Halloween

Halloween is FRIDAY!  

A special give back opportunity will be happening on that day.  First grade will be collecting and donating gravy (canned or in a jar).  Each grade level is collecting a different item to donate to the local food bank.  

Please have your child wear his/her costume.  We will start with an all school parade.  Please go to the gym to see all the great costumes.  After the parade, please come directly to the classroom for a great Halloween party planned by Stacy Rini and Lauren Arnone.  Everyone is welcome!

We will then be changing out of our costumes and getting in regular clothes before lunch.  After lunch, we will be doing experiments and having fun with pumpkins.  We need dads, uncles, grandpas, etc. to come help.  Dads, etc. please bring a pumpkin with you!

Welcome Back from Fall Break

What a great week!  We reviewed and practiced routines and norms.  
Reading:
We are persevering by applying many reading strategies during our reading.  Sounding out is just one reading strategy.  Students need to use a variety of reading strategies.  Most importantly, they need to make sure their reading:
~sounds right
~looks right
~makes sense
Today, we discussed picking "just right books".  An "uphill" book has 5 or more hard words.  A "just right" book has 1-4 hard words.  A "downhill" book has no hard words. 

Questions to ask your student...
~What is a just right book?
~What is a reading strategy you can try when you come to a tricky word?

In our expedition writing, "Everybody Has a Story", we are working on:
~spaces between words, capitals at the beginning and periods at the end
~making sure our writing flows
~adding details (describing words, action words, feeling words)
Questions to ask your student...
~Why do you add details to a small moment?
~What details did you add to your small moment?

We finished up our shapes math unit.  The students enjoyed and used our math vocabulary:
geometry
vertices
quadrilateral
triangle 
Questions to ask your student...
~What is a quadrilateral?
~Can you describe or explain vertices?

We are so excited for Halloween on Friday!  We hope you can attend the all school parade at 9 am with our in class party immediately following.

Writing Our Small Moment

We had an expert writing teacher, Lori Conrad, come visit us to talk about small moments.  She helped us understand how to determine what is most important when we write a small moment.

After learning from our writing expert, we have begun writing lots of small moments.  As writers, we:
~write the whole time
~stretch out unknown words and keep on writing
~add lots of details

We love to spread out in our classroom to so we can do our best writing.  As you will see, busy first grade writers like to stand, sit, share and lay down!

***Share some small moments in your life (your favorite birthday as a child, a memory of a grandparent, a vacation, a favorite childhood gift)
Questions to ask your first grader:
~What do good writers do?
~Can you tell me a small moment?
~What are some strategies to spell tricky words?

Mathematicians

Our second math unit is all about shapes.  Students will be:
~decomposing shapes using other shapes
~comparing and sorting shapes
~using more and less shapes to fill an outline

Students love using the word geometry in their math conversations with crew mates.

My favorite thing about this unit is how much we collaborate as a crew.  Students are using manipulatives to answer questions and create things out of pattern blocks.
Questions to ask your mathematician...
What is geometry?
How are you using geometry in your math lessons?
How are a square and rectangle different? The same?

Case Study #3 Telling Our Story Through a Small Moment

"The best portion of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with someone who matters to you" ~unknown

This week we kicked off our third case study "Telling Our Story" in our Learning Expedition "Everybody Has a Story".  We will be working hard as authors to write a small moment.

First, I brought in a watermelon to get them wondering how a watermelon is like a story.  Our life is the watermelon, the slice is something important (a certain family member like Nana or a holiday like Christmas or our birthday), but the seed is the small moment that we will zero in on (the Christmas pickle in my tree, my Nana making me fried chicken).

As you can tell they enjoyed the watermelon and really got the idea of the seed.  Many said "What's your seed?"  We shared our small moment stories orally while we enjoyed the watermelon.
Questions to ask your student..
"What is a small moment?"
"How is a seed of a watermelon like a small moment?"

**Practice telling your child a small moment story...
I remember when my grandpa...
This one time.....
Let me tell you about this one time....