Having a HOOT in Mrs. Mullen's First Grade!: September 2016

Sunday, September 25, 2016

September 19-23

Hello Families!
It was another full week in first grade! Here's what we were up to:

In Writers' Workshop we learned about ways to spell words, we asked questions to add more to our small moment stories, we found out that writers need lots of things including a partner, we read our writing like we read books, and we participated in a Writer's Gallery!

We tell our story to our partner...

then our partner pictures our story and asks questions like:
Who...? What...? Where...? When...? How...? Why...? Then we tell our story again, saying more!

We each designed a frame for our work of "heart"- our first published small moment story!

Unique frames for unique small moment stories.

Our gallery was ready for our Gallery Walk!

Enjoying each other's small moment books.

Looking closely at what other authors do helps us to grow as writers. The author of this particular piece was mentioned in our gallery talk afterwards for adding action to her story both in the words and in the illustrations!

Without prompting from me, many of our writers wanted to talk with other writers about their work.

During Reader's Workshop, we continue to build our reading stamina, and we're doing a terrific job! On Friday we talked about making a plan for that time by creating a stack of books we plan to read.

Next week, we'll create our very own reading mats to help us manage this process. We'll also begin keeping track of what we're reading - a great visual reminder for us that readers READ MORE AND MORE! We know that just like with anything else, readers need to practice - A LOT - to get better! And it's SO important that we're reading JUST RIGHT books. Check in with your first grader about s/he knows if a book is just right. You should hear things like:
I can read all/most of the words.
I'm interested in the book/topic.
*I understand what I read.

*That last one is SUPER IMPORTANT and something that I put at the forefront of understanding what a just right book is. Sometimes kiddos can read the words without a problem, but when it comes to comprehension, they struggle. This will be a topic I'll touch on throughout the year with you and with your readers.

We also spent time with this week's Scholastic News issue "Fuzzy Friends." I hope you're finding time at home to talk with your first grader about their Scholastic News magazines. There is an online component as well that you can access at:

www.scholastic.com/sn2

Password: havingahoot1

Favorite Reading Memories were our topic of discussion on Monday, and we each created a page of our own favorite memory for our class book. Your first graders are really identifying themselves as readers - even our friends who came to first grade saying that they weren't readers/didn't know how to read. It makes my heart sing! During the week we added to our Readers Build Good Habits anchor chart, and we'll continue to add to it over the course of our current unit.

During Math Workshop, our rotations continued, however, this week we added in Chromebooks as one of our rotations. Our mathematicians are spending time on Dreambox during that time which is approximately 15 minutes. We continued to practice playing math games independently in small groups but needed to put the brakes on on Tuesday to create an anchor chart of expectations during Math Workshop. We found that our voice levels were too high for students to do their jobs and for me to do my job. We also found that we needed to backtrack as well with "Partnership Principles." Our Friday workshop time was much more successful after this discussion and very explicit reteaching of the expectations. Phew! During that day's workshop we learned two new games: Bump +1 and Bump +2. Your mathematicians LOVE these Bump games!

It was an exciting afternoon on Thursday! We had our first round of Chicken Soup with Rice, and it was a HUGE hit! Some funny things I heard while our friends were sipping soup:
"The words sound bad, but it tastes good!"
"I could eat a WHOLE GALLON!"
"I'm so full, but I want to eat more!"
"How did you make this, Mrs. Mullen?!"
"I don't like rice, but I like it in here!"

Hmmm... might be time to try some new foods at home, too!

Each month we'll read and practice a new poem together while sipping chicken soup with rice!

We also watch a quick video of Carole King's song Chicken Soup with Rice!

Mmmmm... mmmm... good!

Almost all of our friends gave it a thumbs up!

Here are this week's Kings and Queens:

See you next time on the blog!

Michelle

Mark Your Calendars!

Monday, September 26: Retzer Planetarium & Nature Center 9:30am-1:45pm (we will board buses at 9:15am) Please remember to send a disposable lunch if your child is not purchasing a school bag lunch. Thank you!

Wednesday, September 28: Early Release Day

Thursday, September 29: Birthday Bunch (August & September birthdays celebrated with the first grade teachers!)

Friday, September 20: Thank a police officer assembly PLEASE WEAR STORMONTH SPIRIT WEAR OR BLUE & WHITE

Monday, October 3: NO SCHOOL

Wednesday, October 5: Picture Day at 11:00am

Early Release

Thursday, October 6: Book Fair Preview at 9:00am

Wednesday, October 12: NO SCHOOL

Thursday, October 20: Conferences 4:30-8:00pm

Friday, October 21: Monster Bash

Wednesday, October 26: Early Release

Conferences: 3-6:30pm

Thursday, October 27: Conferences 4:30-8:00pm

Tuesday, November 22: Music Concert (Last Names A-M at 10am/Last Names N-Z at 2pm)

Wednesday, November 23: Early Release Day

Friday, September 16, 2016

September 12-16

Our favorite books
Readers have books they LOVE and read again and again!

Hello Families!
We made it through our first full week together, settling in a bit more to our routines and learning across our days. Here's what we were up to:

In Writer's Workshop we began our narrative writing unit of study. We're writing small moments - true stories from our lives that have already happened. We learned a song to help us remember how to plan for our small moment stories. Ask your writer to sing it to you:

Think, think, think!

Touch and tell!

Sketch and write!

(to the tune of Shake, shake, shake!)

We learned that we can reread our stories and ask questions about it to help us add more to our stories. We can also use our illustrations to help us add more. On Friday, we learned different ways to help us to spell tricky words including saying the word slowly and sliding our finger along the paper to listen for all the sounds, using our alphabet and blend charts, and using our friends' names and other words around our room.

Sharing our small moments with each other.

We showed our partners places in our small moments stories where we could add more by thinking about these questions: Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How?

In Reader's Workshop we learned about Just Right books. Ask your first grader about Mrs. Mullen's shoe collection (yes, you read that correctly!) and why some shoes were just right and some weren't. She had a book collection as well and found that two were just right but two weren't.

Mrs. Mullen filled our book bins with books that she thought might be just right for us, but we needed to decide for ourselves by asking ourselves these questions:

Ask your reader how he/she knows that a book is Just Right for him/her.

We did our best to read each of our 10 books and decided which were just right and which were not by using "IPICK." We then brought one book from each pile to our meeting space to talk about how they decided that a book was just right or not. After that we sat "EEKK" style with a partner and shared our just right books with each other. What a fun morning it was! Here we are sharing our Just Right books with reading partners:

Elbow to elbow, knee to knee, a book in the middle so we both can see!

This week during Reader's Workshop, we were also introduced to our alternative seating because "readers need a comfortable spot to read." Our new reading pillows and scoop chairs were a BIG hit! Thank you to our PTO for funding these great additions to our first grade classrooms; we are ever so grateful!

We also learned about our listening station and each team had an opportunity to practice while listening to Gingerbread Man Loose in the School.

Ask your first grader why the students left the gingerbread man behind. Who was most helpful to him?

Finally, we each shared our favorite book with our friends by telling why it is so wonderful. We then created a bookmark featuring our wonderful book! Here are two of our friends designing their bookmarks...

On Tuesday we headed to the computer lab for our first MAP reading test. We'll head back to the lab on Tuesday, September 20th for the math portion of our assessment. This is an opportunity for us to show what we know!

In Math Workshop we learned how to play Flash Facts, Making 10, and Pumpkin Bump. We were also introduced to the Chromebooks and spent some time with our personalized learning on Dreambox. Please be sure to have your child spend time at home on Dreambox as well - they LOVE it! Ask your first grader one way they learned to take care of our Chromebooks.

King and Queen of the Day continued this week. Here is a photo of part of our activities we do with our friends' names - we practice printing them, look for words in them, count the vowels and consonants and put them in a math mountain so we can sneak in a little fact practice, too!

Here are this week's Kings and Queens:

Thank you for joining us this week for our Parent Information Night! We hope that it was an informative night for you. If you have further questions/comments, please feel free to contact me! If you weren't able to attend, please review the orientation packet that was sent home. Here are some photos of some of our friends with their Magic Messages that you left for them! Oh my, did they ever LOVE discovering their messages on Wednesday morning! If you weren't able to attend, I left a message for your child - no worries!

Yellow conference forms and book orders were sent home today. Please be sure to look for these in your child's backpack over the weekend.

Next Tuesday we have our MAP assessment, and it is also our Lockdown and Evacuation. I'll be out Monday morning as my daughter has a physical therapy appointment, but Jody Lurie will be here to greet them - the kiddos will ADORE her just like I do!

Until then...

Michelle

Mark Your Calendars!

Tuesday, September 20: MAP Testing 10-11am

Lockdown/Evacuation 2:40-3:40pm

Friday, September 23: Scholastic Book Orders Due. Online orders earn us extra bonus points!

Monday, September 26: Retzer Planetarium & Nature Center 9:30am-1:45pm