"Peek at the Week" February 19-22

This week seemed to fly by!  We were so busy in first grade that I seemed to have forgotten to snap as many pictures as usual :) 

Reader's Workshop

We began a new unit this week focusing on Realistic Fiction.  After we talked about the characteristics of realistic fiction we sorted the books in our book bins into two piles- realistic fiction & not realistic fiction.

 

 

 This led to many good discussions as we explored this genre!

After we had a good understanding of realistic fiction, we began learning how to make meaningful connections to these stories in order to help us gain a deeper meaning.  We read the story When Sofie Gets Angry...Really, Really Angry!

We made many connections to this story and recorded all our connections.  Then we went through and discussed which connections were meaningful and which were not.  

 

Word Work 

We worked on our new word sorts this week! We practiced our words through sorting, rainbow writing, partner checks, and a new app called spelling city!

 

 

Writer's Workshop

This week we researched and wrote reports on George Washington! Please look for these when you come for conferences!

 Math Workshop

We wrapped up Unit 6 this week.  I will be sending home the Unit 6 assessments on Monday.  Our next unit focuses on geometry!

 Science

We continued our experiments with mixtures this week.  We mixed three different solids- gravel, salt, and tissue with water to observe what happens when solids and liquids are mixed.

 We saw very quickly that the tissue breaks apart and the water turns cloudy!

 

We also observed that the gravel settles to the bottom of the cup when mixed with water.  According to the first graders, "Nothing happened!"

In our salt and water mixture, we observed that the salt 'disappeared' and the water turned clear. 

Some friends knew that the salt dissolved.  

 

Then, we decided to try to separate our mixtures.  We poured the mixtures through coffee filters.  We placed these filters on the counter and will see what happened over the weekend :)

I am looking forward to meeting with many of you on Thursday!  Please do your best to be on time because every slot is filled on Thursday!

Have a great week!

Love,

Ms. Havig

"Peek at the Week" Feburary 11-15

I hope you all enjoyed the three day weekend!  I apologize for the delayed post this week!

Here is what we have been up to...

Reader's & Writer's Workshop

 We continued our focus on nonfiction this week by reading and researching about Abraham Lincoln's life.  Our overall focus was that readers use multiple sources when learning about a topic.  We used multiple books, online resources, and Brain Pop! to learn all about Lincoln. 

 During Writer's Workshop we created a web with all of the information we learned!  Boy did we come up with some great information!

Then we wrote reports on everything we learned about Lincoln.

 We made these cute Lincoln crafts to display our reports on!  I was so impressed with these kiddos on how much they could write about his life! Please look for these at conferences! :)

Math Workshop

We focused on adding and subtracting strategies this week.  We looked at making sums of 10 and doubles + 1.  We even learned a new song about making 10s...ask your child if they can sing it for you! 

We also had some fun new math centers:

Subtraction Bowling

 Students set up 10 cups.  They take a ball and roll into the cups. 

 Then, they subtract the cups they knocked down from 10 to determine how many cups should still be up!  This was a really fun way to practice our tens facts! 

 

(Sorry this is hard to see with clear cups)

ZAP!

In this game, kids take turn drawing out Popsicle sticks that have basic facts on them. If they solve correctly they get to keep the stick.  The game continues until someone draws the ZAP stick.  The person with the most sticks wins!

Science

(I am sorry but all my pictures from science were deleted!)

This week we began looking at mixtures.  We mixed two solids- gravel and salt.  We were able to determine that the properties of the solids did not change when we mixed them together.  

Valentine's Day

We had a very fun Valentine's Day in first grade!

We made cute Valentine's Bags...

Ate yummy food.....

 

 Played a fun game called J-I-N-G-O

Enjoyed getting prizes...

 

Enjoyed opening our valentines...

 

And of course got a little silly :)

 

 All the boys

 All the girls

All my silly friends :)

I hope you all had a fun filled weekend :) Don't forget to practice those addition and subtraction facts!!!

Love,
Ms. Havig