We have been exploring wind and water in our weather unit of inquiry. Last week students made water gauges and tracked the rainfall over the weekend. Today we learned about what causes wind and made windsocks to tell how strong the wind was and in which direction it was blowing.
In Math we began to learn about place value using base 10 blocks, counting 10s and ones to find the whole number. Students learned that when you have ten ones, they need to be traded for a 10. We will continue to work on this skill throughout the week. In Language Arts, we continued to build our literacy through the 'Daily 5'. I am so proud of the choices our students are making to independently support their literacy learning. Their reading, writings, ideas, and word choice are really coming along. Today we finished our graphic organizer for our persuasive letters to Dr. Amy and Dr. Troy with our school improvement plans. We will be drafting them tomorrow, editing them throughout the week, and be producing typed good copies to deliver to administration by the end of the week. These grade ones have become powerful persuaders throughout this writing unit.
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We have been super busy with a variety of hands-on learning experiences this week. In math, we have been working on addition strategies, and using 10 frames to make addition questions easier, by making tens and counting on. Please make sure that your child has fact power with 10 facts (10+1=11, 10+2=12, 10+3=13, 10+4=14...etc.). We have also been practicing our doubles facts to 10. Another skill that should be practiced at home (1+1, 2+2, 3+3, etc.)
During our language arts time, we have are continuing to work on persuasive writing. I am so proud of our students developing their own opinions, and using transitional words. They are very convincing. Today, we worked on learning about persuasive techniques. If you're wondering why your children are trying to bribe you, play with your emotions, compliment you, or ask rhetorical questions I can say that this is my fault. During our UOI, we have been learning about rain this week. We are learning about the water cycle, evaporation, and precipitation. Yesterday, we completed a 'fair test' in order to find waterproof materials. The students loved using the pipettes, and learned how to 'hypothesize'. Miss Soa and I were so proud of our little scientists. Today we watched a Brain Pop video about how clouds hold water until they get too heavy and release water back into the atmosphere as rain. We used water, shaving foam, and food dye to conduct an experiment to show the students how clouds release water when they are too heavy. The pictures below (photo credit to Pol, as my hands were covered in blue dye) show how the experiment went. Oh my! We have been so busy learning in first grade!
We have been inquiring about different types of clouds for the past week. Students have learned about three different types of clouds, what their physical features are, and their place in the sky. When you are walking outside with your child, ask them what types of clouds they can see (Cirrus, Cumulous, Stratus) and how they know. I am really amazed by their knowledge. To tie our unit of inquiry into our literacy program. We read the story 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' Students have written weather reports for silly weather, made mobiles of clouds with different foods and used adjectives to describe the different foods, and have been working very hard on a persuasive writing piece trying to convince their reader that food either should or should not fall from the sky. This project focused on using rhetorical questions to strengthen students' arguments. In math, we are working on addition skills. Fact power is as important as reading fluency. We are working towards students fluency with single digit addition facts. Today we played a game where students rolled to dice to add numbers, and then find their 'turn around' fact and use the same answer. (Example 2+5=7, therefore 5+2=7). Please practice this skill at home until students begin to see the relationship seamlessly. We have been spending a lot of time learning about time over the past couple days. Telling time to the quarter hour has really given our little learners a better understanding of the minutes in an hour. It is wonderful to see them using our clock practically to know when to go to snack (10;15), lunch (12:15), and the end of the day (2:45). We have been playing games, using apps, filling in 'Everyday Math' boxes, and using our own little clocks. This is a skill that needs to be learned through practice and memorization. If you child is still struggling with this skill, please provide the necessary support at home. During ELL time, we have been working on putting words and letters in alphabetical order. This will assist us in looking up words in dictionaries, thesauruses, indexes, glossaries, and word walls. We have been doing puzzles, working collaboratively, timing ourselves, and practicing through playing games online (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/literacy/alphabetical_order/play/). We encourage you to continue this support at home, but are very happy with how quickly the first graders have picked up this skill. We have transitioned from stating our opinions to writing persuasive pieces. After reading the story 'Hey Little Ant' students wrote persuasive letters to the boy in the story persuading him to either squish the ant, or let it free. The did a wonderful job of using connecting words, and following our 'OREO' framework (Opinion, Reason, Example, Opinion). I will be posting their letters on their learning portfolios later this week. We have also been exploring the different types of clouds we have learned about. To connect this to our literacy, we read the story 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' today. Students began to use graphic organizers to state their opinion and reasons for whether they think that food should or shouldn't fall from the sky. We will be making cloud mobiles later this week ordering cirrus, cumulus, and stratus clouds in oder.
Before diving into our 'Daily 5' after break, we discussed how we will be learning about clouds this week. We read Eric Carl's 'Little Cloud' and went outside to look at different clouds in the sky and what they look like. After that we came back to the classroom, and used 'cloud paint' (glue and shaving foam), to draw some of the clouds we saw. We also made a list of different shapes we saw in the clouds. This is an introductory activity to learning about the types of clouds, which we will be doing tomorrow. We will be focusing our learning on only cirrus, cumulus, and stratus clouds.
As always, feel free to pop in any time before or after school to take a look at your child's cloud painting. I am sure they would love to share it with you. The above two pictures are of Pol and Lorena for the French department's celebration of Epiphanie today, during French class. They were eating the “galette des rois.” Lorena found the bean (la fève) in her “galette", and she chose Pol as her king! We have had a fantastic week of getting back in 'school mode'. There has been a lot of review and a great deal of new learning with the introduction of our new unit of inquiry. It was lovely to see so many students move up reading levels over the break. Thank you so much to the families that made reading a priority over those busy three weeks. We now have 5 students reading level H. This is what grade level reading looks like. We are so proud. Remember that students don't improve over night, but with hard work, and nightly practice, all of our students are capable of reaching age appropriate reading levels. In Math we have been busy measuring height using inches. We know where to start and end. Today we graphed out heights to try and decide what heights were the most common in first grade. We also used the graph to figure out how tall the shortest students in the class were, and how tall the tallest student was (Anish). In Language Arts, we continued to work on our 'word choice' trait. Students learned some different words for scared (afraid, terrified, petrified, shaken, etc.) and wrote a personal narrative about a time they were scared, using their new 'wow words'. We also learned how to use a thesaurus to find more synonyms. Today we became fiction detectives looking for 'wow words' in books. When students found great words, they wrote them on the white board. As a class, we looked at the 'wow words' and had to think of a synonym for each one. The students really enjoyed this. We hope to see more exciting words in their writing as the year progresses. There are many ways to say one thing. During our UOI period, students learned about the sun. We had an ice melting race, where students build different contraptions that they thought would melt the ice best. They also build boxes where they were trying to keep their ice cube cool, and stop it from melting in the hot sun. Today, we built a solar oven to make s'mores, but because it was such a cloudy day, we were less successful than we had hoped. That said, it was a lesson that not all science experiments go as planned, and that cloudy days aren't as hot. So we were still learning, and the students still enjoyed their treat. |
ASA First GradersWe are caring, balanced , reflective, openminded, risk-taking, knowledgeable, principled, thinkers, communicators, inquirers, explorers and learners. Mr. Mason McCormickI am: a husband, teacher, friend, researcher, grad student, mulitliteracies specialist, designer, social media fanatic, lover of all things tech, creative, and progressive. I am an energetic, life-loving, no-nonsense person; passionate about respectful, rigorous, and relevant teaching and learning in the 21st century.
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