We will begin several new units after our holiday break. We will be moving on from poetry to non-fiction writing during Writer's Workshop and will connect our writing to our new Penguin theme in math. We will continue learning about water and the water cycle and look forward to our field trip to ECHO in a few weeks.
Many thanks to everyone for all the wonderful holiday gifts! I hope all of you enjoy the gifts your children worked hard making for you. Please send me an email if you have problems loading the HyperStudio project. There are directions on the inside cover of the CD that should be helpful.
Wishing all of you a fun and relaxing holiday vacation! See you in 2011!
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
More Holiday Shares and Lots of Energy!
This has been a week of high energy for Adventurers First Grade. I think the combination of the first real snowfall and the holidays coming has brought on a wealth of excitement and energy in our classroom! We have been working hard this week and accomplishing lots of things.
This week we have worked hard on a whale project during math. We have learned many interesting facts about whales, and have been using whales to help us practice counting. Whales have two flukes on their tails and we have been using that to help us count by twos. We have spent the past two days creating different kinds of whales and building a chart that shows whales in a growing pattern. We spent today looking at the chart and sharing what we noticed about it. We noticed that there were 28 whales and 56 flukes in our growing pattern. We will continue to use this chart to reinforce counting by twos during the next few days of school.
We continue to read examples of different kinds of poetry and write our own poetry during Writers' Workshop. We have also been learning more about comprehension strategies during Readers' Workshop. Today I read Lon Po Po to the class and we talked about all the different text to text connections we could make through this book. My friends discussed ten different stories they could connect to Lon Po Po and were easily able to share their connections with the class. One student even made a connection about the cover. I never expected them to make so many amazing connections! We are now using post-it notes to write down both text to self and text to text connections in our reading during Readers' Workshop. In addition to this, we continue to meet in Guided Reading Groups during Readers Workshop.
We will be finishing up our December shares on Monday. It has been so much fun to hear about all the different traditions families have. It has also been great to hear how many traditions we all have in common. I have included some pictures of our December shares from this week below.
This week we have worked hard on a whale project during math. We have learned many interesting facts about whales, and have been using whales to help us practice counting. Whales have two flukes on their tails and we have been using that to help us count by twos. We have spent the past two days creating different kinds of whales and building a chart that shows whales in a growing pattern. We spent today looking at the chart and sharing what we noticed about it. We noticed that there were 28 whales and 56 flukes in our growing pattern. We will continue to use this chart to reinforce counting by twos during the next few days of school.
We continue to read examples of different kinds of poetry and write our own poetry during Writers' Workshop. We have also been learning more about comprehension strategies during Readers' Workshop. Today I read Lon Po Po to the class and we talked about all the different text to text connections we could make through this book. My friends discussed ten different stories they could connect to Lon Po Po and were easily able to share their connections with the class. One student even made a connection about the cover. I never expected them to make so many amazing connections! We are now using post-it notes to write down both text to self and text to text connections in our reading during Readers' Workshop. In addition to this, we continue to meet in Guided Reading Groups during Readers Workshop.
We will be finishing up our December shares on Monday. It has been so much fun to hear about all the different traditions families have. It has also been great to hear how many traditions we all have in common. I have included some pictures of our December shares from this week below.
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Friday, December 10, 2010
Another Busy Week!
Last week the Adventurers team went to the Flynn Theater to see "One Green Earth" by the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. It was a terrific show, beautiful music and great messages to children about keeping our earth clean. It tied in nicely with the VSO's petting zoo we had visited the week before.
This week we created and solved lobster problems in math. Most of our class decided to create subtraction problems and I was impressed with how easily everyone was able to solve their classmates' problems. We also learned a new money game for workstations. Next week we will learn two more games for workstations and continue to work on problem solving.
We have been reading, listening to, and creating poetry during writers' workshop. We will continue to learn about poetry until the December break. We started meeting in our new guided reading groups during readers' workshop. We have also been learning about different comprehension strategies good readers use. We have been using post-it notes to write down our connections to the books we are reading.
Our HyperStudio project is done and was a great success. Every student has created a slide with text and a picture of his/her learning about Native Americans long ago and today. I have been trying to put this project on the blog, but despite all my efforts there seems to be no way to upload it! I'm in the process of putting it on a CD and will be sending it home for your child to share with you.
Henry taught us many new things about volcanoes this week for the science table. He did a terrific job putting together a great project for this week's table.
This week we also began a new unit in science. We are now learning about the water cycle. This unit will continue into January and will end with a trip to ECHO to support our learning.
Many thanks to everyone for supporting our efforts at the Craft Fair. Although it was a lot of work, it was also a big success. The Adventurers Team raised $1,157.81. I have no idea where the extra penny came from, but it was there?! This money will be used for field trips to ECHO, Flynn Theater, Shelburne Farms and Fairbanks Museum.
Thanks to Kim Stevens for providing us with another healthy Friday snack today. It was delicious! And thanks to Holly Whitcomb for sending in a delicious surprise coffee cake for Sam's holiday share. It has been so much fun hearing about different families' holiday traditions! I look forward to hearing more next week!
Have a terrific weekend and try to stay warm!!!!!!
This week we created and solved lobster problems in math. Most of our class decided to create subtraction problems and I was impressed with how easily everyone was able to solve their classmates' problems. We also learned a new money game for workstations. Next week we will learn two more games for workstations and continue to work on problem solving.
We have been reading, listening to, and creating poetry during writers' workshop. We will continue to learn about poetry until the December break. We started meeting in our new guided reading groups during readers' workshop. We have also been learning about different comprehension strategies good readers use. We have been using post-it notes to write down our connections to the books we are reading.
Our HyperStudio project is done and was a great success. Every student has created a slide with text and a picture of his/her learning about Native Americans long ago and today. I have been trying to put this project on the blog, but despite all my efforts there seems to be no way to upload it! I'm in the process of putting it on a CD and will be sending it home for your child to share with you.
Henry taught us many new things about volcanoes this week for the science table. He did a terrific job putting together a great project for this week's table. This week we also began a new unit in science. We are now learning about the water cycle. This unit will continue into January and will end with a trip to ECHO to support our learning.
Many thanks to everyone for supporting our efforts at the Craft Fair. Although it was a lot of work, it was also a big success. The Adventurers Team raised $1,157.81. I have no idea where the extra penny came from, but it was there?! This money will be used for field trips to ECHO, Flynn Theater, Shelburne Farms and Fairbanks Museum.
Thanks to Kim Stevens for providing us with another healthy Friday snack today. It was delicious! And thanks to Holly Whitcomb for sending in a delicious surprise coffee cake for Sam's holiday share. It has been so much fun hearing about different families' holiday traditions! I look forward to hearing more next week!
Have a terrific weekend and try to stay warm!!!!!!
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