Mrs. Hogue's 1st Grade Class: "Peek at the Week" January 28- February 1

Well good news....Punxsutawney Phil DID NOT see his shadow on Saturday so spring is right around the corner! (I will be crossing my fingers until this proves to be true!) After these last couple of weeks of cold weather and many days of indoor recess, I know spring will be welcomed with open arms by these 1st graders!!

We had an exciting week filled with many new things and routines. Check it out!

Reader's Workshop

We started our first of two nonfiction units this week. The kids were really excited to read nonfiction books and to add them to their book bins for read-to-self time.

Our focus this week was:

Readers read nonfiction books differently than fiction book.

Readers pause to notice photographs and pictures.

Readers use text features to help them learn more information.

We started the week by comparing Tacky the Penguin to Penguins by Gail Gibbons.

We talked about how these books are very different, even though they are both about penguins. We created a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast these books.

Students were sent to read their own nonfiction books and record on sticky notes things they noticed about nonfiction books. My oh my did we create a long list!

Later in the week kids were encouraged to use sticky notes to mark places that they stopped to notice pictures as well as places they got more information by reading captions, bolded words, or labels. They did a great job this week!

Word Work

We launched Words Their Way this week. There was a note sent home on Monday that explains this program in more detail. Each week, students will be working with words that focus on word patterns that will help them as readers and writers. Here is a look at our weekly routine:

Monday: New word sorts- cut & sort independently

Tuesday:Partner sorts. Each partner reads the word and correctly sorts it, while his/her partner checks.

Wednesday: Partner checks. One child reads a word to his/her partner. That child writes the word on a white board. The first child checks the word.

Thursdays: Glued word sort.

Fridays: Word sort check. I select 5 words from their list for them to try and spell correctly. I may also include a 'transfer word' which is a word not from their list but follows the same pattern.

Writer's Workshop

We read two books this week that focus on Many Moments.

Many moment stories are stories that have one main idea (such as having a terrible day or wanting to be like your sister) and writing several moments about the main idea- not just one!

After looking at these books, we got to plan out our many moments stories!

Many of us also noticed that both stories had comeback lines. We continued to try this craft in our writing! We also added the story Do Like Kyla to our author's craft poster.

Math Workshop

We started unit 6 this week- developing fact power! We are working very hard to start memorizing our basic addition and subtraction facts. We also took our very first timed fact test! I will be sharing more about this at conferences at the end of the month.

Our focus this week was on fact families and name collection boxes. Fact families really help children understand the relationship between addition and subtraction facts.

We also had some new math stations this week. Take a look!

addition top it

Power Towers! There are facts written on the bottom of the cups. Children answer the fact (and check on the inside) and if they answer correctly, they get to stack the cups :)

"Doubles" Shoots and Ladders

BUMP!

Fact Practice on the computers!

Please continue to work on basic facts at home with your child...it is so important that they start to recall their facts instead of using fingers, counters, etc.

Science

We learned about the properties of solids and liquids this week. To get us engaged in thinking about these two states of matter, we did a little experiment called The Melting Race!

The students 'raced' to see which partner group could melt their ice cube first!

Some used their hands: