Christmas things!

Friday was very festive at school! We made reindeer food that Jingles brought us and reindeer antler hats! Thank you to all of those who donated to the Hesed House! They were very grateful to receive your gifts:) 

Three States Of Matter

We had a fun time exploring properties of solids! We learned they can be soft or hard, rough or smooth, etc. We also learned solids keep their shape unlike liquids. Some students shared;however, that they know of solids that can melt into liquids like ice and chocolate. Here are some kids sorting their solids based on different properties!

After sorting, we got to work with our table groups to create a structure that could stand. This allowed the students to learn about what kind of materials are stronger, should be a base, etc. We may have some future engineers or architects in room 101! 

Book Detectives

This week, we began practicing a new skill during our Read to Someone Center.  The students have buckets of books to choose from to practice reading to a buddy.  Their new job; however, is to begin noticing "cool" things or interesting things the author does with the words.  We are beginning to learn about text features when we are reading and putting text features into our writing. These two students shared what they observed in their books.

Mia found that the author is using a different verb in the same sentence that is repeated on each page!

Joshua discovered that the author used the illustration to also write words. Cool!

Point of View

We reread two of our favorite books today and discussed what point of view the authors were using when they wrote. We discussed key words that would help us identify who was talking, and we learned the word narrator. Knowing who is telling the story helps us to further understand what the book is about! 

And check out what Jingles was doing this morning! 

 He was practicing reading to someone just like us! 

Rewind to our Turkey Stories!

With Christmas quickly approaching (21 days, but who's counting? :)  ) I wanted to take a minute to rewind a little and share a few of the AWESOME turkey adventure stories that were produced in room 101! The students decorated very fancy turkeys to disguise hunters from catching them for Thanksgiving.  We worked through brainstorming ideas about what they could be disguised as and talked through how to create a topic sentence for our story.  We discussed how important a topic sentence can be because it helps their readers know exactly what they will be reading about! After I modeled a topic sentence, students wrote their own and shared.  We then worked through how to sequence events in our stories using transition words or temporal words in their writing.  Many kids used first, then, and last.

Our Elf!

A special delivery came today from the North Pole! We read our new book and voted on our elf's name. Check out our chart to see the winner:) 

Collaboration in PE!

Today we had a great time during PE class.  We used our weekly reader from class about turkeys and played active games and learning games with them during gym class.  Students would jump over the readers that were laid on the floor, run with them like a cape, and make a body bridge over them.  In between each activity, we would have a learning break and come to the cones.  The first time, I asked students to find a sight word in the reader.  They wrote down the sight words they found on their paper.  Then the next time they had a learning break, they would sky write them in the air.  We had a super fun time together!

Bonus Letter

In Fundations, we have moved on from focusing on digraphs (sh, th, ch, wh, and ck) to words that end with a bonus letter. We have been practicing reading, writing, and marking our spelling with bonus letter words. What is a bonus letter you may ask?! It is when the word ends in l, s, f, and sometimes z. There also needs to be a short vowel sound before the s, l, or f. This means there will be two of the same letter, but we only pronounce one of those letters, thus calling the extra a bonus letter. Here are some friends spelling words for us. 

Nouns!

We have begun learning about the parts of speech! We have focused on nouns, occasionally talking about proper and common nouns. Check out our noun scavenger hunt around the room! 

Dailies as Centers!

Today was our second try at using our daily literacy activities as rotating centers. This way all children will get to do Read to Someone, Listening, Wonder Center, Word Work, and Work on Writing each week! During this time, I am also calling guided reading groups. Here are some of the kids at their centers today! 

Beginning middle and end!

We are working very hard on improving our writing by adding Bold Beginnings. We have read many picture books to learn what other authors do to hook their readers. 

This book uses a question at the beginning. 

This book gives us a snapshot of the main character. 

And this book, which seemed to be a favorite, used onomatopoeia or sound words to make its beginning fun! 

Here are two student examples of bold beginnings using strategies we learned from books! 

First Grade Homework!

This year, students will have a few things to work on each night as homework.

Rocket Math: Students will be bringing home test papers they complete in class on which they did not answer 20 or more problems. The rest of the problems on the top and all the problems on the bottom are to practice! I have even had students tell me their parents are making flash cards for them... Awesome!! This fact practice does not need to come back to school, just their rocket math folder and stapled answer sheet packet. There is more information about Rocket Math on our math blog! Math Blog! 

Guided Reading Books: Students should be bringing home guided reading books in their book baggies. Practice these books at home! They may not be bringing a book every night because I may not have seen their group that day or we did focus lessons and a reread instead of a new text. These books should always come back to school! 

Reading: First graders should be reading for 20 minutes each night. They should be bringing home a book of their choice from our class library each night as well.

Sight words: Each week we write out our 6 words of the week and put them in bags to go home. These are words they need to read and spell in writing. Also, many of you  have already been sending in notes saying your child is ready to be tested on various lists from our yellow sight word books. These are the books with the giraffe on the front. Be sure to let me know when your student is ready to be tested on a list! 

Finally,

Math Homework: Now that we have begun switching to our new math teachers, students will usually have homework Mondays through Thursdays. Every math teacher will not necessarily send home the same homework. This is to reinforce what is done in class! 

Whew! We are working hard in first grade and already showing great progress! :)


And, just for fun, here are a few Screen Chomps students have created to demonstrate the main idea of a text.  Other students have even brought in drawings and sentences that match books they have reread at home from reading groups in hopes of making Screen Chomps for them in class.  I have also had a few parents ask how to use it on the Ipad.  It is a free download through the Itunes store.  I am not sure if it is available on other tablets besides the Ipad.  The students draw their image first, using their fingers, and then press the red REC button on the bottom right corner.  There will be a three second count down, and then they can record their voices.  Once they are finished recording, they press the square (stop button) and it will play back.  You can share Screen Chomps through email so your child could email it to your actual email account!  This, of course, is just if you were interested in using this app at home!

N.S.'s Screen Chomp
G. L.'s Screen Chomp
T. G.'s Screen Chomp!

Johnny Appleseed Day!

We had a super fun day today celebrating Johnny Appleseed's birthday! To start our morning, a fourth grader who has a sibling in our class came to read a Johnny Appleseed book to us! 

 

We tasted apples and graphed our favorites! Yellow was the most popular! 

We also made a craft that showed the changes an apple tree goes through during the year. 

Finally, we showed what we had learned through some informational writing about Johnny. 

Fundations

We have begun our second unit in Fundations (Kaneland's adopted phonics program).  We are working on tapping out the sounds in words, sight/trick words, and forming sentences with capitals at the beginning and punctuation at the end.  Here are some students demonstrating the things we are focusing on!

The students know all of the letters, sounds, and a picture to match each letter.  Lilly chose a letter and the other students said the letter, picture, sound. 

We are also working on building words.  Anthony needed to build our word of the day, fix.  We discussed what this word means and practiced putting it orally in a sentence.  He came up to build the word, and as you can hear in the background, students were trying to give him hints to help him out!

Here, Riley is working hard to be sure he puts all the sounds he hears in his words, putting a capital letter at the beginning of his dictated sentence, and using finger spaces between each word!

On another note, tonight your child should have brought home his or her rocket math! They need to practice the fact sheet that is in their folder.  The rocket math folder has to come back to school every day!

Halloween Parade and Party

Here is the information for our Halloween Parade and Party!

This year we will have the parade first and then the students will return to their classroom for their parties. We are hoping this helps with a better dismissal at the end of the day. Everybody is welcome to watch the parade at 2:00 pm. Only room volunteers will be invited in the school after the parade to help with parties. 

What: Annual Halloween parties and costume parade on Thursday, October 31st 

Where: Kaneland McDole Elementary School 

When: School-Wide Parade will be held at 2:00 pm 

All classroom parties will begin at 2:30 pm 

Students are welcome to wear school appropriate cos-tumes to school. Please refrain from sending in masks, weapon-like accessories or anything with an indication of violence. 

We will parade out the gym door and take the sidewalk just north of the playground around to the sidewalk that parallels Simpson Parkway to the side of the building and enter through doors 3 and 4 near the bus lane. Parents are welcome to watch the parade from the grass along the parade route. Classes will parade in order by grade starting with 5th grade and ending with kindergarten. 

In the event of inclement weather the parade will be cancelled. 

Thank you for your cooperation! 

Writer's Workshop

During read aloud and writer's workshop, we have been focusing on making text to self connections and turning those connections into small moment stories! When we hear things in books we read that remind us of things we have done, we have a new idea of what to write about. We usually have share time at the end of writer's workshop, but everyone who wants to doesn't always have time to share! Today we solved that problem by reading our two favorite books we have written to a small group of friends. 

Sight words

You should have found a yellow packet of sight words in your child's take home folder! This packet has 11 lists of words that should be memorized. Your child will start practicing list one until each word is completely automatic! Once it is automatic, please send me a note letting me know he or she is ready to be tested!The  students will earn stickers for each list that is passed. Good luck!! 

First Grade Geologists!

We had a super fun Friday this past week! The students have been learning about properties of rocks, such as color, size, texture, and luster.  We read a book with Miss G's class in the Reading Lounge called Everybody Needs a Rock.  This book talks about all the things you should consider when choosing a rock for your very own.  We then discussed the properties of rocks again!

After finishing the book, we went outside to find our very own rock!  

(Boys searching for their very own rock!)

Christian and his rock!

Kaitlyn and her rock!

After everyone found their rock, we went back to the classroom to document our findings like scientists! The students used our recording sheet to explain the different properties they observed about their own rock.  Here are a few examples! 

"Dull, it is golden inside, bumpy"

"Gray, and it has spots"

"This rock looks like the earth"

"Texture: bumpy, kind of flat, and a lot of colors"

"blue, red, sparkly, cool, smooth, crackly"