Writers and Readers

Today we shared some of the How-To pieces we have been working on Writing Workshop. Parents, be warned -- several pieces about "How to Get Your Parents to Let You Stay Up Late" were shared! They know all the tricks!

Notice: First Grader does not end up in bed! 

In Reading Workshop, we are in the middle of a unit on reading nonfiction. Here are some of the charts we have built together in class to show what we are learning.

How To Get Super Smart about Nonfiction Topics:
Take a sneak peek to start learning.
Stop and study each page. (Every part of the page could teach you something.)
Guess what might come next.
 Chat about a page of the book. (Infer things the author didn't tell you, such as what happened right before or right after.)
Make your voice sound smooth and lively.
The green sticky notes are goals we want to become even BETTER at doing.

We don't just "sound it out" in First Grade! Here is what we have practiced doing when we come to hard words.

Here is how we retell what we have read.

Exploring Capacity

In math class, we have begun to explore capacity. We started with terms such as full, empty, almost full, and almost empty. We also explored half full, which was tricky because you need exactly the same amount of full space and empty space.

exploring capacity with rice

exploring capacity with marbles

Super Spellers

These students were honored at our last school assembly for being "Super Spellers" in the Spell-a-Thon. 

Several classmates were also awarded other prizes from the Spell-a-Thon. Great job, First Graders!

Run Away! Leave! (Subtraction Language)

We brainstormed all the words we could think of to mean "subtract" in a word problem. This list was just the beginning -- ideas kept coming! Then we told subtraction stories using this language. You can ask your child to tell subtraction number stories at home. 

Here are some students illustrating and writing equations to show both addition stories and subtraction stories.

Contractions

Today we acted out how contractions are formed.

Two words (I will)

The "Mean Apostrophe" comes! The words get scared and squish closer together. The apostrophe "kicks out" one or more letters and takes their place.

Now we have a new word (I'll). It means the same as the original two words. 

Gourd Fun

Each of the First Graders received a gourd. 

They wrote descriptions of their gourds. Then we put all the gourds in the middle. I would read a description, and the First Graders would try to pick the correct gourd out of the pile.

See if you can pick out which gourd is being described!

We used our gourds in math class, too, as we learned to use pan balances.