Reader's Workshop, the students continue to be voracious readers! Many students' stamina for reading has surpassed my expectations. We have been learning and practicing many skills for tackling tricky words in order to "be the boss" of our own reading. We are also learning that reading involves much more than just reading the words -- We have to also figure out what the words are telling us and what message the author might be trying to teach us. We had a small celebration to end the reading unit, Readers Have Big Jobs to Do! Since the unit made many references to reading tools, the students made a tool belt that held some of their reading tools. These are strategies that they use often. We also learned a song throughout the unit and performed it for the other first graders and kindergarteners.
We launched our new unit, Readers meet Characters by reading about Peter from Ezra Jack Keats books: The Snowy Day,A Letter to Amy, Whistle for Willie and Pet Show. We recorded our findings in our readers' notebook. We noticed that Peter is a boy about 4 to 7 years old, African American, nice, a trickster, funny, and shy. Peter has a dog named Willie and a best friend named Amy.
Now we are reading series books so we can deeply study book characters. These characters become our friends because we know them so well.
Click link for series books at first grade's "Just Right Level" First Grade Book Suggestions
Writer's Workshop, the children finished honing their opinion writing skills. They wrote their opinions about the items in the collection they brought from home. They also learned strategies for writing reviews of restaurants, movies, games, etc. Later, we wrapped up this unit by writing book reviews. Opinion writing involves much more than just stating an opinion. Students must give reasons for their opinion presented in an interesting and convincing manner. In addition, students wrote letters to fourth grade buddies and each other. This coordinated with Valentine's day and our book, A Letter to Amy. Letter writing is an art that is slowing going away! Many kids said, "Why don't we just email or text?" However, all the students stated that they love to get mail. Out new Writing Unit is from Scenes to Series that includes making a Character and writing several stories with the character that is made-up. For example, Flynn's character is Sasha and Willie's character is George. These characters get to go on many adventures. In order to make this unit fun, I am asking that parents please send DUCK TAPE and an EMPTY CEREAL BOX. We will use the duck tape to bind our stories and the cereal box will be cut and decorated to keep the stories. We will share these stories with our parents at conferences and then with fourth grade buddies.
Math: We finished Chapter 12, Numbers to 40. The children learned about place value of larger numbers and ordering/comparing numbers to 40.
1 8
Least to Greatest: 18, 21, 32, 36
We continued to practice fact fluency games everyday and used www.mathgames.com on the computer. You can access this website at home since it is a free resource.
This week, we start Chapter 13, Addition and Subtraction to 40.
Social Studies/Science: The students have completed their timelines and the timelines are hanging in the hallway. We will finish the social Studies unit Long Ago and Today next week. Every third week since Winter Break the students have been going to the Science Lab. The students are learning about Solids and Liquids. The many hands-on activities really enrich their understanding and learning. Our next units are: Science- Weather and Air and in Social Studies- The Marketplace.
Parent Teacher Conferences are the second week of March. All parents used www.signupgenius.com to make their date/time selection. You will be getting a reminder email a few days before the conference. Please remember to bring your child to this conference.
Looking Ahead:
March 11- Early Release
March 18- 27- Spring Break
April 1- Early Release
April 8th- Field Trip to the Museum of Transportation
May 6th- Field Trip to the Magic House
May 20th- Field Day
May 25th- Early Release- Last Day
