Grand Friends

What a special and unique opportunity we have as a first grade crew!  As the last part of our learning expedition, Everybody Has a Story, first graders become friends with a local "grand friend".

We work hard to share our own personal narrative stories.  Then we interview a grand friend to record a special memory for him/her.

Students are active listeners who show our Habits of Character of respect and compassion.  We return back to school to write the story down and reread the story to record any wonderings we still have.

Students return to visit with their grand friend and to revise the grand friend's story by adding details and feeling words.

Students are also persevering to draw a high quality portrait of their grand friend.

This is a special relationship that connects our community!

Halloween

We had a wonderful Halloween party!  Thank you Kelly, Greta and Sue for making our day so fun and special.

Students enjoyed traveling to different centers.  Students made their own Halloween cookie.

Students created a skeleton using Q-tips.

Family readers read Room on the Broom while students ate their healthy snacks.

The orange slime making was a hit!

Students played BINGO!

What a fun day in first grade to celebrate Halloween!

Calm Down Strategies

We had an amazing time at crew! 

Today we learned about different calm down strategies we can use when we get upset. These are the ones we talked about:

Deep breathing 

Counting up or down

Positive Self-Talk 

Calming Thoughts - “Happy Place” 

Our crew is practicing these strategies not only when we are feeling mad, sad or overwhelmed, but throughout our day.  Each day after lunch recess, we calm down with PEACE OUT.  These are guided relaxation for kids.

I hope you continue to make relaxation and mindfulness a practice at home too!

Stories, Stories, So Many Parts

In our 2nd Case Study, we are learned all about the parts of a story.  We firmly believe that readers aren't just people who can read the words, but rather people who read the words, talk about the story and think about what is happening.  Our first step has been to practice retelling.  We have worked hard to learn all about characters, setting, problem/solution and beginning, middle and end.  

Students have collaborated in small groups to read a text over several days and describe each of the story elements in a note catcher.  After a week of becoming familiar with the books and all the story elements, students embarked on the journey of story acting.

Students collaborated in small groups to practice parts and design costumes.  Each group presented to the class.  

What an exciting way to teach others about our stories and a fun way to remember what we read!

Field Day

We enjoyed our Star Wars themed field day put on by our fabulous P.E. teacher, Mr. B.  We had fun while getting plenty of exercise.

Students collaborated together to complete various Star Wars missions.

What a great day of fun and sunshine!

Students showed respect by listening to all the volunteers including our 6th grade crew who helped out for the day.

Problem Solving

As a crew, we are working on solving problems.  We talked about how different kinds of problems require different strategies to solve them.  As Seth Godin says "The only way to get good at solving problems is to solve them."  The Great Thinker is our inspiration to continue to think "How can I solve this?" throughout our day.

We are thinking on how to solve problems with our friends.  We use a protocol of CFRR.

C stands for communication...

"I like it when....."

"I don't like it when...."

F stands for feeling

"It makes me feel....."

R stands for request....

"Please keep doing it"

"Please stop doing that."

R stands for response....

I understand.

I am sorry.

Thank you.

We are also working on problem solving during teaching time so students are not coming to me, but instead looking to solve problems on their own.  When students come to me, I say "I trust you to solve that problem."

In math, we are using strategies to solve addition and subtraction story problems.  Students are using count all or count on/count back.  Students are recounting to check that their equation is accurate.

In reading, we are problem solving during reading by thinking about the story and asking "What makes sense?".  Making meaning during our reading is our top priority.

Prompts for readers:

Look at the picture.

Can the picture help you?

Look at the beginning sound, what makes sense?

Think about the story, what makes sense?

I hope these strategies can be useful to you at home.

High Quality Work

We have been working for the past 3 weeks on persevering to create a high quality self portrait.  The purpose of this hard work is for students to understand what perseverance means and the multiple steps we can go through to improve.

Our first step was to attempt a first draft with no instruction or guidance.  Students noticed and reflected that they were done quickly and not much thought was put into the drawing.

Next, we introduced an expert through an online YouTube video.  This art teacher modeled the whole process and gave specific instructions on what to do for certain body parts.

For our second draft, students went very slow and concentrated on one body part while sitting next to his/her learning partner.  After the body part was drawn, students had the opportunity to get feedback from his/her peer.  After several days of drawing slowly, students came up with a criteria list for feedback.


Using this criteria list, students met with their YO (younger and older) buddy from Ms. Lindsey's 4th grade crew.  Each student got to analyze his/her 2nd draft and get feedback on how he/she could improve.

Students then had the opportunity to revise their portrait from this specific feedback.

Students traced their self portrait onto final draft, high quality card stock.  We persevered by coloring slowly and working on only a couple of body parts a day.  We discussed contrasting colors when we chose our background color.  

We celebrated our hard work with an art gallery walk with our YO Buddies.  The pair of students had the opportunity to walk around and notice each first grader's hard work while sipping a little bubbly...Sprite.

Students gained an understanding of working hard, listening closely to feedback and self reflecting through a rubric based on our criteria list.

Learning Targets:
I can persevere to draw a high quality self portrait.
I can give kind, specific, helpful feedback using "I notice" and "I wonder".
I can reflect on my self portrait using a checklist.
I can persevere to color a high quality self portrait.
I can reflect on my self portrait.