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Friday, December 17, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
We love Jan Brett!
This past week we started our first author study of the year on Jan Brett. It is the perfect time of year to dive into the winter wonderlands that she creates in books such as, "The Mitten" (my favorite, "The Hat" and "The Three Snow Bears". So far we have learned that Jan Brett knew that she wanted to be an illustrator since she was young. She loved making scenes in books so detailed that what she imagined and pictured in her mind could actually exist. The kids have been learning little facts about her as we read her stories and have been doing a really great job comparing the books to one another to discover what are some similarities and differences between them.
I have added a link on the right side of the blog to Jan Brett's website. There are some online games and interactive and printable coloring pages that the kids may like to investigate.
Have fun!
I have added a link on the right side of the blog to Jan Brett's website. There are some online games and interactive and printable coloring pages that the kids may like to investigate.
Have fun!
Friday, December 3, 2010
We're Back!
We had a great first week back after Thanksgiving!
We've been busy in math beginning a new round of work places about money, trading coins, and writing number sentences. The students are doing a really great job working in partners and teaming up to solve problems. Coming home today is a math game that the students learned the week before Thanksgiving. The game is all about trying to make it as close to 50 without "busting" and going over. You will quickly learn that it is a game of strategy and it has been interesting to hear their different approaches and why they pick certain cards. Ask them to share their reasoning with you!
In reading we are continuing to "Stop and Jot" when we make observations from our books. This week we talked about how readers notice when something unexpected happens in a story. To help us understand this concept, we read "Little Red Riding Hood" and discussed how it is unexpected for a wolf to talk and dress up as a grandmother. It was great to see the students enjoy such a classic fairytale. Coming home today is also an update on the new plan for bringing books home. I would like the students to be able to keep the books for a few days and this way if for some reason we do not meet as a reading group they still have books from school to read. Next week will be the first week that we try this and my goal is that each Monday they can get a new collection of "Just Right" books to share with you. I am trying to keep it simple by having the return day be the same day as Library (Thursday).
Monday was the beginning of a new writing unit and the focus in the beginning of the unit is learning how to write a friendly letter. The kids are doing really well with this and seem to be really enjoying it! They have been writing to friends, family, and even some teachers. A really fun book that we read to help us get excited about writing letters is "The Jolly Postman" by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. I am not sure if you are familiar with it, but the book has actual envelopes and removable letters that the kids had a blast listening to. I can't count how many times I heard, "Read that letter Ms. Stein!".
This week was also the beginning of our new science theme unit on matter. Much like the unit on senses, the lessons are broken down into workshop form. This means that all four Synergy classes are mixed together and rotate through each workshop taught by a different teacher. My station is on mixing a liquid, such as laundry soap or corn syrup, with water and seeing what the outcome is. The students have to make close observations of what it looks like before and after shaking the bottle, as well as after it has settled for a bit. Again, this called for partner work and each student worked with someone from another class and grade. The first graders definitely stepped up to the plate and the second graders are great role models, it is really fun to see them all work together!
We were very busy today with having both Four Winds and Friday Explore. The Four Winds lesson was on prey and predators, which the students loved! They got to see a "live" squirrel and coyote and learn the saying, "Eyes are in front, go and hunt. Eyes on the side, run and hide". They also got to play a tag game and do an acting activity where they played either the prey or predator.
For Friday Explore the students got to pick between making snowflakes with Mrs. Eaton, Food Drive posters with Ms. Rogers, a Tic-Tac-Toe game in Ms. Kate's room, play in the Kiva or spend time outside. Again, it is great to see all of Synergy mix and mingle!
I am keeping my fingers crossed for some snow this weekend--have fun!
We've been busy in math beginning a new round of work places about money, trading coins, and writing number sentences. The students are doing a really great job working in partners and teaming up to solve problems. Coming home today is a math game that the students learned the week before Thanksgiving. The game is all about trying to make it as close to 50 without "busting" and going over. You will quickly learn that it is a game of strategy and it has been interesting to hear their different approaches and why they pick certain cards. Ask them to share their reasoning with you!
In reading we are continuing to "Stop and Jot" when we make observations from our books. This week we talked about how readers notice when something unexpected happens in a story. To help us understand this concept, we read "Little Red Riding Hood" and discussed how it is unexpected for a wolf to talk and dress up as a grandmother. It was great to see the students enjoy such a classic fairytale. Coming home today is also an update on the new plan for bringing books home. I would like the students to be able to keep the books for a few days and this way if for some reason we do not meet as a reading group they still have books from school to read. Next week will be the first week that we try this and my goal is that each Monday they can get a new collection of "Just Right" books to share with you. I am trying to keep it simple by having the return day be the same day as Library (Thursday).
Monday was the beginning of a new writing unit and the focus in the beginning of the unit is learning how to write a friendly letter. The kids are doing really well with this and seem to be really enjoying it! They have been writing to friends, family, and even some teachers. A really fun book that we read to help us get excited about writing letters is "The Jolly Postman" by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. I am not sure if you are familiar with it, but the book has actual envelopes and removable letters that the kids had a blast listening to. I can't count how many times I heard, "Read that letter Ms. Stein!".
This week was also the beginning of our new science theme unit on matter. Much like the unit on senses, the lessons are broken down into workshop form. This means that all four Synergy classes are mixed together and rotate through each workshop taught by a different teacher. My station is on mixing a liquid, such as laundry soap or corn syrup, with water and seeing what the outcome is. The students have to make close observations of what it looks like before and after shaking the bottle, as well as after it has settled for a bit. Again, this called for partner work and each student worked with someone from another class and grade. The first graders definitely stepped up to the plate and the second graders are great role models, it is really fun to see them all work together!
We were very busy today with having both Four Winds and Friday Explore. The Four Winds lesson was on prey and predators, which the students loved! They got to see a "live" squirrel and coyote and learn the saying, "Eyes are in front, go and hunt. Eyes on the side, run and hide". They also got to play a tag game and do an acting activity where they played either the prey or predator.
For Friday Explore the students got to pick between making snowflakes with Mrs. Eaton, Food Drive posters with Ms. Rogers, a Tic-Tac-Toe game in Ms. Kate's room, play in the Kiva or spend time outside. Again, it is great to see all of Synergy mix and mingle!
I am keeping my fingers crossed for some snow this weekend--have fun!
Friday, November 12, 2010
Wow! Hard to believe we are already coming up on the half-way mark in November. Boy, does the time fly when you're having fun in first grade!
The kids have been busy in math making a sea star quilt and crab chart to help in counting by 5's and 10's. Their math artwork is both beautiful AND useful! When discussing the final product the students made really remarkable connections to patterning and counting. By knowing that there are 10 legs on one crab and 21 crabs on the chart, the kids worked together to discover that there are 210 legs in all--we called this a "ground breaking observation".
Also in math they have been learning how to "Justify Why" and back up their thinking with because. They get so excited when they hear someone explain why and we get to add a star to the Justify poster, it is really great to see. The poster that is up for respecting others' thinking time and math connections is also getting quite filled up with stickers, which means I have a class of respectful mathematicians!
We are wrapping up our first writing unit on Personal Narratives. They have been working very hard on having clear beginnings, middles, and ends, with capitals and punctuation. We have a "punctuation station" in the classroom where there are three commonly used marks; a period for the end of a telling sentence, an exclamation point for the end of an exciting sentence, and a question mark to ask a question. We have also been on the look-out for these while we are reading and boy are they quick to find them! Last week we also began to discuss how to "jazz up" our writing pieces with verbs and adjectives. The kids came up with quite the list of verbs, there were suggestions from luge to jogging.
During Readers Workshop we have been working on reading to a partner, helping each other with your favorite reading strategy. It was amazing to see the students spread out around the room so actively listening to their partners read (there are pictures in the slide show below). We are also currently working on how to "stop and jot" something that you notice about the pictures or the words on a sticky note while you are reading. Today we discussed that readers notice how they react and feel when reading a story. We read Peter Reynolds' book, Ish (one of my favorites), and we stopped to discuss how we were feeling at different parts of the story. At one point an older sibling is picking on a younger sibling and someone said that they felt helpless. I was blown away with the list of feeling words they came up with.
Today was our kick off "Friday Workshops" where all of Synergy gets a chance to mix and mingle to do different activities throughout the team. Computers, clay-play, a trip outside, Kiva Explore...the options were all exciting and the kids did a great job making their choice in the morning and being flexible thinkers if their first choice filled up. We met as a team in the Kiva where the kids got to share compliments about a classmate that they noticed was representing one of the three school rules of being Safe, Kind, or Responsible. It was wonderful to hear the positivity and see all the hands that went up.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
The kids have been busy in math making a sea star quilt and crab chart to help in counting by 5's and 10's. Their math artwork is both beautiful AND useful! When discussing the final product the students made really remarkable connections to patterning and counting. By knowing that there are 10 legs on one crab and 21 crabs on the chart, the kids worked together to discover that there are 210 legs in all--we called this a "ground breaking observation".
Also in math they have been learning how to "Justify Why" and back up their thinking with because. They get so excited when they hear someone explain why and we get to add a star to the Justify poster, it is really great to see. The poster that is up for respecting others' thinking time and math connections is also getting quite filled up with stickers, which means I have a class of respectful mathematicians!
We are wrapping up our first writing unit on Personal Narratives. They have been working very hard on having clear beginnings, middles, and ends, with capitals and punctuation. We have a "punctuation station" in the classroom where there are three commonly used marks; a period for the end of a telling sentence, an exclamation point for the end of an exciting sentence, and a question mark to ask a question. We have also been on the look-out for these while we are reading and boy are they quick to find them! Last week we also began to discuss how to "jazz up" our writing pieces with verbs and adjectives. The kids came up with quite the list of verbs, there were suggestions from luge to jogging.
During Readers Workshop we have been working on reading to a partner, helping each other with your favorite reading strategy. It was amazing to see the students spread out around the room so actively listening to their partners read (there are pictures in the slide show below). We are also currently working on how to "stop and jot" something that you notice about the pictures or the words on a sticky note while you are reading. Today we discussed that readers notice how they react and feel when reading a story. We read Peter Reynolds' book, Ish (one of my favorites), and we stopped to discuss how we were feeling at different parts of the story. At one point an older sibling is picking on a younger sibling and someone said that they felt helpless. I was blown away with the list of feeling words they came up with.
Today was our kick off "Friday Workshops" where all of Synergy gets a chance to mix and mingle to do different activities throughout the team. Computers, clay-play, a trip outside, Kiva Explore...the options were all exciting and the kids did a great job making their choice in the morning and being flexible thinkers if their first choice filled up. We met as a team in the Kiva where the kids got to share compliments about a classmate that they noticed was representing one of the three school rules of being Safe, Kind, or Responsible. It was wonderful to hear the positivity and see all the hands that went up.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
Friday, November 5, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
A fun-filled week!
This week may have been a short week, but boy was it an eventful and exciting one! To start off the week we had our first "Success Celebration". The students have been working really hard on cooperation and team work to be successful throughout the day. Each time I see an opportunity that became a success, I move a colorful stick into the success jar and it becomes a "success stick". Last Friday we earned the last of 10, so that meant a surprise on Monday! We celebrated our hard work by having a cookie at snack time and have now started again with 10 opportunities to work towards another surprise.
Not long after our treat, we left on Synergy's first field trip to The Flynn to see Harold and the Purple Crayon. The students were an amazing audience and really enjoyed the show! It was great to see the looks on their faces and hear their laughter at different parts of the play. Harold was very creative and used his imagination constantly throughout the show, so when we got back we reflected on what we had seen and wrote about our favorite parts. I was very impressed with the reflection writing and using the word, because, to support our explanations. You will see this writing piece in their folders this weekend! Look at the links to find a new
The events continued on Tuesday with the Harvest Festival. For lunch time the students got to go out to the garden to get their "Stone Soup" and bring it back to the classroom. The soup was a hit, most everyone that ate it, loved it! I even heard, "This is the best soup I have ever had!".
For a kick-off activity for our Families Unit today, the students learned about families from around the world and what they may eat and do together. We then thought about what we eat and like to do with our families and created these things out of Play Dough. The students were wonderful sculptures! Take a peek at the slide show to see what they made.
Have a great long weekend!
Not long after our treat, we left on Synergy's first field trip to The Flynn to see Harold and the Purple Crayon. The students were an amazing audience and really enjoyed the show! It was great to see the looks on their faces and hear their laughter at different parts of the play. Harold was very creative and used his imagination constantly throughout the show, so when we got back we reflected on what we had seen and wrote about our favorite parts. I was very impressed with the reflection writing and using the word, because, to support our explanations. You will see this writing piece in their folders this weekend! Look at the links to find a new
The events continued on Tuesday with the Harvest Festival. For lunch time the students got to go out to the garden to get their "Stone Soup" and bring it back to the classroom. The soup was a hit, most everyone that ate it, loved it! I even heard, "This is the best soup I have ever had!".
For a kick-off activity for our Families Unit today, the students learned about families from around the world and what they may eat and do together. We then thought about what we eat and like to do with our families and created these things out of Play Dough. The students were wonderful sculptures! Take a peek at the slide show to see what they made.
Have a great long weekend!
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