November News

We have had another busy few weeks in First Grade! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Feast.  Thanks so much to our amazing class moms for helping to make this special day possible for us. I am so thankful to work with you and your children. Here are some pictures below...

 

                              

 Don't Let the Pigeon Read our Blog??!!
We have been doing an author study on the author Mo Williams.  We have read many of his Pigeon stories, Elephant and Piggy, and his three Knuffle Bunny stories.  The children LOVED his books and many choose to read them during free time:) We have been focusing on character traits, comparing and contrasting, and sequencing a story.  We have also been busy working on reading with expression and fluency(which Mo's books are perfect for) .  We have been using punctuation cues to help us read and changing our voices to match the character or the character's feelings.  We learned that our reading needs to sound like talk and not like a robot:) The children have been doing a wonderful job. 

The class just loved reading his books so much that we just had to write our very own versions of Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. Then they used the Shadow Puppet App on the iPad to record themselves reading their stories with lots of expression.  They were wonderful!!!!! We also used two fun Apps on the iPad called Mo on the Go and Don't Let the Pigeon use this App!

We have been involved in the Writing Process.  The children chose a topic for their book and then created a web of ideas during the Pre-Writing stage and then just finished up the Drafting stage.  Now we will move on to Revising and Editing this week. 

In Math, we have been working on Addition and Subtraction and different strategies to use to help us.  We used pictures, counters, ten frames, number lines, and we counted up and back. We worked on Fact Families and Doubles as well as our Fact Packs.  We also worked on solving number stories and looking for key words to help us determine if we are to add or subtract. We Played a fun game called Sums of Ten to practice different ways to make ten and we played Roll a Subtraction Sentence.  We also used the Apps Math Bingo and Hungry Fish to work on our facts.

We have wrapped up our unit on Communities. We learned about wants and needs and goods vs. services.  Both First Grade classes joined together and created a map of "Kidsville", which is on display in the hallway.  Stop by and check it out.  We also created Popplets of a main street with Mrs. Burg and they are on display in the hall too. 

In Science, we have started our weather unit.  We talked about different kinds of weather, temperature, and we have been graphing the weather.  We made rain gauges to collect and measure rain water.  The First and Third Grades have been busy composting.  At lunch they have jars to collect fruit and vegetable peelings, etc... and then after lunch we add them to the compost bin along with leaves. 

Special Events...
Coach Frankie arranged for the Sambulance to come to school.  It was a wonderful program about safety for children.  Here are some pictures below...

 

 

Mrs.  Heiss's Third Graders came to our room and read to our class.  They read with lots of expression and our class was very impressed! 
 

 

We finished reading Marty McGuire, which was part of the Global Read Aloud.  We connected with a First Grade class in Wisconsin and did many different activities with them and skyped with them a few times.  We also connected with a First Grade class from Toronto too. At the end of the book the children were given a choice of a final activity to do.  Some chose to make a poster about their favorite part.  Some chose to sequence the story and some chose to make character webs.  Some children even chose to make a song up about the book, which was super cute.  I also had the children tell us what their favorite part or character was from the book.  The short videos are below.

 

 

 

October News

We have been very busy in Class 1M.  We have been busy learning about what a community is, different types of communities, and community workers in Social Studies. We went on a fabulous trip to the Warren Township Municipal Building.  We met the mayor, a judge, police officers, fire fighters, building inspector, and the Superintendent of Public Works.  We learned all about what they do and how everyone works together in a community.  Thanks so much to our chaperones Mrs.  Dimbeng, Mrs. Janardhana, Mr.  Looney, Mrs. DiGirolamo, Mr.  Martinez, and Mr. Zubrycki.  Click on the link to a Smilebox below to see all the pictures from our trip.

http://www.smilebox.com/playBlog/4d7a67794f4455304d544d3d0d0a&blogview=true

In Reading, we have been practicing the strategies that Good Readers use.  We chunked up the words, look for words in words, patterns, and use the pictures and the first letter.  We used reading phones to work on our fluency.  We have also been working on making predictions, comparing and contrasting, and sequencing a story and the short i sound.  We started our guided reading groups this week and the children did a wonderful job.  In our literacy centers we worked on listening skills, write the room for short i, word sorts, ending sounds concentration, making predictions, and some fun phonics card games.  We read different books about community workers and we will continue reading about community workers in our guided reading groups this week.  We listened to a wonderful story called City Kid, Country Kid and another great story called My Street.

Using reading phones

Working with short i word families

Word Sort

Using a word window to look for word chunks

In Writing, we finished up our All about Me books and worked on writing three sentences or more and using proper punctuation and capitalization in our writing.  We also wrote about what we like to do in the fall.  Next week we will begin the writing process!

In Math, we have been busy asking questions, collecting data, and creating and reading graphs! The children loved learning about tally charts, pictographs, bar graphs, and using the graphs to answer questions.  We did a fun activity where the children were paired up and together they came up with a question for their graph and then had to survey their classmates, and then together create a graph.  I "moustache" you to check out our pictures below...

The First and Third Grade classes are working together to learn more about the enviroment and sustainability.  Last week we went outside in the outdoor classroom and we took our apple cores and peels outside and we buried them.  We talked about what we thought might happen to them. Then on Thursday, we went back outside and all 35 cores were gone!  We talked about how they might have decomposed or maybe some animals might have eaten them.

The First Grade has been participating in the Global Read Aloud and reading the chapter book Marty McGuire.  Schools from all over the country and in other countries are all reading the same book!  We have been collaborating with a first grade class from Wisconsin and the children are really enjoying it.  We skyped with them and introduced ourselves.  Then we created popplets based on the book and emailed them to each other.  Tomorrow we will be skyping with them and discussing chapter 5.  We all created movies in our mind to visualize what we heard in chapter 5.  Tomorrow we will be sharing what we visualized via skype.

Skyping with 1st grade class in Wisconsin

 Click on the link below to padlet to see our popplets:)

http://padlet.com/wall/t6qc5t3fd0

Our First Two Weeks of First Grade!

It has been a fun and busy first two weeks of First Grade! We have been busy learning the routines of First Grade and spending time with our classmates.  Our classroom theme this year is camping . Here are Class 1M's Happy Campers!

 Read S'more Books
In Reading the children have been learning the routines of Reading Workshop.  We went Book Shopping and got our very own book boxes to keep our Just Right books in.  We have been reviewing our consonant sounds, rhyming words, syllabication, and sight words this week.  We listened to the stories ABC I Like Me and I Like Me by Nancy Carlson and we also read Alphabet Mystery by Audrey Wood. We also began to work on alliteration and read the book A My Name is Alice, which is chock full of examples of alliteration.  The children began to work in daily Literacy Centers to reinforce the skills that we were working on.  Here are some pictures of the children working in centers...

Read the Room

String a Sight Word

Magnetic Letters

String a Sight Word

                                

Beginning Sounds

                                                

Stamp the Missing Letter

 We also worked on different reading strategies that Good Readers use.  We learned that good readers read from left to right,  take a picture walk before they read, make predictions, point to the words with their finger, use pictures, and they look at the first letter of a word and the picture to help them figure out an unfamiliar word.

Pointing to the words

Using a Magic Eye pointer to use pictures and 1st letter

Author Study Fun!

We have been reading many of Melanie Watt's Scaredy Squirrel stories.  Scaredy Squirrel is a lovable character that is scared of many things.  In his books he is scared to try new things at first but learns that once he tries he actually has fun and is not scared at all! We read Scaredy Squirrel finds a Friend and talked about what makes someone a good friend.  Then we paired up and drew a portrait of our friend and wrote what makes them a great friend.  They had a lot of fun doing this.  We also read Scaredy Squirrel, Scaredy Squirrel goes to the Beach, and Scaredy Squirrel goes Camping. The children love these books.  They have wonderful illustrations, labeling, maps, and diagrams.  Check them out at your local library if you get a chance.

Campfire Stories/Writing

We have been busy working on handwriting, directionality, pencil grip, and spacing.  We also worked on three FCAs this week, which were picture as big as your hand, using lines properly, and writing left to right.  We began working on our All About Me books.  We also wrote alliterative sentences in response to the book A my Name is Alice.

Math Fun!

In Math we worked on number formation, number sequencing, counting by 1's and 5's, and tally marks.  We played a fun card game called Top It and we also played a fun game called Dice Tally Roll to practice tally marks.  On Friday we bowled in our classroom and tallied the pins that we knocked down.  The children loved it!

 

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