MathIn Math this week, we finished our unit on introducing addition, and have begun a new unit on number stories. While we do work through the Everyday Math program at ASA, we also make implementing math into our units of inquiry a priority. It is so important for students to see how Math is integrated into our daily lives. We use the Everyday Math program to teach essential skills in Math, that may not always integrate into our units. With that in mind, I will do my best to make all number stories in this unit related to our unit of inquiry on life cycles. Please find the unit 3 parent letter below. This week, we reviewed what number stories are, and explained that not all number stories are change-to-more or change-to-less situations. Our little leaners learned about another type of situation. I told the following number story for example: Theresa has 3 flowers in her backpack and 6 flowers in her desk. How many flowers does she have all together? First our learners talked to make sense of the problem, and to solve it any way they can (using counters, drawings, number models, or other strategies from the Strategy Wall). We recorded our strategies and solutions on the board. I then introduced the parts-and-total diagram to summarize the number story and to help children organize their thinking.
I asked the children to help me write a number model for this story. We connected the diagram to the number model by asking children how each of the terms in the number model relates to the diagram. Sample answer: The two numbers we add together are the parts, and the sum is the total in the diagram; 3 + 6 = 9. Students then worked in partners to use parts-and-total diagrams to tell and solve number stories. Students were encouraged to record their solution strategies. When partnerships finished, we came together to discuss their thinking. Later in the week, students used dominoes to continue working with parts-and-total diagrams. The children practiced drawing parts-and-total diagrams and writing number sentences for dominoes on their slates. Volunteers chose dominoes and named the three numbers for each. Half of the class completed a parts-and-total diagram, and the other half recorded a number sentence. We discussed the diagrams and number sentences to help children make connections between them. Language ArtsThis week in Language Arts, we looked at syllables. A syllable is a single, unbroken sound of a spoken (or written) word. Syllables usually contain a vowel and accompanying consonants. Sometimes syllables are referred to as the ‘beats’ of spoken language. The number of times you hear a vowel (a, e, i , o, u) in a word is equal to the number of syllables a word has. A good way to identify syllables is to think about whether you need to change your mouth shape to say the next bit of the word / the new syllable. We clap out words to hear them, and put our hand under our chins to feel how many times our mouth moves down. Learning about syllables is part of learning how to decode and spell words. It helps children understand the conventions of English spelling, including when to double letters and how to pronounce the vowels in words they might not have seen before. We used pictures and objects to sort words by their number of syllables. This will help us after the break when we learn about when to make the different sounds of the letter 'y'. Children in grade 1 are expected to read words of two syllables. They are shown how to split the words up into syllables, in order to help them sound them out. For example: if they are shown the word ‘thunder’ and get stuck, I (or you at home) may cover the second half of the word (‘der’) and ask them to just sound out the first syllable. Once they have managed this, I uncover the rest of the word and ask them to sound this out. Students are also learning to spell words with two syllables, they are encouraged to separate the two syllables themselves, in order to learn the spelling of the whole word. During our Daily 5 time, Mrs. Mbola and I have been working on decoding strategies with guided reading groups. These are all part of the 'accuracy' section of our Daily CAFE menu. CAFE is the organzation of the reading strategies taught during the Daily 5 time. CAFE is the acronym for the four major components of reading:
Your child will learn reading strategies within each category. These strategies will become tools they learn and apply to help them become better readers and writers. I will keep you informed (here on the blog) of the new strategies that are introduced to the whole class as we move through the CAFE menu. Unit of InquiryThis week, we began a new unit of inquiry on life cycles. To begin our unit, or tune-in, students completed an activity called "picture priorities." This lesson idea comes from Kath Murdoch, an Aussie educator and leader in the field of inquiry-based learning. The strategy asks students to rank, sequence and/or make sense of a series of pictures as a way of helping them to consider what they already know and/or how they feel about a topic. I think this strategy is fantastic because it gets kids thinking! It's a great way to assess their prior knowledge. First, I gathered pictures of a variety of different life cycles. I collected different sets of 4 pictures. Next, I gave the students the pictures along with a large piece of paper on which to order the pictures and record their thoughts. I didn't tell them anything about the content of the pictures; I wanted to leave it totally to their interpretations. My directions were, "I'm giving your group a set of pictures, Your job is to figure out how they go together in a meaningful way. Share your thinking and then you must agree on how to arrange them on the paper." Then students got to thinking! I walked around the room to monitor and make sure that all group members were contributing their ideas. Once groups came to a consensus about the order of their pictures, I asked them to write their thoughts, anything really, about 1 or all of the pictures. Many of them chose to break this task up by having each person in the group write a sentence about one of the pictures. Finally, I had the groups share their posters with the class to debrief the strategy .When we debriefed, I kept it short and focused; "How did your thinking change while you were arranging the pictures?" Some students shared that they recognized that the pictures were all part of a cycle, whereas some students did not have any prior knowledge and they really had to think about it. After figuring out what a life cycle was, students wrote down their questions on our 'wonder wall' about what they wanted to learn about during this unit. Some students asked about what makes something living, about what the parts of a plant do, and how they do their job. This is where we began our inquiry, specifically looking at inquires on - How do plants drink?, and how do seeds grow? While cycles have no specific start and finish point, we thought seeds were a good place to start this unit. First we discussed what made something living. we decided that all living things; grow, change, breath, drink, and eat. We also learned that living things reproduce (enjoy questions about this at home. ha!). Then we went outside to record and find things that were living and non-living. We went back later with our iPads to take some photos of the living things we found. The next student inquiry we looked into was 'how do plants drink?". We learned about the roots and the stem, and how they are in charge of 'drinking' the water, and carrying the water to the rest of the plant. We then collected some white flowers, and put them in water with blue and red food dye to create a visual of how plants drink. The students were amazed at how the white flowers turned blue and red. It was a great way for students to see how plants move water from bottom to top of a plant. With that said, our little inquirers were not satisfied with this. It led to more questions about how the water moves up the plants. This got me explaining capillary action to first graders. Let me tell you, it was really fun explaining the forces of cohesion, adhesion and surface tension to your 6 year olds. However, I felt very successful when I found the experiment below that shows how water molecules 'stick to each other' (cohesion) and stick to the toilet paper (adhesion) and how when one water molecule moves up, it pulls the others with it (surface tension). We talked about how this is kind of how a stem pulls water up to the rest of the plant. Later in the week, we started following some inquires on seeds. I was so proud of myself that I kept some beans from our class garden last year. Students peeled the seeds out of them. It was such a great way to show how life cycles continue again and again. After this, we looked at pictures of seeds and the plants they grow. It was interesting for the little ones to see how plants and seeds look very different. We also looked at all of the amazing seeds that were sent in by parents (you are amazing! Keep them coming), and started to grow some of them in our window. We talked about how different seeds grow different ways, and need different conditions to grow. I am so excited for when we come back form the break for students to see what is growing in the window. We also looked at corn seeds, chia seeds, and avacado seeds. Sometimes during these heavy science based units of inquiry, I struggle to find space for fiction. Luckily, with this seed inquiry, the story 'Jack and the Beanstalk' was a great fit. We read the story, planted our 'magic beans' and created castles in the sky. I am so excited to see your little ones' faces when they 'hopefully' return to growing beans after the break. There was a lot of learning for a 3.5 day week. |
ASA First GradersWe are caring, balanced , reflective, openminded, risk-taking, knowledgeable, principled, thinkers, communicators, inquirers, explorers and learners. Archives
March 2018
Categories |