I apologize for the tardiness once again....first grade sure is busy in May! Take a look at our last two weeks :)
Reader's Workshop
We began our unit on poetry! The first day we discussed what we thought poetry was. We came up with some *amazing* responses! We are quickly realizing that poetry doesn't have to rhyme!
Then we began exploring poetry books! We worked to categorize our books by author and topic.
We spend time each day reading poetry and marking our favorite poem with a sticky note.
We also spend time each day sharing poems we love with others.
For the first few days, we focused on how authors give us clues on how to read their poems. This is usually done by line breaks. In this poem, the author uses short phrases to make the poem sound scary!
Next, we focused on the meaning of poems. Readers read poems out loud in order to help them understand the message a poem is trying to say.
We also learned that poems can be read in different ways. In the poem below, the author included a musical feel to this poem. We rapped this poem using our beat boxing skills to keep the beat. It was a lot of fun :)
Writer's Workshop
We are busy writing beautiful poems during writer's workshop! We launched this unit by looking at shells with a "poet's eye". This means looking at ordinary objects in a different way!
We took notes about everything we saw, felt, and thought of when we looked at the shell. Then we took all of our thoughts and turned it into a class poem.
Then, we all got an ordinary object to study. We looked at these through our poet's eye and began writing a poem about this object.
We shared our thoughts and ideas with our writing partner before turning them into a poem!
We also continued to work together as a group to write poems. We used our poet's eye to observe our classroom ceiling.
Here is the poem we wrote:
I was so impressed with this!!
Next we began exploring line breaks. We split up into four groups to assemble a poem called "Fireworks". I hope your child brought these home for you to read!
It was fun to see how unique each poem turned out to be, and how different each poem felt just by changing the arrangement. We then began exploring with line breaks on our own poems.
We then created a Poetry Museum to gather items to get inspiration from!
We are really enjoying writing poetry! On Friday we began talking about other places writers draw inspiration from. Here is a poem that is very fitting for the upcoming rainy week:
Math Workshop
I hope you have noticed that math is looking a bit different in first grade! We have completed Every Day Math, and are now exploring a *fantastic* program called Context For Learning. (click the link for more information) In this program, students are working to develop a deep and authentic understanding of concepts being taught. We are working on a unit called Organizing and Collecting. This unit is designed to help children understand the concept of place value.
We started by reading a story about the Masloppy Family. In their house, nothing is organized and nobody can find anything! One day a boy named Nick decided to organize his house so their family could find things.
Next, we put ourselves into partnerships and were given a basket of items to count and take inventory of.
We spent time working with our partner to count the objects. Many partners had a tricky time, and kept getting confused as they counted. We came together at the end in Math Congress and discussed problems that we had. Many pairs counted their items, but when they counted again they got different numbers.
The next day we revisited the story. In one part, Nick puts items into groups and uses a rubber band. Students were able to sort their items into any groups and use rubber bands, baggies, paper clips, etc. to organize their items.
We came together again in math congress and discussed how our counting went today. Many kids realized it was much easier to make groups. We shared our strategies in small groups.
On day three we were introduced to the tens frame. We realized that it would be much easier if we all worked on making groups (or packs) of ten. We went back and sorted our baskets into group of tens. We tried to figure out how many packs of 10 we would have and how many left overs.
Although children had great success completing this task, it was still not completely understood that 45 packs of ten equals 450, for an example. We recorded each groups total number, packs of 10, and loose items. We studied this carefully during math congress to develop a deeper understanding and meaning of this concept.
The next day we looked again at our inventory baskets. I told them that I really did not want any loose items in their baskets, so it was their job to determine how many more I would need in order to only have packs of 10. Then, they had to go around to each basket and determine the same thing.
In math congress we discussed strategies for determine this. Some children recognized different ways to make 10, and that they would need to add to the number in the ones place. We then observed how many packs of ten we would have with our new inventory. It was easy to see we would have one more pack than before.
These activities have really helped strengthen every child's understanding of numbers and place value. I have heard many children say "This is the best math we have ever done!" It is exciting because not only are they fully engaged, they are all working to their full potential and feeling successful! It has truly been an amazing experience and I cannot wait to complete the rest of this unit!
Audubon Field Trip
We had a *BLAST*! What a fun experience and great tie in to our soil unit! I will let the pictures speak for themselves :)
As I write this we have only 10 1/2 more days left of school....I cannot believe it! I truly feel so blessed to have gotten to work with these 18 children this year...it has been one amazing year!
Don't forget...our poetry picnic is next Friday, June 7!
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