Welcome to Mrs. Whitfield's 1st Grade! Please check this website often to see what is new in 1st grade.

We have been reviewing letter names and sounds, short and long vowels and putting these letters together to make words.  Please be sure your child reads their book in a bag to you!  We are learning that every sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a period.  We also learned that questions end with a question mark.  We are learning about diagraphs and blends.  We learned suffix  -s, -ing, and -ed, -y, -less, -ness, -ly.  We are also learning how to divide words into syllables, and learning about contractions and compound words.   We spent a lot of time in January writing poems and published a fabulous poetry book for Catholic Schools Week!

The first week of March was spent exploring Dr. Seuss and all of his wonderful books.  We even published our own book titled "The Wacky Week".  The 1st graders were the authors and illustrators of the book!

Numbers are everywhere!  We have been talking about how we use numbers daily and finding numbers in our every day lives.  We are counting by 1's (forward and backward), 2's, 5's, and 10's.  We are learning how to find numbers on a number line and number chart that are one more and one less.  On your way home from school, have your child count for you!

We are now learning how to tell time.  We talked about analog and digital clocks and learned how to tell time to the hour and half hour, and have added quarter to and quarter past.

We are counting money.  We have learned about the value of a dime, nickel and penny and quarter.  If you have any loose change, have your child count it for you!

We have been practicing math facts and learning fact families.  Please be sure to practice Otter Creek weekly!

In April we will focus on the fruit of the spirit JOY and the DWP skill of initiating solutions.  We learned how to pray the Stations of the Cross during Lent and focused on learning about the Triduum.  We continue to celebrate the season of Easter.

Please practice these at home as these words need to be memorized because they don't follow the rules! the, said, of, do, to, into, who, you, your, color, what, from, are, friend, their, there, come, some, does, goes, been, put, want, was, where, two, done, one, sure, don't, won't, fought, bought, brought, school, says, give, have, live, they, people, eye, love, move, any, many, other, another, mother, brother, only, something, answer, were, earth, early, heard, learn, work, word, world, once, today, tomorrow, together, again

It's been OCEANS OF FUN in Grade 1 science.  We have been learning about living and non-living and plants and animals.  We have been focusing on ocean plants and animals.  We made a class mural which includes crabs, starfish, rainbow fish and octopus.  The kids did an awesome job and the mural is beautiful!  We are doing animal research in the computer lab.  We planted beans and wow did they grow!  We learned what plants need in order to survive.

 

We spent a lot of time in January and February learning about our country, symbols of our country, and the leaders of our country.  We had a special guest speaker in 1st grade.....the Mayor of Mishawaka!  He told us about all of the jobs of a city and shared his responsibilities as our Mayor.  In February and March we took time to learn about our 50 states.  Each day we played mystery spot where clues were given about a state.  We learned different facts about the states and located them on a map.  Go to the link under Social Studies games to practice locating the 50 states on a map!

 

May 7 - Faith Families at St. Bavo Campus

May 9 - Fine Arts and Music Festival at St. Bavo Campus

I am pleased to announce that our 1st grade won the Chick-fil-a ice cream party!  Thanks to all who participated!

Mishawaka Catholic School
Beth Whitfield