April Update

Hi Parents and Families! 

First of all, so sorry that our blog hasn't been updated in so long! We've had so much going on over the past month and there is plenty left to accomplish over the remaining 7 weeks of first grade. 

Here are some of the things that we finished before spring break. 

Geography Unit: 

We had such a great time in our study of geography. We did a lot of work identifying the different levels of communities we are a part of. Then, we focused on our own country, and had a competition to see who could label the most states on a blank U.S. map. Congratulations to Cyrus who won! 

Math: 
In math, we've been continuing to work on our math fact fluency. This is a very important skill, as there is much evidence that automaticity with basic computation skills frees up cognitive ability for higher level thinking. So, it's really vital that students early on become fluent with their math facts and number sense. One game we have to play this is Sum Swamp. Anytime you have some time to do math with your kids, see how fast they can answer single digit addition problems. (See a few posts back for our Fact Power game! 

We've also been having an amazing time in Geometry. This is a great subject to get really hands on with! We spent a lot of time exploring our manipulatives (and building the foundation for our fractions unit coming up!) 

Social Studies: 

We've started our Interdisciplinary unit integrating reading, writing, and social studies all together into a wonderful unit called Kids Care. During this unit, we will examine stories from many different cultures and types of writing, all centering around the study of how people in a community work together to help each other. 

We started by acknowledging all the ways we help each other at school and how each student contributes to our classroom community. This was a wonderful 

 

Coming Up:
Throughout the rest of our Kids Care unit, we will be working on our play! Our kiddos have adapted the book Mama Panya's Pancakes into our own script, and your kids have probably already told you about how hard they are working to memorize their lines. Our performance will be Friday, May 2nd, at 3:00pm. We would love to have you join us if you can! 

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!