November 16-20

Hello Families!
Thank you for stopping by the blog. We hope you enjoy our recap...

In Writer's Workshop, we continue to work on our How-To pieces. We found we can use labels in our pictures to help teach the reader even more. Writing catchy conclusions was another focus. We also learned how important it is to use exact words to describe the actions the reader will need to do. This was even more apparent on Thursday when partners acted out each other's directions! Here we are acting out our stories together... 

"Put the dish cloth and the soap in the sink." OOPS! Amiah and Harrison discovered that they needed to revise their How-To directions!

This How-To writer discovered that he needed to add 3 more steps to his piece, and he indicated this with his "+ + + ."

This How-To writer discovered that she needed to use more clear directions, and she indicated this with "*."

After acting out our How-To books, we worked together to make some revisions. 

During Reader's Workshop this past week we have launched our Nonfiction unit of study. Here we are taking time to slowly explore our new books and learn about our topics even before we read!

We're finding that many of the strategies we learned during our fiction unit are just as important when reading nonfiction. We focused on taking sneak peeks and found that we can learn SO MUCH even before we begin reading! Nonfiction readers need to slow down to focus on photographs and captions and spend time with each page.

We spent a lot of time with the book Hang On, Monkey! this week. We learned so much from the words, pictures and captions.

We're lucky to have our reading partners by our side so that we can learn even more by chatting with each other about our learning.

During Math Workshop this week we have been focusing on solving and creating subtraction number stories by using different strategies. 

In science this past week, we have been busy each morning observing our puddles we created last week. We added our daily observations to our puddle books. Slowly each day our puddles disappeared!

Ask your first grader to explain to you what happened to the water in our puddles.

We learned on Friday that it wasn't magic... it was EVAPORATION! This lead us to our lesson about the Water Cycle and a project to demonstrate our understanding. 

Ask your first grader to explain the water cycle to you.

Thanks to everyone who was able to donate to our annual food drive! Our class donated 18 items toward the school total of 1,295! 

Thank you for your donations!

We're so excited for our concert next week! The kiddos have been having an amazing time practicing with our artists in residence, School of Rock!

Until then...

Michelle Mullen

Mark Your Calendars:

November 24th: Concert Performances at 10am and 2pm

November 25th: Early Release Day & First Grade's Thanksgiving Celebration

November 26th & 27th:

Thanksgiving Holiday

November 30th: BOOK ORDERS DUE. Please take advantage of the many great deals on Scholastic's high-quality books.

December 9th: Early Release Day

December 23rd-January 3rd: Winter Break