Real Life Review Writing

Students are finishing up the second of three bends in our Opinion Writing unit.  They have worked hard to write reviews and share their opinions of different things.  Next time you go out to eat, buy a new toy, watch a movie, etc. help your child to express their ideas out loud. Can they share their opinion? We often do this all the time - now encourage your child to work with you to write a review online. Enjoy this experience of engaging in real world writing with your child! Next week, we'll begin the last bend and learn more about writing book reviews - a great skill to get kids to think more deeply about the characters in their books!

Comprehension

As we continue to learn more and more ways to solve hard words - words with multisyllabic syllabes, variety of vowel teams, etc. students are also beginning to learn a variety of tricks to understand what they are reading.  As text gets more difficult, our energy is often focused on the decoding and fluency, and sometimes, the understanding and comprehension gets left behind. We all know this is the basis of reading - the reason we read - and in first grade, students are learning ways to make sure this happens.  Predicting, visualizing, making connections, inferencing, etc are just a few ways readers work hard to understand what they are reading.  Our focus over the next few weeks in our whole group lessons will be to dig deeper into the text!

Light Waves

As we continue our study of sound waves, students are experimenting also with light waves and learning how light travels.  INQUIRE with your child how light travels and what kinds of materials allow light to travel through. Use the words - transparent, translucent, and opaque to discuss this with them.  Which material does NOT allow light to travel through? 

Towards the end of the week, students are going to be making telephones with plastic cups and string to experiment with how sound waves travel.  

Respect

R-E-S-P-E-C-T is this month's school wide initiative. INQUIRE with your child how they can be respectful and polite to their teachers and friends during the day. Our whole school is working on earning special links that will be combined together from all the classrooms. Students can earn links when they are showing respect.

Editing and Revising

How do first graders edit and revise their writing?  Well, a lot can be done with the help of a peer.  Peers often meet when a piece is completed to talk about how they can make their writing better, what needs to be added, deleted, fixed, etc.  While editing reviews about retaurants, toys, movies, places, etc. students check to see if their writing had enough convincing reasons.  Students also help each other create introductions and conclusions. This is a first grade expectation, and I'm impressed with their creativeness when writing these difficult parts.  All throughout first grade we are learning to edit and revise and hope that all kids can do this independently by the end of the year.  

Sneak Peek

I found a sneak peek at next years calendar that was approved at the school board meeting last week. I think this is the final version... Thought you may be interested in case you were making plans. Remember, the last 3 days are only used if we have snow days. 

This year, we only had 1 snow day (so far), so please take this into account when looking at the last day of school.  

Double Digit Addition

We continue to use a variety of IPAD apps to help us strengthen our number sense. As we solve double digit addition, students use manipulatives and ten frames on an IPAD to make friendly tens and share their thinking with peers.  Working together in math helps us all grow and build on each other's great ideas and ways at solving problems.  Students continue to learn a variety of ways to solve problems.  INQUIRE with your child how to use the "tape diagram."  How is this like a number bond? 

Hellos and Goodbyes

A little time for silliness in between our serious photo shoot. We welcomed a new friend last week and have been enjoying getting to know her. This week, we begin to say goodbye to a dear friend who we will truly miss!  

Spring Conferences

Please see your email for a link for student-led conferences - happening next week! I've offered a few alternative evening times that may work better for your family if Friday doesn't work. Just a reminder, the kids do not have school next Friday, April 1st. If you did not get the link, or can't access please email me ASAP and I can help you find a time that would work best.  I look forward to meeting with you!

Bird's Eye View

Our ECO outing today brought us up cliff street to get a bird's eye view of our city of Montpelier. Students have been exploring city maps this week to get an idea of how to navigate from one place to another. Students mapped out their way and made predictions prior to the walk of different landmarks they thought they would see from the top. INQUIRE with your child what places they spotted from this amazing view. We then took a new route to Harrison for a little outdoor exploration. 

Hoot Celebration (chosen by students)

Slipper (or socks) and Stuffy Day

3/4/16 - Friday

More Science Experiements

Can sound make vibrating materials move? That was the question our scientists posed last week. To test this out, students used their voice to make salt "jump" on a plastic covered bowl.  INQUIRE with your child what their "conclusions" were.  

This week, our question changed - can vibrating materials make sound? We used some elastic bands covering a shoebox to put this question to the test.  INQUIRE with your child what they found out. Can they tell you the steps of the scientific method? 

Hint hint...

1. Ask a question

2. Make a prediction

3. Make a plan

4. Test it out/experiment

5. Record Data

6. Draw Conclusions

SO much love last week was spread..

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Summer Clothes Celebration

Tomorrow is wear your summer clothes to school day! Friday, February 19th! See note sent home for more info!

Reviews

After publishing our reviews for our collections last week, students switched gears just a bit to begin using what they had learned about opinion writing to write reviews. We have been reading and analyzing what elements are included in reviews of restaurants, places, toys, etc. Students continue to write their opinion and supply reasons, but are learning how to do this with a more convincing, yet friendly tone. Students are learning how to use these reasons to rate places and things, and learning how to include just enough information in their writing to convince, but not give it all away. Looking at when, where, and who have been key elements that we include. Students have been having a lot of fun writing reviews and finding the best ways to really persuade others to think like them!  We'll continue with this writing after winter vacation. 

Birthday Breakfast - FEBRUARY

Birthday Breakfast this Thursday at 8:20 - let me know if your family plans to join us!

Snowshoes at ECO

We've been waiting for a little dusting of snow before we got our snowshoes out this year. We were in luck last week, when the forecast called for a little bit mid week. Mrs. Wrigley's class and ours set out for an adventure - and what an adventure it was.  INQUIRE with your child how their hike went last week!  In preparation, students learned about different animal gaits and how animals bodies move through the snow.  After a relay in the field moving like hoppers, waddlers, walkers, and bounders, students set out to look for signs of animals in Harrison. 

Spring Performance

In preparation for our spring (May) performance, all first grade classes joined together this week to prepare. This year, our yearlong social studies theme is community, and we'll be preparing for our "Friendly Neighborhood Helpers" show over the next few months.  We'll post you when we have set the date for the evening performance.  

ECO Schedule

Here are the dates we'll be out of the building for ECO. We are hoping to travel this semester up to Sabin's Pasture, and therefore we will need more time.  We are thinking of changing the time to the morning, 9-12 but this is not firmed up at this time. Here are the dates, though and I'll let you know more specifically about times.

February 11th
March 3rd
March 24th
April 7th
May 5th
May 26th

Opinion Writing

Last week, we began a new writing unit. So far this year, we have written small moments, where we share an experience with others in a narrative form, we have written informational books, where we have spent time teaching others about a particular subject, and last week, we began opinion writing where students are forming ideas about an object/topic and thinking about how to convince their readers to think like them. Much time was spent this week learning and understanding that we all have different beliefs, interests, and favorites - for particular reasons. This unit will get students to think more deeply, develop persuasion in their writing, and develop skills to help them provide reasoning to their thinking.

Last week, students learned how to look at objects closely, compare a number of different traits, and then choose which one was their favorite. Students learned that before they choose their favorite, they had to provide evidence of why it was their favorite. Acting as a "judge" students set out with a collection (ex. trains, coins, dinosaurs, horses, cars, rocks), and lined them up as if they were in a "dog show." Students examined the objects closely before setting off to write their thinking on which object would get first place. Some students extended their thinking, going on to explain who received 2nd place, 3rd place, etc while providing their opinion of why it did. 

As students tried to convince their readers, they also had to think about introducing their writing, giving their writing a closing, and finding even more ways to get their readers to think like them. Today, we're even learning about how to quote experts - who can help make our reading stronger!  

Science

Last Friday, we conducted our first experimented to help us learn about waves. Students thought about what scientists do, and followed the steps to doing an experiment. Partner groups experimented with what waves are to help them build background knowledge to sound and light waves. INQUIRE with your child what happened to the water when a marble, rock, and ping pong ball were dropped into a bowl of water. Also, INQUIRE with them what steps a scientist follows when conducting experiments. Tomorrow, students will explore the question - does sound make matter vibrate? We will continue to do one experiment each week as we continue to explore sound and light waves as well as the scientific process.

100 day projects

Thanks for helping your child create a 100th day project! We had a great turnout, and enjoyed sharing our projects with friends. All first graders were able to take a tour of all the first grade classrooms to see what their peers from other classes created as well.  

Movement

A day of rain in January.  We spent some time incorporating MANY movement breaks into our day - including some strength training!  Of course, we did some wishing of snow as well....  Each day, kids are encouraged to participate in a variety of mind and body activities to help them stay engaged and focused! INQUIRE with you child what movement they like best? Free dance, structured dance, kinesthetic movement, stretching, yoga, etc. 

Cooperative Class Community

Just a little over 100 pieces of K'Nex, and 18 people. How will we all have enough pieces to build something?  This class worked together to make a plan - how about we make just 1 really big structure? First graders find times throughout their day to work as a community! 

Cooperation

I caught these girls holding an impromptu problem solving meeting at choice time.  Although not all girls were involved in the disagreement, all were present to support each other and make a plan.  I'm impressed with the cooperation, empathy, assertion, responsibility, and self control our class shows on a daily basis. They don't even need a teacher to guide them! 

Can you believe these glasses made each of us 100 times smarter? Well, even if they didn't we certainly worked 100 times harder today! 100 words, 100 numbers, anything associated with 100 was done today. Many activities celebrating the 100th school day were done.  We now start the countdown to being 2nd graders.  Can you believe only 80 more days?!

Birthday Breakfast

What a great turnout we had for our January Birthday Breakfast.  This month, the breakfast will be a bit early, due to vacation. It will also be on a Thursday, not Friday.  So, mark your calendars - BIRTHDAY BREAKFAST willl be THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18th at 8:20.  We will be celebrating three friends who will all be turning 7! Let me know if you can help out! 

Celebrating 100 days of FUN..and learning!

 You may have heard about a potential trip to North Branch Nature Center. This trip was planned at the end of last week, and my day was scheduled for Wednesday. The plan was to take the city bus to the NBNC, but I have been watching the weather, and they are still calling for 100% chance of rain. This does not sound ideal, so we will hopefully plan for another time this winter. Each first grade class was going to go on a different day this week, due to the space on the city bus, so rescheduling is not an option for this week, unfortunately.  Stay tuned for more info.