We've embarked on one of my favorite units of study - poetry! I absolutely LOVE how first graders just seem to come by poetry so naturally, and what they create leaves me with chills on a daily basis! I can't wait for you to see the anthology we create with each child's selected poem in it - you'll understand my enthusiasm. What has been really powerful this go round with poetry is featuring my former students as our mentor poets! Just the other day they were introduced to second grader Jack who wrote a poem about his loose tooth. The kids were awe-struck! A couple days prior a third grader, Bryce, walked by our classroom, and when I said, "Hi, Bryce!" some of the kiddos said, wide-eyed, "Is that BRYCE?!" Yes, we have famous poets all over Stormonth!
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| Some items from nature in our Poetry Museum. |
Our Reader's and Writer's workshop lessons have been tying in with each other to make this unit a very powerful one. Thus far, we've focused on line breaks, amazing words, the power of patterns and finding poems hidden in everyday things. We began our unit of study with each writer receiving a small shell to write some ideas about. I then took all of those ideas and created a group poem with them. Our writers then began selecting items froim our "Poetry Museum." Ask your child what s/he has written poems about so far. Our "Piles of Poetry" bins have been making their way around to each group during Reader's Workshop, and the kiddos have been very engaged with poem after poem after poem!
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| Sharing a poem with partners. |
Here we are playing with line breaks. Each group decided on a different way to break up a single line of poetry about wind.
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| This group tried the line breaks this way first... |
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| then decided a slight change was needed. |
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| This group decided word placement on the paper was important as well. Their pattern and line breaks mimicked the sound of the wind flowing between and around the trees. |
In math we completed unit 5 and began our new unit which is focused on organizing, representing and interpreting data.
Our science lesson this week focused on Separating Mixtures of Colors. At the beginning of the lesson, we talked about times when we've mixed colors and what happened. For the lesson we looked at that process, but the other way around. We took a single color and separated out the colors it was made from. Have a look!
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| Ask your first grade scientist what colors they found in green ink. |
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| What colors did they discover in the black ink? Which had more colors - the green ink or the black ink? Why? |
The Irish Dancers from Beglan joined us on Wednesday, and our very own REX was one of the dancers! We're so proud of him! It was an amazing show!
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| Our resident Irish Dancer Rex telling us all about Irish Dancing! |
On Friday, we attended second grade's Character Fashion Show. We're looking forward to being part of this second grade tradition next year!
Beautiful weather this past Tuesday brought us outside for a little extra recess time!
I read this article over the weekend and thought you might find it worthwhile as well. It's about raising kind kids:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2014/07/18/are-you-raising-nice-kids-a-harvard-psychologist-gives-5-ways-to-raise-them-to-be-kind/?postshare=6591457837140920&tid=ss_mail
Report cards will come home on Monday. Please remember that these report cards are standards-based. In other words, they aren't based on a point in time but rather on end-of-the-year expectations. Having a D (developing) at this point in the year is common as we have not yet taught all of the first grade curriculum. A D indicates that a child is on track to meet end-of-year expectations. As always, if there are questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Until next time...
Michelle
Mark Your Calendars:
***Please make note of the new event: FAMILY PICNIC on June 2nd.
March 14: Report cards come home
March 23rd: Cinderella production will be streamed into our classroom at 2pm
March 25-April 3rd: Spring Break
April 13: Early Release Day
April 19: Schlitz Audubon 11:45-2pm
April 22: No School for Students
April 27: Early Release Day
May 11: Early Release Day
May 25: Early Release Day
May 30: No School
***June 2: FAMILY PICNIC!
Tentative time frame is 11:30-1pm
June 9: Last day of first grade
Mark Your Calendars:
***Please make note of the new event: FAMILY PICNIC on June 2nd.
March 14: Report cards come home
March 23rd: Cinderella production will be streamed into our classroom at 2pm
March 25-April 3rd: Spring Break
April 13: Early Release Day
April 19: Schlitz Audubon 11:45-2pm
April 22: No School for Students
April 27: Early Release Day
May 11: Early Release Day
May 25: Early Release Day
May 30: No School
***June 2: FAMILY PICNIC!
Tentative time frame is 11:30-1pm
June 9: Last day of first grade
Loved looking at all these wonderful pictures & happy faces. Way to go Rex! Thanks for sharing the great parenting article. xx, The McGregors
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