We've had a fantastic week together. We did tons of learning, some fun team activities and worked together to solve some problems. Having students be active participants in problem solving is a great skill and asset to helping them want to keep everything working smoothly. As a classroom community it's important to all have a voice. We also talked a lot about thankfulness and gratitude. We shared things in our lives that we are glad to have.
We read two Scholastic News articles this week, learning about the lives of Pilgrim kids and Wampanoag kids. We learned about their homes, their chores, their food, their clothes, and what they did for fun. We compared what we learned to our own lives--noticing many similarities as well as some differences. We also read a picture book about Pilgrim and Wampanoag kids lives. It is a book more about their lives in general than the first Thanksgiving.This book is called One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims by B.G. Hennessy. We also colored some fun fox Thanksgiving placemats that Ms. Judy found for us!
We continue to love (and need) our mind and body practices. We move our bodies between lengthy sitting times and calm our bodies after high-energy times.
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| Doing Zumba as we transition from Guidance on Monday. |
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| "Melting" with a Flow video to bring our energy down after P.E. |
In writers workshop we shared our stories with a partner. Our partner asked questions about the story to help us think of more details we could add. We also brought our stories to life by unfreezing the characters--making them do something or say something. We noticed that Mo Willems, one of our favorite authors, is an author to learn these skills from. We reread Knufflebunny and read I Will Take a Nap to notice how he added detail by bringing characters to life. We also read more small moment stories, The Paperboy by Dav Pilkey and The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash by Trinka Hakes Noble. This final book is a great example of how we tell small moment stories in itty bitty parts, stretching out the small moment of time into a long story. This is a tough skill to master but our first grade writers are working on it!
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| Students sharing stories and asking questions to help the author add more details. |
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| Students sharing stories and asking questions to help the author add more details. |
In math we finished up the first unit and had our "show me what you know" on Tuesday. These scores will be on the upcoming report card (which I'll give out at conferences next Monday). Our next math unit continues developing number sense and building upon the skills we've learned and practiced in the first unit. We are also continuing to build our fact power muscles, gaining fluency and moving up levels. This week we worked a lot with the number 10--finding all the ways to make ten and then using a color and number pattern to organize them. We made 10 rainbows and played a game called "10 Go Fish." This is a great game to play at home--just use the Ace,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9 cards from a standard deck of cards. Deal out 5 to each player. Then try to find a match to make 10 (like go fish). When playing ask "Do you have a 7 to go with my 3 to make 10?" or "Do you have a 2 to go with my 8 to make 10?" If the person asked doesn't have that number the person asking picks up a card from the pile.
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| Partners wrote equations to match the color pattern on the 10 towers. |
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| Then partners worked together to organize them--put them in order using a number pattern. |
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| We noticed that our 10 tower patterns make a big staircase! |
In readers workshop we continued to practice good reading habits. We focused this week on ways readers reread books to grow as readers. We reread to smooth out our reading, to make it sound more like talking. When we do this then we can scoop up phrases instead of reading word by word. We also reread to see more, to notice and learn new things in our stories.
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| We love to read so much we even read during our free time before morning meeting! |
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| We love to read so much we even read during our free time before morning meeting! |
This week I sent home flyers for Scholastic book orders. You do not have to order books but I will send home book orders every 2 months or so in case you want to get any new books for your home. We also have a class wish list if you'd like to donate a book to the class! You can go to this link and enter our class code LDHF9 to order books online or return the flyer order sheet to me with a check payable to Scholastic Book Clubs by Tuesday November 28th. (Books also make great gifts for the holidays!)
Do you have any old/outgrown coats, boots, snow pants, gloves or mittens hanging around? If so, you could donate them to our classroom. When children don't have adequate outerwear they need to borrow some in order to go outside. I keep lockers for extra winter gear for kids to borrow. If you have any old winter wear feel free to send them in as extras for our classroom--they might fit someone else!
In other news, starting after the break we'll have a new volunteer, Ms. Joy, helping us out on Monday afternoons. She'll be helping us in our math lessons and in our FUNdations word study, science and social studies block.
I look forward to seeing all of you on Monday for our family conferences! Please remember there is no school for children on Monday due to these conferences going on all day. Here's the schedule again in case you forgot when to come for your conference!
Have a great Thanksgiving break!
Dates to Remember:
Monday November 20 - Family Conferences -- No School for Kids
Tuesday November 21 - Friday November 24 - Thanksgiving Break -- No School
Tuesday November 28 - Scholastic Book Orders due!
Wednesday December 13 - Early Release at 12:15 (Teacher In-Service)
Thursday December 14 - Winter Concert (students in classrooms at 6:00 pm; performance begins in the gym at 6:30 pm)
December 25 - January 2 - Winter Break -- No School
Wednesday January 3 - School resumes
Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox
