Current Month
November 23-24
Thanksgiving Week!
We had a busy couple of days! We have worked on writing our own math subtraction stories, reading nonfiction books about the origins of Thanksgiving, we wrote small moment stories about Thanksgiving past, and we have continued our exploration of weather and made lightning in the classroom! Then we wrote our own stormy weather songs using our new knowledge to inform the lyrics. We also got to celebrate Grandparents Day virtually! It was great fun to welcome Grandparents into our classrooms and see some from so far away!
November 16-20
Math Report: We learned about subtraction unknown partner stories this week. We discovered that subtraction unknown partner stories are more intuitive to us. We played games like the dice game, "Pig" to practice our addition facts. We played a game called "Snap it!" which is very similar to the game "How Many Are Hiding?" We also had several days warming up with subtraction number circles which allows us to identify number patterns and become more automatic with our math facts. We also included fitness work-outs to practice our unknown partner addition equations. We read stories like The Busy Body Book: A Kid's Guide to Fitness by Lizzie Rockwell, 12 Ways to Get to 11 by Eve Merriam, and Pete the Cat and the Missing Cupcakes by James Dean and Kimberly Dean. It was fun week of math!
Reading and Writing Report: This week we explored inferencing through "chatting" about our books. We had a good laugh together that chatting is a specialty in first grade so we became experts quickly. When chatting about our books we must think about size, shape, and color words, comparisons, examples from the text, "I wonder" statements, and things we learned. We continued our small moment stories and perfected the art in making ordinary moments into an exciting story. Some stories were about the actual writing process, horses biting a brother's hair, hanging out by the river with friends, going to a farm and learning about corn and feeding sheep, playing video games at a friend's house, and even going on a mystery adventure with parents. First grade has some very creative, thoughtful, and inquisitive minds!
Thematic Unit Report: We have started to explore storms! We studied tornadoes and hurricanes and participated in demonstrations and experiments. We talked about power and strength of both and what to do to keep safe. We learned how they a formed and how devastating they can be to many communities across the globe. We shared experiences with strong winds and read several wonderful books about children experiencing hurricanes or tornadoes.
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November 9-13
Math Report: In math this week we explored addition equations with missing addends or unknown partners. We compared unknown total math stories with unknown partners math stories and found very subtle differences. We will continue to notice these differences as we move through the unit. In our exploration we played a new game called "How Many are Hiding?" where one of the partners of 10 or 20 is hiding under a cup. Then students were asked to build their matching equations. We also looked at our names for math inspiration and created math equations based on the number vowels and consonants in our names. We enjoyed math read alouds like, The Cave by Rob Hodgson, and There Was a Black Hole that Swallowed the Universe by Chris Ferrie where we discovered more unknown partner stories! These stories inspired our own unknown partner stories!
Reading and Writing Report: In reading we practiced reading our nonfiction books. We learned that we can make predictions about the next page, we can work with our partners to offer reminders to stick to our reading habits, and to understand tricky parts in our books. In writing we are working on building our small moment stories and used Jane Yolen's Owl Moon as inspiration for writing lots of detail. We have been publishing many First Grade stories so we also inspired one another to write about moments during our day.
Thematic Unit Report: We continued our unit on Wind and explored wind with sailing our own Bottle Cap Boats. We were challenged with scientific process and were asked to draw detailed diagrams of the boats and then we had to test them out! If the boat did not float well we had to problem solve why and then fix the problem!
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November 2-6
Math Report: In math this week we finished up unit 2 and moved on to unit 3! We are beginning our new unit with understanding unknown partners, or missing addends. We continued our exploration with number stories and looked to Five Green and Speckled Frogs by Constanza Basaluzzo and The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins for inspiration. Unknown partner stories are not an easy concept and so we will continue our work next week!
Reading and Writing Report: We started a new unit in both reading and writing this week! In reading we are now becoming super smart with non-fiction books. We have already learned so much about so many different topics! It has been an absolute pleasure to share our new knowledge with one another while we begin to understand new topics. In writing we have started our Small Moment unit where we are writing about our lives and stretching our stories with lots of detail of the moment. We visited with my favorite friends, Frog and Toad, and read The Story by Arnold Lobel and A Chair for My Mother by Vera Williams for guidance on stretching small moments into exciting stories.
Thematic Unit: We are now studying wind during our wild weather unit. We have read fables and listened to nonfiction books and also some funny stories about wind. In order to feel the wind and really understand it, we are making paper airplanes and becoming scientific thinkers to problem solve ways to make our plane fly the farthest . We measured our planes' flight distance, we made multiple types of planes, we tried flying our planes with and without wind. It was so much fun!