November 9-13

Hello Families!
Here's a sneak peek at another great week...

In Writer's Workshop we continued to learn about writing how-to pieces. We found that one of the strategies we learned during our Small Moments unit fits in very well with How-To writing: ZOOMING in on small topics. So instead of writing a book called "How To Train Your Dog," you could instead ZOOM in and focus on one aspect of that training. For example, "How to Teach Your Dog To Sit." 

We looked again at How to Wash a Wooly Mammoth and paid close attention to the introduction. We noticed that in this book and in others, the author includes an INTERESTING INTRODUCTION where s/he introduces him/herself to the reader and lets the reader know what s/he will teach them. 

We also spent time looking at time order words in the beginning, middle and end of our mentor texts. We're adding to our growing list of transition words each day! This lesson harkened back to our Small Moment writing again by showing us how important it is to plan our How-To pieces across our fingers as well!

Another skill we learned was about how we need to think about WHO our reading AUDIENCE is. I gave them the example of  writing a piece called "How to Make a Bed." I would write it differently depending on who my audience/reader was. For example, I wouldn't tell Mr. Mullen to first take all of the stuffed animals off of the bed, but if I were writing the how-to piece for my daughters I would need to tell them that! We got a good chuckle out of that! It's helpful for us to visualize the person we're writing to as well and even pretend they are right there, and we are talking to them. 

Finally, we talked about how How-To writers use an "in charge" teaching voice. We went back and reread pieces we finished to see if we used an in charge teaching voice. If we didn't, we revised a bit!

In Reader's Workshop this week we continued to develop our understanding of plot, retelling, partner work/expectations, all with a focus on the importance of paying attention to the clues the author gives us about characters so that we can get to know them better. We also talked about how important it is for us to pay attention to the setting of the story. Sometimes the setting changes, and if we don't pay attention to that, it can impact our understanding of the story.

In math this week we worked really hard at solving equations with unknown partners! This can be a bit tricky! We also worked on writing our own unknown partner stories. Again, TRICKY! For one of our lessons, we solved missing partner pancake stories. How fun it was for a couple of our first grade friends to see their second grade friends on our slides - especially Willy whose second friend Willy (yes, the same name!) moved to Japan! 

We learned about a mom named Kayla who is a veteran (ask your first grader what a veteran is) in our latest issue of Scholastic News. We also used a letter to a veteran as one of our morning messages this week. There were many mistakes that we needed to fix up! What great editors we are getting to be! 

Mrs. Geinopolos joined us on Friday to discuss PEER PRESSURE. Ask your first grader to tell you all about it!

One of our morning seatwork activities is practice with reading the poems in our poetry folders as well as practicing our word wall words. This is one way to improve our fluency. Here's one of our friends busy at work: 

In science this week we talked about how, just like there are wind flags to estimate wind speed and thermometers to measure
temperature, there are also rain gauges to measure rainfall. Next we created rain gauges which were simply plastic cups with straight sides and a scale attached to the outside. Our scale is based on unifix cubes. This way we'll be able to read the measurement on the same container in which it rains! We practiced reading our rain gauges when Mrs. Mullen pretended to be a rain cloud and poured water into our cups! 

After that, we took our rain gauges outside in the courtyard so we can begin collecting rain. We had a teachable moment when we saw a rain barrel out there. Everyone was curious about what it was!

One of our friends having a good look at our rain gauges. We hope the tiles and rock will keep our basket in place! It sure has been windy outside!

For the second part of our lesson, Mrs. Mullen showed us some water she has been collecting at home during the past week in her own rain gauge! We talked about what we thought happened to puddles; where does the rainwater go? We thought it would be fun to see if we can find out! We used Mrs. Mullen's rainwater as well as the water in our rain gauges and poured it into a pie tin then added food coloring so we could have a good look at the water. We recorded our steps in our Puddle Books. Next, we made predictions about what our puddles will look like on Monday. We'll record our data next week!

Each team has a puddle. Which one belongs to your first grader's team? Ask your first grader to predict what will happen to their puddle.



Finally, we read a story about a 5-year old who invented a new kind of umbrella! Ask your first grader to tell you what the problem was that lead to the invention and what the solution was.
I encouraged your scientists to give this some thought this weekend: If you could invent a new kind of umbrella, what would it look like? Perhaps some of our friends will draw their invention or even make a prototype! Then they could even write a How-To piece next week to teach someone how to make their umbrella invention!

Some of us were surprised with some notes in our backpacks on Friday afternoon. We had no idea who they were from - another mystery for us to solve. We also wondered why only some of us received a note and not others. Perhaps we could share our happiness with someone who wasn't so happy! We soon discovered that it was Mrs. Clement's second graders who left us the notes! Here's a video they shared with us as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwelE8yyY0U
We hope you might be inspired to share a kindness with someone else as well. Kindness is contagious - pass it on!

Next Week's Word Wall Words: 
here   how   if   will   too

Until next time!
Michelle


Mark Your Calendars:
Please help support our annual Food Drive! 
It runs from November 9-20

November 24th: Music Performance

November 25th: Early Release Day

November 26th & 27th:

Thanksgiving Holiday

December 9th: Early Release Day

December 23rd-January 3rd: Winter Break