Goodbye, November!

This month flew by!  During the last couple of days of November we practiced old routines and some new ones, too.


In Readers' Workshop we have been focusing on the characters we meet in our books.  We practiced using sticky notes to mark where changes in characters' feelings happen.  Students helped me use the appropriate symbols to mark the pages of read aloud books where these changes were revealed to the reader.  Next week, students will start using sticky notes to mark character feelings in their own books.  These will be used as talking points when students meet with a partner or adult.

In science we have been working on sorting river rock mixtures using a variety of physical properties.  A few of the favorites were:
Pattern
Shape
Size
Color
Shiny/Dull
Texture

When drawing our experiments in our science journals we have been focusing on using realistic color and labels, just like a scientist would!

At the end of the week, we ushered in the new month by getting our December calendar prepared.  All important events (birthdays, Hanukkah, Christmas) were represented!

 Stay warm this weekend!

We Are Thankful!

Giving thanks and being helpful and kind were the themes of the room this week!  But, lets not forget all of the great work being done in other areas.

We have been practicing making and reading tally charts since the beginning of school.   This week, we started experimenting with line plots:

As you've probably seen on the homelink pages this week, we've added dimes to the mix!  Students practiced counting real coins, exchanged pennies and nickels for dimes, and played games like Coin Top-It to enhance their coin counting skills:

In Writers' Workshop, students have been writing realistic fiction stories.  This week, students started using this checklist to assess their own writing:

We also wrote about what we are thankful for this year.  Check out the  Learning In Action Link to hear and see more!

A BIG thank you to families for helping us not only reach our goal of 100 food items, but exceed it!  So far, we've collected 118 non-perishable food items!  As you can see, we're pretty psyched!

 Wishing you all a happy and healthy holiday!

10 Weeks of First Grade!

Week ten was filled with new learning!

In science, we've started experimenting with rocks.  We sorted a bag of rocks, observed them using magnifying glasses, and experimented with rubbing the rocks together to see what would happen.

In writers workshop, we've started learning about realistic fiction.  We've read lots of realistic fiction stories, and even came up with some stories of our own.  Check one out HERE!

In math, we're learning new ways to practice skip-counting, like using frames and arrows and calculators.

Next week, we will start our school-wide food drive to help those in need in our community.  We will be keeping track of all the food items our class collects.  We voted on a classroom goal of 100 food items.  Help us make it happen!

Snapshots of Week 9

 Here are some highlights from our slightly abbreviated 9th week of school!

We joined the rest of the school in the gym on Wednesday for a community meeting. We learned a holiday song and dance and watched Mrs. Melevsky perform some science experiments, with the help of some willing volunteers:

 

We celebrated all the great learning we've done with owls by making owl masks on Halloween:

And we geared up for our next science unit, Pebbles, Sand and Silt, by decorating our new science journal covers:

 

Here's some brainstorming we did before making our class book of antonyms:

 In writer's workshop, we celebrated all the hard work we've put into publishing our first books by having a publishing party and sharing our stories in small groups: