Friday Fun!

Today in class we had many things going on. The kids got a free book from the PTO, it was dress like a book character day, we had a birthday, we had a going away party, and it was a half day! Below are some pictures from our exciting day.

PS. We also won the traveling trophy for making safe choices on the playground and being quiet in the hallway. :)

Book Dress Up Day

The 1st Grade Teachers                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

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PTO Book Distribution

 Traveling Trophy

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

New Science Unit- Light and Sound Waves

I am very excited to share with you that we are starting a new unit in science this week on light and sound waves. This is a new unit for me as well as for the kids. Starting next year we will be switching our science curriculum to align with the recently released Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in West DePere. These standards are grade level specific and include Science and Engineering Practices. Because I serve as a member of the science committee for the district, our classroom is piloting some new materials to help us find high quality and effective teaching materials. From research that we did last year we decided to give Carolina's Building blocks of Science units a try. We did one lesson yesterday and it went very well. The kids seemed to enjoy it and we had lots of meaning full discussion about light. Today we continued to discuss light as we went on a scavenger hunt around the school to find light sources (see pictures below). One change that you will notice because of this pilot opportunity is that on the 2nd trimester report card your child will not be graded on force and Motion. Instead they will be graded on light and sound waves. There will be a reminder note in the report card letter. With this unit there are also some family science activities that your child will be bringing home. These are optional. If you do decide to participate please send them back to school so we can discuss and reflect on your learning at home, as a class. Stay tuned for more information and to see the exciting things we will be doing with light and sound!

Story Element Review

Today in class we worked on reviewing story elements for our fiction stories. This included working on character, setting, and plot. I read the kids the book and then they filled out a Read All About it graphic organizer. The story that we read today was called The Very Hungry Bear. We also watched a couple YouTube videos to help us remember our story elements I included them below as well as a few pictures. :) 

Synonyms

Last week in class we learned all about synonyms. Below are a few games your child can play at home to practice. :)



Super Word Toss



Synonym Sam



Word Frog

Writing Celebration

Today during writing we had a 1st trimester writing celebration. All year we have been working on writing personal narratives, stories about things we do or have done. They did a great job and have made a lot of progress. The areas that we focused on this trimester were: titles, topic sentences, including three or more details/events, using temporal words, closure, capitols, punctuation, compete sentences, neat writing, and trying our best. Doing all of these things is a challenge especially at this point in the year. As the year goes on more writing will come home in portfolios and you will be able to see your child's progress. Below are some pictures from the celebration as well as some pictures of our anchor charts for writing. For the rest of this trimester we will be focusing on writing sentences with both with capitols and periods as well as working on some poetry. Next trimester we will be moving on to writing informational texts.

RAZ Kids

Yesterday your child took home a note about Raz-Kids. You have access to this reading resource at home so I thought I would share the links on the blog for you. These books can be a part of your child's nightly reading homework. If your child reads one, please add it to their reading long sheet.  The kids can easily access the site through our class sqworl page. The link is above in the menu. It is called links. I will also post a link below. Happy Reading! 

www.sqworl.com/8arzji

Questioning - Good Night Gorilla

One of my all time favorite books to teach with at the beginning of 1st grade is Good Night Gorilla. I use it to teach many things including, reading pictures, questioning, making predictions, and much more. We have already read/watched it a few times this year. This week we re-watched it focusing on asking questions. Some of the questions the kids and I had were as follows:

What didn't the zookeeper hear the keys rattling when the gorilla took them?
How can the elephant fit in that cage?
Why is the mouse hanging from a balloon?
Why did he let out the lion when he could eat him?
I wonder why the animals had stuffed animals in their cages?
I wonder why the armadillo had a pacifier?
I wonder why the gorilla let all the animals out?
I wonder they followed the zoo keeper?

This year Beckett is even dressing up as the gorilla for Halloween. :) Below is a picture and a YouTube reading of the book.

I Mustache You a Question...

Today during reading we focused on asking questions while we read. We discussed asking questions before, during, and after reading. To help up with questioning I read the story titled Mustache by Mac Barnett. I pre-read the story and loaded it up with my own questions on stick notes. As I read I asked my questions and we discussed possible answers. We talked about how asking questions while we read will help us have a better understanding of the story. We made a poster of possible question starters and then each kiddo wrote their question on a mustache. They LOVED it! Here are some pictures and sample questions from the book. I also linked a YouTube reading of the book if you want to read it too! :) Enjoy! 

Who is the author and who is the illustrator?

What made the king such a terribly king?

I wonder why they didn't move?

Why did the townspeople go silent?

Will the king ever fix the town?

What does culprit mean?

Why did he royal adviser have to wear a disguise?

Why did they all draw mustaches on the posters?

How did the king feel at the beginning and at the end?

How did the king change?

Why did he give himself a mustache? 

What was the setting?

What was the author's purpose?

Spinner the Spider

Hello, my name is Spinner the Spider. 

I like to help my friends make connections to their reading. As a first grader your kiddo will be working on make three different kinds of connections. Text to Self – Making connections to your own experiences Text to Text – Making connections between two or more books. Text to World – Making connections between books and world events.

Today we read the book Diary of a Spider and worked on all three kinds of connections. For example some kiddos made a connection when the spider said that he had a “vacuum drill”. This made the students think of the fire drills that we have had at school. As we continued reading this story we met spider’s friends worm and fly. This made us think of the books Diary of a Worm and Diary of a Fly. Finally, the book mentioned Grandparent’s Day and we made a text to world connection. We discussed this holiday and how some families celebrate it. We also discussed things that we could do on grandparent’s day.

Please try using me while you are reading at home! 

Love,

Spinner the Spider

P.S. We also made spider hats today. Did you know spiders are not insects. Insects have 6 legs spiders have 8!