School Days: Third Nine Weeks {Riley}

The third nine weeks of school started on Tuesday, January 3. After being off for a little over two weeks, it was a bit hard for Riley to get back into his school routine. But, like it or not, first grade jumped right back in and continued their learning.

In ELA, they completed and tested on 7 new units: Watch It Grow, Tales over Time, Now and Then, From Farm to Table, Animal Features, Animals Together, and In the Wild. They discussed present, past, and future tense verbs; is/are; was/were; has/have; go/went; do/did; and contractions. They also talked about plurals; inflectional endings –ed and –ing; alphabetical order; prefixes re-, un-, and pre-; and open syllables. And they learned about titles of plays, commas in a series and in dates, apostrophes with contractions, and capitalization and end punctuation.

They also completed 7 more spelling units and took 7 spelling tests.

In math, they finished Chapters 4-6 in their Volume 1 books and started on Volume 2. They learned about numbers to 120, groups of tens, how to count by tens using dimes, how to count by fives using nickels, how to use models and symbols to compare numbers, counting on tens and ones, adding tens and ones with and without regrouping, and how to count back by tens. They also learned about tally charts, picture graphs, and bar graphs. They took multiple facts quizzes, chapter quizzes, and chapter tests. Riley’s skills at math are quite impressive. 

In religion, they completed and tested on 7 chapters in their textbooks and also began attending Stations of the Cross during Lent.

The firsties started writing down their homework assignments this quarter in a composition notebook in preparation for 2nd grade.

Riley was a mass all-star on January 4!

They celebrated Catholic Schools Week January 30-February 3. The 100th day of school was also this week.

Riley had a difficult day on February 8. But we got past it.

They did lots of fun Valentine’s projects.

They learned about the country of Spain during Global Awareness Week, February 20-24. They enjoyed seeing a performance by flamenco dancers, having cuties for a special snack, going through a running with the bulls maze, and catching throws at the annual PK4 parade.

They celebrated Dr. Seuss the week of March 6 in honor of his birthday.

They had lots of fun on St. Patrick’s Day (Claire’s birthday!), when their classroom was visited by a sneaky leprechaun. He left them lots of fun surprises!

They had an end of 3rd quarter pep rally and first grade won the spirit stick!

Riley’s third quarter report card was great. His handwriting still needs work, but he is improving. The only thing he got a B in was PE, and that was because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut during prayer and instructional time. He got a handful of chart marks, mostly for not following directions, and once for talking during a test. Hopefully his conduct in the last nine weeks will be better.

I cannot believe it’s already April. Nine more weeks to go until summer!