"Peek at the Week" January 21-24

This week officially marks the end of the first half of 1st grade! On Monday we will celebrate Half Way Day! Take a minute this weekend to celebrate everything your child has accomplished this year...there is so much to be proud of!!

Here is what we were up to this week:

Writers Workshop

This week we focused on realistic fiction series! Writers can right many stories about one character and and create different adventures for those characters. We looked at some of our favorite series such as Henry & Mudge and Ivy & Bean for inspiration. 

We also learned that series writers always include Book One. A first book in a series introduces us to the characters and gives the reader important background information. We tried this out too!

We also learned that writers include dialogue in their writing to make it more interesting. We want to make sure our characters talk back and forth to one another! To practice this, we used our hands as character puppets to play out conversations we imagine our characters having!

Reader's Workshop

We have learned a lot about our characters on the outside- what they do, what they like, and what they say. This week we began looking at our characters on the inside- how they feel and what kind of a person they are. We learned that by thinking about what a character says can help us think about how they feel.  

Word Work

We continued our study on r-controlled vowels.  Many of these words don't have 'rules' to determine if it is -ir, -ur, or -er so writers can try all three patterns to see which one looks right. 

We also sorted words using all 5 patterns we studied. 

Math Workshop

We learned how to represent 2-digit numbers 'freehand' this week. We can use 10-sticks and circles to quickly draw these numbers. 

We also learned how to write the equation that matches our picture (expanded form). 

We also practiced writing numbers in their word form!

Next week I will blog about what math workshop works looks like in our classroom :)

Science

We explored gases this week. We learned that gases are invisible!  We conducted an experiment using cool and warm water. We covered the cups and saw stream form from the warm water! 

What a great week!

Don't forget...Bedtime Story Hour is this Wednesday at 6:30. If you have not returned the blue permission slip please do so Monday. We place the children in groups so it is helpful to know how many children to plan for!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Love,

Mrs. Hogue

"Peek at the Week" January 13-17

It is crazy to think that this was our first full week of school since December! We had so much fun learning and growing this week!

Crazy Hat Day!

Writer's Workshop

We are continuing to write wonderful realistic fiction stories!  It has been fun to hear all the excitement as children create adventures for their characters.  This week we focused on:

Being brave and writing hard-to-spell-words

 Making sure our stories have an ending so we don't leave our reading hanging

Bringing our stories to life

Reader's Workshop
We continued working on meeting the characters in our books!

This week we focused on:

Readers learn things their characters do.

Characters can change from the beginning of a story to the end of a story.

By knowing our characters really well, we are able to make accurate predictions about the story.

By learning about our characters, we can figure out what kind of a person they are inside and out!

Word Work
We learned about R-controlled vowels this week - or Bossy R!  When there is an R after a vowel it controls the sound.  We started the week by learning about the -ar and -or sounds.

Later in the week we met the "Bossy R Triplets"!  IR  ER  and UR.  They are triplets because sometimes they make the same sounds!

We practiced these words by sorting together as words, then as pictures!

Math
Things got a little tricky in romm 226 this week.  We are working on making a ten group when we add numbers with a total in the teens!  WOW!  This will make adding much easier :)  So what does this mean?  Take a look:

We are learning to 'find the ten group' in the addition sentence.  Children are beginning to learn that they can can break apart the number partners in different ways.  For example, in the above problem this children realized that 8 needs 2 more to make a ten.  If you take 2 from 7, you are left with 5.  So the number sentence reads 10 + 5 = 15.  This is much easier to add than 8 + 7!

Here are ways we practiced finding the ten!

Adding on with dots

Making a math mountain from one of the number partners.

Using unifix cubes to break apart one number partner so we can make a ten!

Using our grid to add:  9 + 9 = 18

WOW!


Just a reminder....there is no school on Monday!  Enjoy your day!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Love,
Mrs. Hogue

"Peek at the Week" January 2-3 & 8-10

Happy New Year!  It seems like so long since I have updated you on our classroom happenings!  Take a look at our last '2 weeks' together!

We celebrated the new year on the 2 days following winter break.  We talked about resolutions, or promises, we make to do something better in the upcoming year.  We read the story Squirrel's New Year's Resolution.  Then we thought of our own resolutions.  Check them out!

 

 "My goal in 2014 is to clean my room"

"My goal in 2014 is to help people in my family and at school."

 "My goal in 2014 is to clean up my room more often"

"My goal in 2014 is to go to sleep earlier"

Blowing our horns to celebrate our great resolutions!

Next, we reflected on 2013.  It was such a big year for many of us!  We learned how to read, ride our bikes, tie our shoes, and made many new friends!

Finally, we were challenged to see how many words we could make from the letters HAPPY NEW YEAR.  We do many 'making words' activities, however, these usually have fewer letters.  I was blown away with how many words we came up with!

Writer's Workshop

We started a new unit in Writer's Workshop this week - realistic fiction!!  The excitement in their air was contagious as children began using their imaginations to create characters to 'star' in their writing!  First, we thought of a character and gave that character a name.

 

After we created our character, we learned that realistic fiction writers think about one problem their characters might have. Then, they think how to solve their character's problems.  The it is time to plan and write!

Reader's Workshop

We will also be focusing on realistic fiction during reader's workshop.  This week we focused on 'meeting' the characters in our books.  We learned that readers think about who the story is about and what they are doing.  We also thought about what we learned about our characters.

Math

We started unit 4 this week on double digit numbers & place value.  Please look for a family letter in your child's folder on Monday!  We are learning that 2 digit numbers have groups of tens and ones. This wee we focused on decades of 10.  We learned that 60 has 6 tens, 30 has 3 tens, etc.  This is very visually laid out for children on our 120 chart.

 

This 120 chart is different from what children have used in the past.  The chart 'flows' vertically, rather than horizontally.  This allows children to easily and quickly see how many groups of ten are in each decade!

Science

We began our new unit called "Changes".  We will be focusing on the 3 states of matter and their properties:  solids, liquids, and gases.  Last week we explored a solid and a liquid.

Students were given a solid and a liquid to explore.  Then, we decided to see if the solid would change when we put it in water.  Check it out!

Our water became bubbly and even turned green!  Some children realized that the bubbles were gas being released by the solid! 

(The solid was an effervescent tablet and the liquid was water!)

This week we looked at water in it's solid form- ice!  We participated in the Melting Race!  Children 'raced' to see who could melt their ice cube the quickest!

After we melted the ice cube, we talked about the properties of a solid and liquid.  We added these properties to our chart!

Then Mrs. Hogue put water from 2 melted ice cubes in petri dishes.  One had a lid, and one did not.  We made a prediction about what would happen to the water!

Buddies

We got together with our 3rd grade buddies to work on a special project.  We began talking about Martin Luther King Jr.   Martin Luther King wanted to fight with peace- not violence.  We talked about ways we could show peace and made a dove by tracing our feet and hands!

Other News..

I sent home a Scholastic Book Order home with your child on Wednesday.  Attached was a coupon for a free book if you spend $10.  Remember, if you order online you have access to many other Scholastic  catalogs!  Orders are due on Friday, January 17!

1st grade Bedtime Story Hour will be on Wednesday, January 29 from 6:30-7:30.   This is a night that first graders are invited back to school- in their PJs-  to listen to stories read by teachers and staff.  At the end we enjoy muffins and milk together!  More information will be sent home soon!