Ho ho happy holidays!

December is flying by in First Grade. We have been very busy working on our reading and writing skills and  have also been using our number bonds in adding and subtracting and finding fact families. Christmas is almost here and so we have been writing about the most famous reindeer of all: Rudolph. This week we will also be writing to Santa, making cards and decorations and tallying and graphing Santa's friends. We will also be helping Santa deliver presents to the right children by using map co-ordinates. 
Listen to Rudolph's song here:

Help Santa catch his reindeer here:

http://www.santagames.net/calendar/7dec.htm

Don't those reindeer fly so fast...

Pirate Island

Today we had some very special visitors. Three pirates came to do a play at school. 
Their names were Minnie, Bibi and Max. Minnie the pirate wasn't being very fair to the others, but in the end she learned how to work in a  team and how to be fair to her friends.


Some of the First Graders even got up on stage and did the limbo with the pirates and we all had fun singing their songs and joining in.
Listen to a bed-time pirate story here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a7PJLqPfBA&playnext=1&list=PLC70263E817A343A0&feature=results_video

Naughty clown sounds

This week we are sticking out our tongues and making naughty clown th th th sounds!

Listen to the sound here:
http://www.kenttrustweb.org.uk/kentict/content/games/soundsea_v3.html
Just choose th on the menu.
Practice reading th words with the pirates here:
http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/BuriedTreasure2.html
Choose phase 3 and click on +th

Happy treasure hunting!

Eggs and hens

This week our sound is e.


Practice reading e words here:
http://www.starfall.com/n/short-e/se/load.htm?f

Play word games here:
http://www.starfall.com/n/make-a-word/en/load.htm?f

and here:
http://www.starfall.com/n/make-a-word/et/load.htm?f

Happy Spelling

Free trial for on-line phonics

Have a free trial at http://readingeggs.co.uk/ by typing in this code UKD29RAF . You get 4 weeks phonics fun for free. 

Help the turkeys!

Today we learnt that more than 45 million turkeys are eaten every year at Thanksgiving in the U.S.A alone. We thought of ways of saving just one turkey who had written us a letter begging us to help him. We thought of ways we could disguise the turkey with a cunning costume.

Learn more about wild turkeys here:

http://www.arkive.org/wild-turkey/meleagris-gallopavo/

Busy, busy, busy!

Wow, we have been very busy in First Grade recently. We have been talking about changing materials with heat and have done experiments with bread, chocolate and pop-corn. We have also planned our own experiment to investigate how different materials change. I can't wait to see what happens to the candy we heat. Today, we even made red hot fire art with pastels.

We have started looking at subtraction and are getting really good at using a number line to help us.

By popular demand, here is a Math game we played at the end of the day. Remember to use your number bonds and count on from the bigger number if you are adding. Look out for the minus sign and subtract to go into the pyramid. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/maths/addition_and_subtraction/play/

First Grade had great fun today celebrating Halloween. We did a fantastic job singing in the assembly and went trick or treating in the afternoon. 
Happy Halloween everyone!

Spooky Number stories

Today we have been writing and solving spooky number stories. 
Practice adding here:
http://www.smartygames.com/igre/math/halloweenMath.html

Beware of the bats!

Clicking castanets

This week our spelling words have the ck sound. We have to remember there are 2 letters but just one sound at the end of the word.
Practice reading ck words here:
http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/BuriedTreasure2.html
Click on Phase 2 + ck