncle Laban wouldn’t let him. So he escaped in the night with his family. Laban caught up to him and instead of hurting Jacob, blessed him because God told him not to hurt Jacob. After that Jacob wrestled with God himself! Jacob went and reunited with his brother Esau. God has some great things in store for Jacob’s story through the Bible!

Science - This week we started a brand new science unit about animals. Each lesson was paired with a picture book that we read together. The students did some activities to search for what kind of body parts animals have and how it helps them live. Is that body part needed to live? or does it just make their life easier?

Here's some pictures from the Computer Lab today!

For Fun Friday we played outside today!

Next Week:

Spelling Words: add puff egg well will doll kiss miss you live

Bible Memory Verse: “Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God.” Psalm 100:1-2

Thursday is our field trip! Please make sure your child packs a home lunch for that day. Please let me know if you need any more information!

Church Halloween Events:

Coming up there are some fun Halloween alternative at churches!

Harvest Carnival is tomorrow

Trunk or Treat at Keystone

Upcoming Events:

10/25 - Field Trip to Kurashiki Dam

11/1 - evening Parent Teacher Conferences

11/2: Parent-Teacher Conferences - no classes -

11/20 - Harvest Festival for 1st and 2nd grade AND Pie Day!

11/21-25 Thanksgiving Break, no school!

11/30 - Half day - school dismissed at 12:30 Christmas Program that evening from 6-7pm in Uruma

Friday News for the Week of October 9-12

Happy Friday! We finally (almost) had a full week of school! It was great to be back in school after a long week of typhoons!

Here’s what we learned this week:

Reading - We learned what questions were and so we learned to ask questions while reading a story.
Mrs. Hewitt read the “If you give a…” books to the students and she taught the students to ask lots
of questions to the story. We asked questions like: “Why did that happen?” Where did the character go?
How did the character do that? and so on! I hope the students grow up to ask LOTS of questions while
they read.

Writing - We are cruising through narrative writing and we learned to develop our writing by writing
tiny seed stories instead of big watermelon stories. Sometimes students write a story about a big
event such as a school day or a trip. We encouraged them to think of a tiny seed, one little details or
little tiny part of story and write about it. Today the students learned how to unfreeze their characters
by making them move and speak. They are turning into quite the writers!

Math: We finished chapter 1 about adding to 10. Students all did well on the math review and test.
I’m excited to start Chapter 2 with subtraction next week!

Bible: We continued to learn how God keeps his promises with the birth of Isaac and his life.
Isaac married Rebekah who was from Abraham’s hometown and who agreed to marry Isaac
even though she had never met him before! Isaac and Rebekah had twin boys named Esau and Jacob.
Esau was the oldest but Jacob tricked his brother into giving him the birthright and the blessing! Eek!
We are going to see how God is going to watch over Jacob’s life and keep his promises to Jacob.
We made some finger puppets and told the story!

Social Studies: Today we finished up the Me on the Map unit and we learned about our continent Asia and
our planet Earth. Next week we’ll move into science!

The field trip permission form was sent out on Thursday! Please return it sometime next week.
Let me know if you have any questions, please!

Next Week:

Spelling Words (Review): cat man had has God hop not mom bed get let yes sun cut bug us did big him fix

Bible Memory Verse: “Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs.” Psalm 100:1-2

Upcoming Events:

10/25 - Field Trip to Kurashiki Dam

11/1 - evening Parent Teacher Conferences

11/2: Parent-Teacher Conferences - no classes -

11/20 - Harvest Festival for 1st and 2nd grade AND Pie Day!

11/21-25 Thanksgiving Break, no school!

11/30 - Half day - school dismissed at 12:30 Christmas Program that evening from 6-7pm in Uruma

NO SCHOOL and FRIDAY NEWS

NO SCHOOL TOMORROW!!!

Happy typhoon day! I hope you all stay safe inside this weekend as you wait out this typhoon.

This Week:

Reading - We focused on two reading strategies of using the beginning and ending sounds of words to read and stretching out the sounds. We read some more Pete the Cat books to practice.

Here's some pictures of us book shopping and working of spelling and grammar:

Writing - We continued to write a lot of stories and this week we focused on spelling all the sounds we hear in difficult words by stretching it out. It connected to our reading strategy!

Math - We finally made it to the sums of 10. These are VERY important. I want all the first graders to have it memorized! Next week on Thursday we will be having the Chapter 1 test. I’m excited to see how they will do!

Bible - After waiting for so many years, Abraham and Sarah finally had a baby!! They named him Isaac. We are continuing to see how God keeps his promises over and over again throughout the Bible and in our lives.

Social Studies - We learned about Okinawa and Japan! Next up is Asia!

We celebrated a birthday today!

Every Monday morning we answer a "Would you rather" question together. It's a great way for us to use our critical thinking and reasoning skills. This was this week's!

Next Week:

Spelling Words: in is it did big him rip fix was of

Bible Memory Verse: “Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth; worship the Lord with gladness.” Psalm 100:1

Upcoming Events:

10/8 - Teacher Work Day - no school

10/25 - Field Trip to Kurashiki Dam

11/2: Parent-Teacher Conferences - no classes - sign ups starting on Monday online.

Friday News for the Week of Sept 18-21

Happy Friday!

We had a very HOT week! Students had sweat dripping off of them after recess and PE!

This week:

Reading - We focused on an accuracy strategy called “Using the Pictures.” It’s a very good skills for kids to have, if they are trying to read a word and they can’t figure it out, to use the pictures to match it up with the word. We read some very fun Pete the Cat books this week to practice! On Friday, the students picked a book from their book folder and found a word and matched it with a picture!

We also practiced Read to Someone, where the students get to read to a partner. They get to help each other with questions like “Do you need coaching or time?” when a student gets stuck on a page. So much fun!

Math: We are working through different ways to make numbers. This week we worked on ways to make 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8! I hope students make the connections and that it speeds up their addition facts.

Bible - We are continuing through the wonderful story of Abraham. God made a covenant with him, which is a cool way to say “a promise between God and a person.” God promised him that he would be blessed and all the people on the earth would be blessed through him. He promised him that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the shore. BUT the craziest part is that Abraham doesn’t even have a child!!!! Our story continues next week…

Writing - My first grade writers are cruising through narrative stories. This week we realized that our stories were too short! We need to make them longer! So we asked questions such as WHO? WHAT? WHERE? WHEN? WHY? This helped the students add more and revise their stories.

Next Week:

Bible Memory: “Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth.” Psalm 100:1a

Spelling Words: up  us mud  bug fun run  sun cut to are

Upcoming Events:

10/8 - Teacher Work Day - no school

10/25 - Field Trip to Kurashiki Dam - more info sent home on Monday

11/2: Parent-Teacher Conferences - no classes

Friday

Happy Friday! It’s the end of another great week in 1st grade!

This Week:

Reading - We focused on 3 important things about books: the TITLE, AUTHOR, and ILLUSTRATOR. I think it’s a good skill for the kids to be able to recognize all three parts of a book. We read Clifford books all week to teacher about. Clifford books are so funny! On Friday, the students picked 2 books from their book basket and write the Titles, Author, and Illustrator for those 2 books. Great job students!

We have reached the 20 minutes reading stamina for Read to Self. Next week we will try Read to Someone!

Writing - This week we looked at the steps on how to write a small moment story. First we think of an idea, then we touch each page and tell what we will write about, then we sketch across the pages a rough pictures, and THEN write the story! Phew! So many steps! The students did great thinking of stories and following the writing directions.

Math - We are cruising through the first chapter and we started to learn sums to 4 and 5. Next week we will continue all to sums to 10.

Bible - This week we reviewed everything we’ve learned in Bible so far and then we learned about Abram and Sarai. God has an amazing plan to save the whole world and it starts with Him telling Abram to GO and MOVE and FOLLOW GOD! Abram does! I’m excited to share as we continue through the Old Testament.

Social Studies - Today we learned about our school as a community and how OCSI is in Yomitan. We went outside to draw a picture of OCSI!

Next Week -

Spelling Words: bed, fed, red, get, let, pet, men, yes, for, as

Bible Memory Verse: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.” Psalm 8:1

NO SCHOOL ON MONDAY!!!!

Picture Day is Wednesday! If you want your child to wear something nice, please send a change of clothes with them. If you want to order pictures, send the paper back and please have the money attached. If you have any questions, please email me!

Upcoming Events:

10/8 - Teacher Work Day - no school

10/25 - Field Trip to Kurashiki Dam

11/2: Parent-Teacher Conferences - no classes

Today you may have received something that look like this:

If you would like to order some books for you or your child, you can!

You can order Online!

Here is the website: http://world-schools.scholastic.co.uk/okinawa-christian-school-intl
You can now browse books online as well.

I followed through a few of the steps to show you if you wanted to order online with a credit card.

1. Select what books you want and add them to your basket. When you are finished, press "Go to Checkout"
2. Type in your email address, press "next"
3. Schools - Make sure it says Okinawa Christian School, press "next"

4. Deliver Option. Make sure it says OCSI and my name, Ms. Turner's 1.1 Class and select "Dispatch Order to School."

 

5. Child Details - Enter your child's name and the class (ex. 1.2, 2.1)

6. Choose Payment Method - enter Credit Card information and select "Pay Using this Address" 

7. The last step should be confirm! You should get an email about your confirmation and Scholastic will also send me a confirmation email. 

Our new Scholastic Book Club is up and running! Go to http://world-schools.scholastic.co.uk/okinawa-christian-school-intl to browse the latest books and order online. For every $1 you spend on this month’s Book Club, our school will earn 20¢ in Scholastic Rewards.

Please place your order online by September 30th, 2018.

Friday News for the week of September 4-7

Happy Friday!

We had an energetic and fun 3rd week of school! Students are getting more used to the routines and it’s fun to see their personalities coming out.

This Week:

Reading: This week we focused on Cross-Checking. It’s an accuracy strategy that helps the students check the pictures with the words and helps them sound out the words. Mrs. Hewitt read some fun books to the kids this week as we practiced cross checking. We also continued to build stamina in reading. One day this week we made it to 13 minutes! I think for sure we’ll read for 20 minutes next week. :)

Writing: This week we learned that good writers:

• Write from left to right, up to down
• Write one idea
• Underline words they don’t know
• Use beginning and ending sounds

Math: This week we learned about tally, addition number sentences, and adding with 0. Students are all doing great!

Bible: This week we learned the sad story of when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and sin entered the world. Instead of a perfect world like God had created, our world became corrupted and full of sin and sadness. But there is an amazing glimpse of hope that someday, Satan will be defeated and we can live with God in a perfect world again. We also learned the sad stories of Cain and Abel and Noah’s ark.

Social Studies: We learned about communities in a neighborhood and what kind of places we see around town.

Spelling: We had our first spelling test of the year!

Next Week:

Spelling Words: job, God, mom, hop, top, got, not, fox, a, and

Bible Memory: “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” Psalm 119:11 (again)

Upcoming Events:

9/17: Teacher Work Day - no school

9/19-9/20: School Pictures

10/8 - Teacher Work Day - no school

10/25 - Field Trip to Kurashiki Dam

11/2: Parent-Teacher Conferences - no classes