March Madness

Happy March, Parents and Families! 

We've started some new and exciting projects here in Room 107, and we are very excited to update you on them. With just a few weeks left until spring break, we will be working very hard to use every minute of our school day. Please do your best to help your child be in their desk, ready to learn at 9:00am. Thanks!

Pen Pals: 

We are lucky enough to have the opportunity to write to students from Lyon, France. This is one of our most fun writing projects of the year, and gives us a great opportunity to experience authentic writing, and learn about another culture. Having a pen pal in another country ties us into our learning about geography as well. Our exchanges will continue throughout the rest of the year- hopefully you've already seen your child bring home their letter all the way from France! 

Research:

As you know, we are busy writing All About Books. Part of this non-fiction writing unit is a heavy emphasis on researching, and beginning to examine how we go about figuring out where we have gaps in our knowledge, and then working to fill those gaps. This is one of the best opportunities we have to grow our organizational skills as writers. I highly encourage you to talk with your children about their All About topic, and ask them to tell you their research questions. Then, together you can look up the information. 

Read Across America Day:

Last Sunday was Dr. Seuss's birthday, and on Monday we celebrated Read Across America day by reading an article about Dr. Seuss. We learned where his idea for The Cat in the Hat came from, and how hard he worked to write the book that has helped teach millions of kids to read. Then we had plenty of fun making our own Cat in the Hat craft! 

Geography:
Finally, we've just started our Social Studies unit on Geography! We've been learning how to place ourselves on the map, and identify the different levels of communities we belong to, and recognize other areas of the globe as well. We've learned the names of all 7 continents, and 5 oceans, and can label them on a map. 

Coming Up:
Over the next week, we will continue to work on researching and publishing our All Abouts. Thanks for reading! 

Picture Post!

Hi Parents! 

The last two weeks in our room have been a lot of fun. We celebrated the 100th day of school, and I want to say a big thank you to everyone who clearly put in a lot of effort helping their children find fun costumes. All our kiddos looked GREAT as centenarians! We all had a lot of fun doing many different centers revolving around the number 100. 

We also had a lot of fun celebrating Valentine's Day! We did some Sweetheart graphing and enjoyed exchanging Valentines. Thanks for bringing those in! 

Next week we will have more updates on more of our classwork. 

Thanks for reading! 

February Fun!

Hi Everyone!

February is such an exciting month in first grade. We are really cruising along preparing our minds for next year, and having a ton of fun along the way. I can tell you, the rest of the year simply flies by once we hit March, so we are really working to make every instructional minute count. Here's a little update on what's been going on and what's coming up. 

How-To Unit Complete! 

If you remember, we've been working on reading and writing How To Books since just before winter break. All our hard work finally paid off as we have finished publishing our very own How To posters! Publishing a written work represents the culmination of many skills- researching how the experts do something, practicing and practicing it on our own, spending time revising our work to make it even better, editing with peers and practicing giving constructive criticism, and finally putting all of that onto a final copy and illustrating. Whew. We can see why professional writers spend so much time on a single book, and why they need a lot of stamina and determination. And, we can see the amazing results at the end! Everyone should feel very proud of the work they've done. 

    

All Abouts: 

Since we've wrapped up our How To's, we have started a new literacy unit. We are keeping our focus on non-fiction, but moving to reading books all about one particular subject. We have just begun exploring these books together, and already I have seen so much excitement for what's ahead. Over the next month or so, we will work on expanding our knowledge of features of non-fiction, using the labels, captions, headlines, glossary, and index in books we read to increase our comprehension of a subject, and then integrating those features into our own writing. In this unit, we will also learn much more about researching a particular subject to expand what we already know. We will investigate where people go when they want to learn more about something, and talk about what good sources of information look like, and how to differentiate these from lower quality sources. Finally, we will work on getting our writing style even more organized, grouping information into chapters to help the reader. These are incredibly important 21st century skills, and our kids are going to be well prepared.

Math News: 

In math, we are working on investigating patterns in numbers. This is a vitally important skill in math, and our kids have been great with it so far. Patterns allow us to check our work, and have multiple methods for proving our answer. Right now, we are especially focused on noticing patterns within easy math facts, and using these patterns to help build fluency. A goal for the end of first grade is to have automaticity with sums to ten, especially doubles and sums of ten. Basically, that means we think of math facts like 4+3=7 and 8+2=10 as the mathematical version of sight words- kids should be able to say the answer in 3 seconds or less instead of counting on fingers or a number line. Want an easy and fun way to practice this at home? Play our Fact Power game! All you need is standing room and a good superhero pose. You call out a math fact, ("Four plus four equals....?!?") and your child says the answer as fast as possible while striking their favorite superhero pose. You can also switch roles, having them shout out the math fact while you answer. Try having them call out only doubles or sums to ten. This method is great fun, and studies show that integrating whole body movement increases memory retention. 

Water Cycle: 
We have been having a lot of fun studying the water cycle as part of our meteorology unit. We spent several days observing each part of the water cycle individually, and then combined into the full cycle. We've been using all the background knowledge we gained from studying matter, and are working on applying that to water as it travels in a cycle. 
There are so many times we can observe the water cycle happening in everyday life. Any time clothes dry after a spill, steam forms on a bathroom mirror, it rains or snows and puddles form it's great to point it out and encourage your child to use their new academic vocabulary to describe what's happening. We've even learned a song to help us remember all the parts of the water cycle and what each of them means. 

Pajama Day! 
Finally, thanks for all your donations for PJ day! We were able to raise almost $500.00 dollars school wide to donate to Denver Road Home. What a fun way to practice compassion and awareness. 

Coming Up:

Next week, we will celebrate our 100th day of school and Valentine's Day! I hope everyone is having fun filling their gallon plastic bag with 100 of one object, and making Valentine's! I can't wait! 

January Happenings

We've been busy in Room 107 over the past few weeks! Second grade keeps getting closer and closer, and we are working hard to be ready. 
Here are some of the things that have been going on! 

Party time! 
The week before last we earned our third reward party! We had so much fun dancing around the room in some cute costumes. 

Math Explorations: 

In math, we're focusing on expanding our knowledge of measurement, and have been doing lots of fun activities to help our kids experience different forms of measuring and compare them. We measured surface area two different ways, and found equivalencies in the weights of different items. Our kids are so good at working in teams and talking to each other about what they are learning. Always, always ask your child HOW they found their answer in math. Even with simple problems, we want to be able to describe how we know something. 

How To's: 

We are SO CLOSE to publishing our How To's! We've been working incredibly hard on learning about important features of How To books and incorporating those into our writing. We've even been working on improving How To books we check out from the library by adding our own introductions and conclusions. I have to say, this is one of the best groups of writers I've seen with this skill. Their intros are so creative! 

We are also really focused on the Revising and Editing part of the writing process. We have started peer editing, looking for capitals and endmarks, and making sure our drafts have everything they need before moving to publishing. What impressive teamwork this group shows! 

Meteorology: 

In science, we have started our weather unit! We are learning how to be meteorologists, making careful observations and predictions about the world around us. We have reviewed telling temperature to the nearest 2 degrees, a great skill to practice at home, and last week we studied clouds! Look for our great cloud books coming home soon, and ask your child to describe the different types of clouds and name them when they notice them. As always, we want to connect our learning to real world scenarios. 

Thanks for reading! Check back next week for important information about February's events! 

Welcome Back!

Hi Parents, Families, and Friends! 

I finally have had some time to work on going through the photos from the last month or so after a busy winter break of traveling and a busy week back last week. I hope your kids were as excited to return to Lincoln as I was- break is nice and relaxing but I really missed this class and I was so happy to come back to our wonderful classroom community. 

Here are some things that happened before break- and a few updates on what we're progressing towards for the rest of the year. 

How To's

Just before break we started a new unit in literacy. For the next few weeks we are focused on reading and writing How To books. In order to practice reading and following directions, we are spending lots of time in Reader's Workshop making different things while following a How To. Here are some pictures from before break where our kiddos followed all the steps for How To Make Clay and How To Make Coil Pots. They did an absolutely wonderful job with this project, and I hope you saw the finished product come home before break! 

Winter Concert

Of course, before break we also had our winter music concert! The kiddos spent so much time practicing for this, and wow, did it ever pay off! This was truly one of the best concerts I've seen- and if you haven't heard- our class earned a pizza party from Dr. Brown because ALL our students attended! (This will be happening soon!) Thank you so much to all the parents, grandparents, and family members who made this wonderful after school event a priority. We loved having all our kids there to participate. Also, some stunning outfits were on display! 

Holiday Luncheon

Thanks also for the amazing participation in our holiday lunch party before break! Parents really went above and beyond in bringing in food, and we had so much fun eating food and making crafts from the different holiday traditions we studied and learned about. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your time and effort on this, parents! 

Coming Up

Over the next few weeks and months, we will really be cranking up our curriculum to get prepared for second grade! This last half of the year really flies by- so it's important that your student continues to read EVERY day and that you talk with them about what they've read. Here are some helpful questions you can ask your kids after reading.