Our first week of February was filled with new routines, publishing our series books, and using math vocabulary to expalin mathematical reasoning. I am amazed each and every day how far these little minds have come since they entered my room 5 months ago! Here's a peek at what we have been up to:
Writer's Workshop
We spent most of this week revising and editing our series books. But before we emersed ourselves into 'Fixing up and fancying' our work, we turned to our me to Cynthia Rylant one more time. We noticed that Cynthia stretches her stories and add details in groups of three. We noticed the way she did this in Henry and Mudge and the Happy Cat:
It loved the towel closet.
It loved the bathtub.
And it loved Mudge.
The kids were then encouraged to stretch out their own stories by adding details in groups of three.
Violet tried this out in her writing. Instead of saying They built a snowman, she wrote:
They put a hat on Dave.
They out a scarf on Dave.
They even out buttons on Dave.
Wow!!
After we finished up all the books in our series, it was time to revise and edit. We looked at series boom titles and covers and noticed many similarities. Series books look very similar- which makes sense since they are all about one character! We made covers for all our books too! Here are some covers from Samuel's Michael series:
We added our series books to our classroom library...we are authors too! I will have these available for you to enjoy at conferences next month :). Until then, you can enjoy your child's writing that came home on Friday. These were stories from their first series.
Next week we will begin an exciting unit...opinion writing! This is a new genre of writing that will move children away from narrative writing and into to stating an opinion and giving reasons to support it. (I'm sure many of your children are very good at giving you reasons why they should be able to do something!) Please don't forget to help your child put together a shoebox collection for Monday!
Reader's Workshop
This week we talked about connections readers have with characters or events in stories. The biggest thing we learned is that our connections should help us understand the story better and not distract us. We thought about our connections and the relevance to the story- did we make a connection to a big idea or event? Or was it to a small detail?
We used the phrase This reminds me of...because... Encourage your child to do this at home while reading!
Word Work
This week we continued our study on syllables. The common core states that first graders should know that each syllable in a word needs a vowel and apply this when attempting to spell multisyllabic words. Next time your first grader says "How do you spell..." remind them to think about each syllable in the word to help them spell!
We practiced just that this week. I gave children multisyllabic words to spell. We put a line for each syllable we heard and spelled the word one syllable at a time.
gymnastics
Remember, spelling is a process and it is important to encourage your child to spell words the best she/he can. It is important not to point our words that are misspelled, but rather remind them to think about what they know about words to help them spell. I bet many of you are able to read most words your child writes!
Math Workshop
This week we focused on different ways to represent two digit numbers. For example, we can name 23 as:
2 tens and 3 ones
20+3
using ten sticks and circles
Using our number path
We also learned how to add ten to a two digit number. We learned very quickly that we can simply add another ten stick to our drawing when adding a ten. Many friends realized that adding a ten only changes the first digit.
What a great week!!
Please remember to send a shoebox collection with your child tomorrow!
Have a great weekend and Go Badgers!
Love,
Mrs. Hogue
