Needs and Wants

By , 10/23/2017

Social Studies

In social studies we are continuing our study of families. We learned that all families have rules that help keep us safe, healthy and happy. We also learned that families take care of each other by providing things we need (food, shelter, clothing) and want (toys, electronics, desserts). Here is a link to a great article about how to talk to your child about needs and wants. It suggests creating a simple pie chart to show your child how much of the family money goes to different needs and wants. Understanding that a family has a finite about of money and where that money goes is an important first lesson in financial literacy for our first graders.

Writing

Writing is all about details! We have learned many different kinds of details that we can add to our personal narrative stories. We learned to describe the setting of the story by asking, “Where am I? What does it look like?” We learned we can make our characters talk in two different ways. We can add a speech bubble to the picture or add dialogue right to the words. We also learned to add how the characters are feeling and to add lots of action. This week we will be meeting our new writing partners! Ask your child who their writing partner is.See below for some of our detailed writing1

Math

In math last week we explored the question “Will everyone have a partner?” for different amounts of kids. Most students drew a picture to solve this problem. Some students were generalizing ideas that could be applied to any number. For example, one student said “I know that with 10 kids everyone can have a partner because 5+5 is 10. So I think that any counting by 10 number (10, 20, 30, 40, 50) will also work because it is just more groups of 10.”

Below is a link to a problem for your child to do at home that is very similar to what we did in class.

31 kids

Here is a link to an extension to take your child’s thinking further. This problem is meant as an open ended exploration. We are not expecting your child to master this content but are providing it for students who need and want an extra challenge.

24 kids