Funny First Grade Moments

First Grade is full of fun and unexpected happenings!

Three kids with the exact same smile -- 2 front teeth missing!

One of many letters written to a leprechaun -- covered in gold, in hopes of trapping him!

The leprechaun came! He wasn't fooled by any traps, but he did leave green candy... 

... and a note written in a spiral!

We went rock -collecting on the playground. I was expecting rocks the size of marbles, so I was quite surprised when someone found this one!

We washed it!

Washing rocks leaves desktops wet. Rather than clean up our science work early, we just took the spelling test sitting under our desks.

Science ROCKS!

We used screens to separate larger river rocks from this mixture. Then we sorted our river rocks by their properties. Next, we will be washing them to see how their properties change when the rocks are wet. 

Balancing Equations

In math, we have been using number balances to help us figure out missing numbers in equations such as 9 + 3 = 6 + __ . We're even beginning to learn that if you add or subtract something from one side of the balance, you have to add or subtract the same thing from the other side to make it balance again.

Busy Friday

What a day we've had!

Our class won not one... not two... but THREE of the big ticket awards at the all-school assembly! They were for being Positively Awesome Woodview Students in Phy. Ed., Library, and At-Home Reading.

We got to see a classmate's Destination Imagination team perform their skit.

We learned about wants and needs in Junior Achievement.

 We began our new science unit, Pebbles, Sand, and Silt, by examining rocks.

 We experimented to find out what happens when we rub rocks together.... 

 ... they made sand!

Reading STARS

We've been practicing sounding like Reading Stars when we read out loud. We are trying to:

• scoop lots of words together to make it smooth
• make our voices sound realistic, like the characters are talking
• show emotions
• make certain parts POP out by reading them faster or s-l-o-w-e-r
• show punctuation with our voices

Here are some partners recording each other. Then they were able to watch themselves and find ways to make their reading even better!

A Symbol of Freedom

We painted pictures of the Statue of Liberty. Ask your First Grader for some of the fun facts we learned about this American symbol!

Understanding Our Books

You saw our list of "Tools for Solving and Checking Hard Words" come home with the weekly homework. We are also working on "Tools for Understanding Our Books." 

We check that we're getting it! If something is confusing, we re-read to figure out what is happening.

We keep track of who is talking in a story. We try to say the words the way the character would say them.

We make a movie in our heads to help picture what is happening.

We are also on the lookout for new words in both fiction and nonfiction. We say the word the best we can and think about what it means. We try to find another word that means the same or the opposite, or we try to act out what the word means.

Junior Achievement

Last week we had our first Junior Achievement lesson. Ms. Nielsen from Charter Steel is coming to teach a series of five lessons.

The lessons are about families and neighborhoods, jobs, and wants and needs. They tie in with our upcoming social studies lessons.

We used stickers to complete a book about making our neighborhoods great places to live.

We also got bags of goodies from Charter Steel. Thank you!