We had an amazing Monday together. Our day begin with Miss Lanto our librarian dropping off an invitation for us to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday with her tomorrow. We are so excited! The excitement continued as we played a game in math rolling dice and working with turn around facts (6+4 = 4+6). We are trying to master our mental addition facts. We also learned that there are many ways to show one number. We will be working with this more tomorrow. In Language Arts, we carried on with our Daily 5 program. For those of you who were not here in August when I explained the stages, I have put a brief description below and some photos from the Daily 5 today. During our phonics time, we worked on reading the au/aw/o sound. Together we sorted different aw/au words, then we played a game called 'BAM!". Students took turns pulling au/aw/o words out of a paper bag, and recording the words they pulled. In order to win the game you had to pull 7 words without pulling a 'BAM!' card. When you pulled a 'BAM!' card, you had to return all of your words to the bag. Our little learners were so worried every time they put their hand in the bag, it was very cute! I have attached a couple photos below. We will be working more with different digraphs and diphthongs this week, but will be returning to our regular literacy program shortly after. There are 44 sounds in the English language, and after this week, your child should know how to read each of them. After this activity, we read our LEGO stories to each other and provided feedback. Some students have written their beginning, and some have written their beginning and middle. I am so impressed with how they are coming along. I encourage you to send photos, and leave comments about how your child is engaging with LEGO at home in order for me to make better connections. The Daily 5
The Daily 5™ is a framework for structuring literacy time so students develop lifelong habits of reading, writing, and working independently. How does it work? Students work on five authentic reading and writing choices, (We use 6 - Read to the Teacher) working independently toward personalized goals, while the teacher meets individual needs through whole-group and small-group instruction, as well as one-on-one conferring. These activities are
The benefits of The Daily 5 for teachers and schools include the following:
information from https://www.thedailycafe.com/daily-5
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.In Math today, we finished unit 5 with a little practice and an assessment. You will be hearing from me if your child needs additional support, or received a perfect score. As always, if you want to see your child's test results, please ask me, and I can send home their assessment folder, however, it must be returned the next day. Tomorrow we will be doing our mid-year assessment to see how much knowledge they have retained.
In Language Arts today, we reviewed our "bossy r" r words by "driving cars" through the bossy R parking lot, parking them in the spot that had the r controlled vowel combination on the card they read. (pictures below). After getting our brains 'recharged' through play, we sat down and learned about soft 'g'. We now know 'Gentleman G' and 'Cinderella C'. We learned that when e, i, or y, comes after the letter 'g' that it makes the /j/ sound. We also sang a soft c, and soft g, song to help us remember. During our Unit of Inquiry time, our second group of story constructors began to build their LEGO setting/vehicle, and the first group reviewed adjectives and what the beginning of a story should have. I have not seen our student's so excited to write before. The LEGO really is a great tool to spark their imagination. You can see some of our writing here Today we continued to work with finding rules for function machines. Our little problem solvers are getting much better at this skill. I have sent home some extra practice sheets to work on this more tonight.
In Language Arts, we worked on when the letter 'c' makes the soft sound /s/ and when it makes the hard sound /k/. When C is followed by an e, i, or y it makes the soft /s/ sound. After o, u or a, it makes the hard /k/ sound. During our unit of inquiry time, one of our groups worked on writing their LEGO stories, and the other group continued to work on fairytale features. We then continued reading 'Jack and the Beanstalk' and practiced retelling the story using voices and actions. We began this week with a new challenge in Math; figuring out rules for function machines. This is not an easy task, but our little learners are getting the hang of it. We began by using a magic paper bag. When 2 popsicle sticks went in, three came out...When 7 popsicle sticks went it, 8 came out. We tried this a few times with different numbers, and realized that the bag was adding one more each time. We discussed how this was called a "rule." We then found another bag that added 3 each time. We had lots of fun doing this! We then tried lots of examples on the board figuring out what would come out of different function machines. We will be working on this tricky skill for 3 solid days this week. Aside from the 'Daily 5', we have been learning about 'r' controlled vowels this week. Now that we have a firm grasp on long and short vowels, we are now learning that when "bossy r" comes after a vowel, he changes their sound. We played a board game and looked through fairy tales to find all of the 'er,' 'ir,' and 'ur' words that we could find. There were so many. After watching some Alphablocks videos (posted below) we learned that 'ar' and 'or' make different sounds. We played a game with dice and a friend today, to find different words controlled by "bossy r" The winners of the game stayed with Mr. Mason and began to learn about common conventions of fairytales (Once upon a time, far away, happy endings, problem, solution, magic numbers 3 and 7, something sad, magic, problem/solution, good overcoming evil...) While the other group began to build their LEGO settings to tell their first LEGO story. Miss Soa and I are really seeing how they are able to create much more imaginative stories through play. We are looking forward to seeing how they are written. You can follow our LEGO learning journey here.
We had a wonderful last day of learning together before our February break. In the morning we continued working on strategies to mentally solve addition and subtraction facts. We played games in a circle while mentally recalling facts. After the break, we will be doing timed addition/subtraction quizzes in order to help build rote skill.
In ELL, we worked with Miss Mina to create valentines cards for friends or loved ones. We also played a game where students acted out different verbs. During our English Language Arts period, we explored how the letter Y can make the long 'i' sound, or the long 'e' sound. Most frequently it makes the 'i' sound when the word has one syllable like the word 'by' or 'try' and it most often makes the 'e' sound in two syllable words like 'happy' and quickly'. We then did another 'read the room' activity where students had to find, read, and sort, 'y controlled' long 'i' and long 'e' words. We ended the day with a Valentines day party, where we ate the wonderful treats you all sent in, and played collaborative games. It was a great way to spend our last day together before the week off. Our last week before break is swiftly passing by. We have been working hard on mentally solving addition problems. We have been practicing our doubles facts, doubles +1/-1 and +2/-2. We have also been reviewing our number bonds to 10.
In Language Arts, we have been continuing with our phonics focus on long vowels. Yesterday, we did a maze navigating words that have the long 'u' sound, and today we did a word hunt activity looking for long 'i' words, and sorting them by the way the 'i' sound is made. (igh, ie, or i_e). During our unit of inquiry block, we continued with our LEGO storytelling unit. You can follow our progress here. We have been very busy little learners over the first two days of this week! In Math, we are learning how to read, write and solve number stories! This not only helps us with literacy and addition and subtraction, but is helping us develop problem solving skills.
Speaking of problem solving skills, we also did an exercise in probability today. We predicted what number we would roll most frequently when rolling two dice. Students made estimates first, then tested their theories with a partner. After completing this activity, we found that most groups rolled 6, 7, or 8 most frequently. We then looked at all of the different combinations that could form each number, and found out why we rolled 6-8 most often. We used the words 'more likely,' 'less likely,' and 'equally likely.' During our Language and UOI periods yesterday, we learned about presentation skills. We first went to the third grade class to watch their final unit of inquiry presentations on simple machines. After we came back to our classroom, we talked about things they did well, and ways they could improve. We then practiced our 'Extreme Weather' presentations once more, and presented our findings. (I will post pictures and research to our learning portfolios later this week.) I was really impressed by each child's presentation and knowledge from research. Today in Language Arts, we continued with our phonics focus on long vowels. We learned all of the combinations that make long 'o' and played a game of 'Go Fish' in groups of 5 practicing reading these words. We also began our new unit on Storytelling. After your questionnaire responses, I have developed this unit around students' home literacy engagement with LEGO. To learn more about this researched based project, click here. We had a brilliant day celebrating our 100th day of learning this year. In the morning, we teamed up with the kindergarten class, to find the missing numbers from Mrs. Yvonne's 100 chart. We read a story called 'The Night Before the 100th day of School', and we did four different activities with the number 100. We made necklaces with 100 pieces of cereal, we stamped `100 gumballs onto a gumball machine, we raced 100 cups of water across the playground, and we build structures with 100 cups. After snack and break, we took pictures of ourselves being 100 years old (see below), and wrote about what being 100 years old would be like. You can see our 100 year old photos and writing displayed in the main office. 100 Year Old First GradersFirst grade families, Sorry for the delayed response with the blog, the student have been busy conferencing with Miss Soa and I over their persuasive letters to Dr. Troy and Dr. Amy, and I have been busy putting finishing touches on the report cards that go out tomorrow. Last week we studied thunder, lightning and rainbows. We turned out the lights and made a thunder storm in our classroom by snapping, clapping, slapping our knees, and stomping our feet. We also made lightning through static electricity using a balloon and a spoon. This was all very exciting! This week we have started to work in collaborative groups to make a poster about a type of extreme weather (blizzards, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes). Students have been placed in groups and given different roles. It is amazing for me to see how well first grade students can research. They are using their skills that we used in our non-fiction unit to navigate tables of contents, indexes, and glossaries to find the necessary information that they need. They will be learning presentation skills this week and presenting their posters to the class. Last week we went through the entire writing process (pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing) using our opinion transitions and persuasive techniques to write a letter to the principal or director about changes we want made to the school. Some of these included; a school jet for long distance field trips, another classroom for quiet learning, being allowed to eat sweets and drink soda at school, and a pizza party everyday. We learned how to write a letter and address an envelope. We sent them to administration and are patiently waiting for their replies. I will post your child's letter to their portfolios this week. This week we are delving back into phonics and word study looking at long and short vowels once again. This is a first grade mastery skill. Yesterday, we explored e controlled vowels (make, broke, ride, rude) through playing a board game where students had to read their way through the board as they moved. Today we worked on long e and short e words by playing dominoes. In math we have been working with greater than, less than and equal to operation symbols. We have also been exploring 2digit addition and place value by using base 10 blocks. This week we will be working on finding the difference between two numbers using a variety of methods. |
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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