Week Six: September 29-October 2
Math Report: We explored the art of building number stories. We listened to Mouse Count by Ellen Stoll Walsh and Five Creatures by Emily Jenkins. We first acted out our story to experience the math and then practiced writing our own stories. We found math in our everyday lives and wrote math stories about our families. And we played a math dice game called Nines which encouraged us to see the many different ways we can compose and decompose numbers encouraging number flexibility and building mathematician tendencies.
Reading and Writing Report: We built our reading community by becoming teachers! We supported each other by reading out loud to partners and demonstrating smooth reading. We provided our partners with friendly reminders of our good reading habits. We practiced scooping up our words, rereading, and tapping out each letter sound. In writing we worked on stretching out our words to hear each letter sound and learned that it is okay to just write the sounds we hear--we want to focus on building beautiful stories!
Thematic Unit Report: We are finishing up our Community unit with a collaboration project with Mr. Matt, our art teacher, and are building the maps we drew! To gain a better understanding of the surrounding community we took a neighborhood walk and took pictures. We expanded our project to include a discussion of how to bring kindness into our communities and read Maybe Something Beautiful: How Art Transformed a Neighborhood by F. Isabel Campoy for inspiration.
More Pictures From the Week!
Week Five: September 21-25
Math Report: We learned that using drawings to represent numbers in addition problems will support efficiency, however it is important that we do not lose focus on drawing teeny tiny detail and instead use circle drawings. This week in math we also explored equal signs which began our introduction to algebraic thinking. We discussed the many meanings of equality and then represented the equal signs with balance scales. We will continue our work with equal signs next week as well.
Reading and Writing Report: We learned the importance of rereading as a strategy to understand books on a deeper level. We also learned that sometimes readers pick up some bad habits and that we need to replace them with good reading habits. In writing we discussed that many authors use both text and illustrations in their work and it is important to add as much detail to both so that the reader can understand the story you are trying to tell.
Thematic Unit Report: We have continued our discussion of communities. We branched out from individuals, to classroom community, to family communities, and now we are looking into neighborhood communities. To launch the discussion we read the book The Car Washing Street by Denise Lewis Patrick and discovered that each neighborhood has character, people we know, different routines, and various landmarks. We will continue this discussion next week and will collaborate with our Art Teacher, Mr. Matt to work on our final project!
Extra Pictures from our wonderful first graders!!
Week Four: September 14-18
Math Report: We began the week with an exploration of zero and thought deeply about the question, "What if there was no zero?" We discovered that zero is absolutely necessary after looking at a number line and after examining elements of place value. We also looked at addition patterns, number circles, number partners, and math mountains. We learned about another new tool called rekenreks. Just like with stair steps and number cards these will support children in developing number sense.
Reading and Writing Report: In reading we practiced our smooth reading voices by reading and rereading. We recorded our reading on flipgrid. In writing we focused on how to draw and illustrate difficult ideas and that we should never give up! In both reading and writing we discussed how our classmates can support our learning and we worked on giving each other positive feedback to one another.
Thematic Unit Report: We have continued our study of community but have now started to practice making maps of our rooms, houses, and even our dream house. We read A World of My Own by Laura Carlin which inspired some creative thinking--how can we make our worlds more interesting?
More Pictures!
Week Three: September 8-11
Math Report: In math this week we started the week with creating shape creatures after reading Pezzetino by Leo Lionni. We then began our math curriculum and learned about subitizing groups of 5, using math mountains, and were introduced to new math tools like number cards and stair steps which helped us write number stories.
Reading and Writing Report: We learned what to do when we pick out a new book, we take a sneak peek, check our sneak peek, then we must do Something at the end of the book. We might retell the story, we might reread a favorite part, we may tell someone about our story. We also reviewed our letter sounds, participated in book talks, and practiced our reading stamina. In writing we worked on becoming more independent in our story writing. Writers are never just done with a story, they will go back and more detail to the pictures or the words. Writers can also tell whole stories in their illustrations. We took a look at Barbara Cooney's book, Miss Rumphius, which demonstrates this writing strategy beautifully.
Thematic Unit Report: We read the book They All Saw a Cat by Brenden Wenzell and drew portraits of each other to further understand our classroom community. We then moved to understanding that each of us come from unique families. We started to write our family role stories after reading Frederick by Leo Lionni. We will finish them next week!
Happy First Grade Pictures
Week Two: August 31-September 4
Math Report: In math this week we focused on assessments and began our shape unit! We went on a shape hunt outside, looked at shapes within maps, and talked about shape attributes.
Reading and Writing Report: We worked on some assessments and started book groups. We had a fun day of story acting, we reviewed letter sounds, and we learned how to take a sneak peek when we start a new book! We also learned that authors write what they know so as first grade authors we wrote stories about walking our dogs, woodland animals, getting stuck outside in the rain with our cats, or snuggling on the couch with our families.
Thematic Unit Report: We started the year with studying communities. We have learned about our classroom community by practicing our rules to be Appropriate, Safe, and Kind. We made self portraits and wrote about ourselves, we learned that each of us brings something unique to our community.
Recess: We have had lots of safe, happy, fun outside!
