"Peek at the Week" October 19-23

It was great to meet with many of you this week at conferences! I looking forward to meeting with the rest of you in Wednesday!

Here is a peek into our week!

Reader's Workshop 

We continued building our good habits for solving tricky words. This week we learned:

Readers can get a running start at the tricky word. (They can reread the sentence from the beginning with better fluency and think about the word that would make the most sense)

Readers can skip the hard word and go back.

Readers don't give up! They try a new strategy if the first one doesn't work!

We practice our habits together by reading books under the document camera!

We also practice with partners!

Math Workshop

This week we focused on two addition strategies: counting all and counting on.  We explored counting all first. In this strategies, we counted all the dots represented by each number to find out total. As we continued exploring this, we soon realized that this method took a long time. Many friends decided it was quicker to count on from the first number!  We then learned that this was called counting on. 

In counting on, students start with one number and count on the second number. We knew this was quicker because we didn't need to count the dots we already knew were behind the diary number! Later in the week we learned that it is even faster to count on from the bigger number!

We ended the week by using our 'red count on cards' to help us master the concept of counting on! 

Writer's Workshop
We continued studying the different crafts we find in authors stories, and tried them out in ours!  We are using features such as dialogue, actions, comeback lines, and pop out words to make our writing come to life!

What a great week!

Next Week

Wednesday, October 28- Early Release

Friday, October 31-Costume Parade @ 2:45.  This year we are hoping to have our parade OUTSIDE! Keep your fingers crossed for some nice weather!

Enjoy the weekend!
Love,
Mrs. Hogue

"Peek at the Week" October 12- 16

Here is a peek into our week!

Reader's Workshop

This week we started a new bend in building good habits.  We are beginning to learn good habits for solving hard words!  The goal of this unit is give children a 'toolbox' of strategies to use when solving tricky words independently.  This of course takes a lot of practice :)

We started the week learning and practicing two strategies:  Check the picture & Look at ALL the parts of the word.  Checking the picture is usually the very first strategy we try when tackling an unknown word.  The picture often gives us big clues for solving words!

Next, we practiced looking at ALL the parts of words.  Readers want to look for parts they know too help them figure out the whole word!

We ended the week learning two more strategies that readers often use together.  When readers get stuck on a word they first think, "Hmm...what would make sense?"  After brainstorming some possible word choices they then look at the word carefully and ask themselves 'Does it look right?" A great way to do this is by looking at the first and last letter of the word.

Encourage your child to practice these strategies while reading at home!

Math Workshop

This week we focused on addition strategies!  We learned that problem solvers use pictures to help solve problems. They draw the picture, include the number partners, and the total.

We started by acting out the story problem:

3 friends drove a car to the park.

2 friends rode a bike.

How many friends went to the part altogether!

Next, we practiced drawing out the story problem on our math maths.  We also labeled the partners and found the total!

Next, we learned that problem solvers use simple shapes to represent their drawings.  We noticed that it takes a long time to draw castles, etc. and it is much quicker to use a simple shape such as a circle, square, or triangle.

We also leaned about the = sign and how we can write true equations to represent story problems. We also worked in small groups on creating, sorting, and solving equations.

We learned a new math game called 4 in a Row to help us practice our addition facts!  (This game is always a hit because we get to use COLORED expo markers!)

Writer's Workshop
This week we learned how writers make their writing special.  We learned different crafts, or techniques, from two authors we know very well!

We know when we read books by real authors that the stories sound so special and exciting.  We thought to ourselves, hmm...I would like to try that!  We took some ideas from authors and tried them in our own writing this week!  It was fun to see children bringing their stories to life in new and exciting ways!

Word Work

We added 5 new words to our word wall:

by

had

one

or

put

We learned a new way to practice our words called "I Spy".  We learned how to create our own word searches!  Then, we traded with a partner to look for their hidden words!

On Friday we practiced our word wall words in centers.  Our first was a called Sentence Mix Up.  Each word wall word was used in a sentence and then the sentence was mixed up.  First graders had to move the words around to figure out the sentence!

Read It, Build It, Write It

Spelling City

Keyboarding
We had another practice rotation of keyboarding practice this week!  We are working hard on using BOTH hands to type :)

Science

This week we used thermometers to measure the temperature of 3 types of water: cold, hot, and mixed. We made predictions and recorded our findings!

I am looking forward to meeting with many of you during conferences this week. 

Enjoy he weekend!

Love,

Mrs. Hogue

"Peek at the Week" October 5-9

Reader's Workshop

This week we learned how readers can listen to reading. This is important in first grade because it gives children th opportunity to interact with higher level texts and models appropriate fluency.

In our classroom we will listen to reading in two ways.  This first is by using Tumblebooks.  This is a website filled with hundreds of fiction and nonfiction stories that are read to children.

The second way is on our iPod. The students follow along with the audio reading right in their books.

We learned the routines of listening to reading and how it fit into our reader's workshop block!

Math Workshop

We learned about partners of 9 and 10 this week.  We will focus on ten partners frequently throughout the year because knowing these facts will help us solve problems with greater totals!

We finished our first unit and took our first test on Thursday! These were sent home in your child's folder on Friday. Please review and return!

We also learned a fun new game called addition top-it!

Writer's Workshop

Our focus this week was bringing our stories to life. We studied different authors such as Cynthia Rylant and 

We learned that writers want to make the people in their stories move and talk. We learned how to add speech bubbles to our drawings. Some of us are even trying out quotation marks to show talking parts in our writing!

Writers also include details by taking 'itsy bitsy' steps when they write. They don't want to skip over any important details.

Finally, writers want to include how the people in their stories feel. 

Word Work

We added 5 new word wall words this week:

Be

Have

Here

This

That

We had fun using QR codes and iPads to complete a word wall word hunt around our classroom!

We also learned a new game called ZAP!

We had fun practicing our words with one of or favorite activities- roll and record!

Practicing our words on spelling city!

Science

We continued our study of weather. We learned about thermometers this week and how scientists use them to check the temperature. We recorded the temperature inside our classroom. Then we went outside to find the temperature!

What a fun week!

Love,

Mrs. Hogue

"Peek at the Week" September 28 - October 2

Well our first 5 day week was a success! It was nice to get a feel for a somewhat 'normal' week in first grade!

We finished our MAP testing. Over the next two weeks I will be administering the PALS assessment (early literacy screener)  and he Fountas & Pinnell assessment (instructional reading level). These will be finished right in time for us to go over at conferences!

Here is a 'peek' into our week!

Reader's Workshop

We continued our focus on building good reading habits. We started the week out by setting goals and keeping track of our reading.

We put sticky notes on our books to keep track of how many times we read each book in our book bin. This helped us to set goals. Some children realized they only read one or two of their books throughout the week, so they set a goal to try and read each book in their bin at least once.  Others realized they didn't have many check marks at all- they decided they need to focus more during read-to-self! 

We also learned how to book shop this week! Children choose 8 'Just Right' books and 2 choice books each week to keep in their book bins!

Finally, we continued to learn how to work together with our reading partners. We learned that partners can give book introductions. This helps get our partner's mind ready to read! We also learned that partners need to do something when they finish a book together! They might talk about it, re-read it, or read their favorite part.

Math Workshop 

This week we continued learning about number partners.  We practiced building our addition and subtraction fluency for totals of 6, 7, and 8!

We used our stair steps to find number partners. 

We also learned about 'switching the partner'. We saw that it didn't matter what order the partners are in, we still get the same total!

Next week we will focus on number partners of 9 and 10!

Writer's Workshop
We started the week off learning how to use a partner to strengthen our stories.  Our partners can help us by asking questions they might have.

We practiced touching and telling our stories to our partners before beginning to write!

We celebrated the end of our first 'bend' in writer's workshop by choosing our best/favorite piece to fix up and fancy.  We work hard to make sure we have included all the details of our stories in our words and pictures.  And then we get do the best part- add color to our pictures :)

Finally, we took some time to read our friends' stories!

Look for these stories to come home in your child's book briefcase sometime next week!  I am going to ask you to send them back so I can keep them in a writing portfolio that your child will get back at the end of the year!


Word Work
We added 5 new words to our word wall:
they
his
as
with
saw

On Friday we had fun practicing these words during our word work centers.  These activities included:

Read It, Build It, Write It

Spelling City!

(www.spellingcity.com/mrshogue1)

Rainbow Writing

We also began learning how to keyboard this week!  We started our Keyboarding Without Tears program.  We will be practicing 5-10 minutes of keyboarding each day!

On Thursday we celebrated the beginning of October by reading our October Chicken Soup with Rice poem, and of course enjoying some yummy soup!

We also had our last kings and queens!

Science

We began our study of weather by using our senses to observe the weather. We went outside and recorded what we saw, felt, heard, and smelled. 

What a great week!

Next Week:

- There will be a substitute teacher on Monday, October 5.  I will be pulling children throughout the day for assessments.  If you have a change in pick up, please call the office as I will not be checking my email.

- Conference confirmation slips will be sent home on Tuesday, October 6. 

Have a great weekend!

Love,

Mrs. Hogue