Literacy
This week, the children began learning about the Daily 5. You can view our earlier posts from the week to learn about: what good readers do, building stamina, I-PICK good-fit books, and read to self.
On Friday, the children were introduced to Read to Someone. Read to someone helps children read independently and grow as readers. The children enjoy read to someone because they get to read and discuss books with a friend. It gives children a chance to share their thinking and learning. Read to someone also helps improve fluency. Below is a picture of our class created I-chart for read to someone.
I have now had time to meet individually with all of my first grade readers and assess them using Fountas and Pinnell running records. We will begin guided reading groups in about one week after we have finished our introduction to the Daily 5. I will continue to post information about the remaining areas of the Daily 5 as we learn the routines in class.
Writing
This week, we continued working on our first writing unit, Autobiographies. The children wrote about their favorite place to go. On Wednesday, the children met with a partner to share their rough drafts. They took turns reading their writing to one another. After, they shared ideas for adding more detail to their writing and illustrations. On Thursday, the children started the publishing process. They will rewrite each part of their autobiography in their best handwriting and draw illustrations that are careful, colorful, and detailed. When they are finished publishing all of their pieces, they will compile them into a book.
Math
In Math, the children continued working on number sense. This week they practiced representing numbers using tally marks, created a tally chart to organize data, compared pairs of whole numbers, and used the calendar to answer questions about days, weeks, months, and dates. The children were also introduced to math explorations. They learned about base-10 blocks, pattern blocks, and geoboards.
The children enjoyed playing two games this week, Top-It with a group of children and Dice-Roll and Tally. Before playing Dice-Roll and Tally, each child predicted which number they thought would be rolled the most times. After, they compared it with the number that did get rolled the most. They had a great discussion about their observations.
We will wrap up our first math unit this week. On Wednesday, we will review all of the math concepts we learned in this unit. The children will enjoy using Mimio Vote as our review tool. Our classroom will turn into the set of a game show during our math block time as the children apply their math knowledge and answer questions using their very own clickers. On Thursday, we will have our first math test. The children will have all problems read out loud to them. This will ensure that I am testing their math skills and not their reading skills. The tests will come home via backpack mail on Friday.
Social Studies
We finished our first social studies unit this week on communities. The children learned about how firefighters, garbage men, librarians, and policemen help our community. They listened to a book about each community helper and then brainstormed ideas about how they help our community. The children completed their community helpers packet and brought it home to share with you on Friday.
We will begin our next unit on Maps this coming week. If you have any relatives or friends that live in other states or countries please encourage them to visit our blog. The children learned this week about ClustrMaps and Live Traffic Feed on our blog. They are excited to check back in during our Map unit and see all the places that people are visiting us from.
Patriot Day
On September 11th, we celebrated Patriot day in our classroom. We read two short books on America and had a discussion about what America means to us. After the children, created heart shaped flags and on the back they finished the sentence starter, America is... Some of the finished sentences were: America is a safe place to live. America is freedom. America is beautiful. America is my home. America is my family. America is a wonderful place to live.
International Dot Day
On Friday, the children had a wonderful time celebrating International Dot Day. They listened to, The Dot, by Peter Reynolds. We talked about how each of us can make a mark in the world. The children shared ways that they will make their mark this year at Dryden. Some of the responses were, I will be a good friend, I will follow directions, I will help others when they need it. The children also enjoyed creating their own dot art. They had a blank canvas and were allowed to use any available materials in the classroom. We have some remarkable artists in our room!
Thinking Skills
On Friday, Mrs. Schwarz our Odyssey teacher at Dryden came in for a visit. She worked with the children on thinking skills. She will come in for the next three weeks and engage the children in different mind exercises.
Note:
There is no LMC this week due to Map Testing. If you would like, you may keep your book for another week and return it for LMC on Friday, September 28th.
Happy Sunday!
No comments:
Post a Comment