Writer's Workshop
Much of the work we do in first grade focuses on the writing process. We want children to develop their craft, plan and organize stories, and experiment with different ideas throughout their writing. Editing and revising is taught to be an ongoing part of the writing process, not just something authors do at the end.
As we wrapped up our second small moment bend on 'bringing our stories to life' we spent a few days focusing on revising by pulling out several finished pieces. We spent time rereading these stories and working closly with our writing partners. We checked for captial letters, punctuaion, word wall words, and spelling.
We enjoyed sharing our final piece with our partner!
Last week we began studying the work of George McClements. He wrote our beloved story "Night of the Veggie Monster". George took an 'ordinary' story of having to eat peas for dinner and made it really interesting (and really funny!). We took some time to notice the different things he included to make his writing so facinating.
It wasn't hard to identify the different featuress he used in his writing. We gathered back and discussed our findings. Then, we decided we wanted to try these things out too! We tried adding these features to our writing:
-using exact details
-POP out words
-dot, dot, dot
- speech bubbles
First graders are excited to share these stories with you at conferences!
Reader's Workshop
We continued learning the good habits first grader readers build. We learned that strong readers:
-reread to smooth out their voice
-scoop up words in phrases (rather than pointing word by word)
-reread to SEE more in their books
We also learned that sometimes as we try and build good habits we might pick up some bad habits. We talked about how sometimes readers mumble over hard words, or ask for help before trying to solve first. We want to become independent readers, so we have to push ourselves to stay focused and use the strategies we have learned to tackle tricky words!
Last week we started learning more strategies for tackling tricky words. One of the most 'common' strategies parents and kids attempt first is "Sound it out". We talked, however, that this strategy won't work very well in first grade!! Most of our words are longer and don't follow 'normal' letter sound patterns. We HAVE to try out other strategies! This week we learned that strong readers:
-use the picture
-take a sneak peek to think about not only how the story will go, but also what words might be in the story
-look at ALL parts of the word
-use MEANING to figure out tricky words (does it make sense?)
Please encouage your young readers to try out some of these strategies at home :)
We also added listening to reading to our Reader's Workshop block.
Math Workshop
We continued our focus on number partners. We focused on partners of 6-10. We explored switching the partners, breaking a total into 2 partners, and using 10 frames to identify partners of 10.
On Friday we took our first math test! I am going to hold on to these and give them to you at conferences.
Word Work
We kicked off October by enjoying our new poem and sipping on some warm soup :)
We added 10 new words to our word wall:
do
he
see
at
up
and
it
we
so
in
We had fun practicing these words in different ways!
Next week will will add 5 more words for a total of 25. I will be doing checks throughout the week and sharing at conferences the words your child has mastered reading and writing :)
I am looking forward to meeting with many of you this Thursday and the rest next week during conferences.
I hope you had a wonderful weekend!
