"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