Week of September 8-12

Hello First Grade Families!
Welcome back to our blog and another exciting week of getting to know each other and our routines in first grade! Our royal court this week was looking pretty fancy, and we had a lot of fun not just learning about each of them but also their names. Some of the activities we do with our names is say them, spell them, break them apart and build them, determine which letters are vowels and which are consonants, clap the syllables in them and then post them on our word wall. We sure can learn a lot with our names!

Following a couple days assessing your kiddos in order to get to know them better as mathematicians, we began Math Expressions. During our first lesson, we started our daily routines and then explored our "Stair Steps." Ask your first grader what we discovered when we used our stair steps. On day two of this initial lesson, we were reacquainted with Puzzled Penguin! Our friends who already knew him were SO excited to see him again! Puzzled Penguin really likes math, but sometimes (all the time!) he makes mistakes. We have to help Puzzled Penguin out by not just showing him his error but also explaining to him why we think he made it and explaining different ways we can help him fix it up. When we help Puzzled Penguin we help EVERYONE in our class through our math talk!

Here we are exploring the stair steps:

During writing this week, we discussed WHY we do Writer's Workshop and also what students do during this time and what Mrs. Mullen does. 
Ask your first grader to tell you about what his/her responsibilities are and what my responsibilities are. We had a lot of wonderful time to practice these important skills this week as we wrote stories from our lives. Some of us were finding that after the mini-lesson we were unsure what to write about, so we created an anchor chart that we can refer to whenever we get stuck for an idea. 

Here's our chart: 

We also talked about how we carry stories with us from our lives every single day! We just need to hold onto them! These stories can be as small as stepping in a piece of gum on the playground to a ride down a water slide! Families: Find opportunities to point out events (big or small!) that your child can write about during Writer's Workshop. Soon, a page will come home for you to help your child record some ideas of what s/he can write about. We'll then put these sheets in our Writer's Workshop folders to help us if/when we can't think of an idea. 

Thank you in advance!

During Reader's Workshop this week we discovered that readers all have favorite books,  favorite reading memories, and favorite spaces and places they love to read! We each created a bookmark where we wrote why a particular book is our favorite. We also each created a class book of our favorite reading memories. Some wrote about a time with a particular book or a special person, while others wrote about a favorite place where they like to curl up with a book. In our classroom, we're trying out different spaces and 

places where we can read long and strong! 

Ask your child about spaces in our room that have been just right for building his/her stamina and spaces and places that s/he found difficult to build his/her stamina and why. 

Here are just a few of the books we read together this week. Ask your child about each one. Who were the characters in The Wonderful Book? Why do you suppose each one of them wanted to do something silly with the book? Why do you suppose the little girl in Miss Brooks Loves Books! (and I don't) didn't love books? By the end of the book, she does indeed love books! Why did she change her mind? Why is Just Like a Baby Mrs. Mullen's favorite book? What did dad, grandpa, grandma, the big brother and mom each do for the baby? We reread Grandpa & Bo to discover things we didn't notice the first time. 

What did we discover together? Why do good readers reread books?

Each month in first grade we will add a poem to our poetry binder from the 

beloved children's book by Maurice Sendak: Chicken Soup With Rice: A Book of Months. 

On this day, we will read and practice the poem together and enjoy chicken soup 

with rice! We'll also add an illustration to match the words in each poem. 

With our chilly day on Friday, we decided it was the perfect day to sip some warm soup! 

In science, we began our weather unit. 
We watched a short Brain Pop, Jr. video 
about the weather and then created a graph 
of our favorite type of weather. I think many 
of our friends are anxious for the winter 
months! Not me!

The Book Fair is coming! On Friday, September 19th we will preview the Book Fair. As part of this special event, we're hoping to raise money to donate to a school in need. Please help us help others by sending in change on the following days:

Monday, September 15 PENNIES & NICKELS
Tuesday, September 16 DIMES
Wednesday, September 17 QUARTERS & any other coins

Thanks so much for helping to get books into EVERYONE'S hands! ADDED BONUS: The classroom that raises the most money wins a special treat! 

The PTO will be sponsoring a Movie Night on Friday, September 19th from 6-8pm. This is an opportunity for you to visit the book fair while your child is watching the movie!

MARK YOUR CALENDARS:
Friday, September 19: MAP testing, Book Fair Preview, & Movie Night!
Thursday, September 25: Fall break for students & teachers
Tuesday, September 30: Lockdown, Evacuation, Reunification Drill

Thanks for stopping by! 
Until next time...
Michelle Mullen :-)