Here's a sneak peek at our week:
We came in to quite a surprise on Monday morning: the Clean Desk Fairy paid us a visit over the weekend! About 8 of our friends received a special note and treat because their desks were so very neat!
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| Thank you Desk Fairy! |
In Writers' Workshop we put the finishing touches on our final small moment pieces. This included using editing checklists to check each page.
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| Editors used their red pens to fix up spacing, spelling, punctuation and capital letters on each page. We had to look VERY carefully! That's Mr. Spaceman there - he helps us to know if there's enough space between our words so that others can read our work. |
We each decided on a title for our book and designed a cover. Next, we had our Gallery Walk. This time we each had a feedback sheet with our work so that other writers could leave us feedback about our story.
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| We placed our stories in the frames we created, then we put our feedback sheets next to our stories. |
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| After that, we read each other's stories... |
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| ...and commented on them! |
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| Many of our friends left some very specific feedback about what authors had done well. These comments were so fun for me to read, and I was SUPER impressed! |
We also completed our How To writing pre-assessment in order to help me guide my instruction for this upcoming mini-unit. After our gallery walk, we wrote a shared writing piece where we explained step by step How to Do a Gallery Walk. The kiddos were so excited to know that they're my first 1st graders to do this, and that it will be shared with next year's first grade authors! Now that's a very purposeful reason for writing! Here is our shared How To piece:
How to do a Gallery Walk
Written by Mrs. Mullen’s First Graders
October 2016
Materials:
Pen
Frame
Story
Feedback Sheet
First you need a pen.
Next, put your frame on your desk.
Then put your story in the middle of the frame.
Put your name on your feedback sheet and put the sheet next to your frame. Don’t put the feedback sheet on top of your story!
Now you are ready for the Gallery Walk! Here’s what you do:
Step 1: Read someone’s book.
Step 2: Think about what the writer did well.
Step 3: Write a note to the writer.
Step 4: Write your name.
Step 5: Now you’re ready to read another author’s work!
In Word Work this week, we focused on our five new word wall words: you, am, an, no, can
We did an am/an sort and challenged ourselves by building other words with am and an in them.
Next week, most of us will work on our next five word wall words:
went
are
this
look
for
Setting: Where did the story take place?
Characters: Who was the story about? What were their names?
Problem: What went wrong in the story?
Beginning: What events kicked off the story? How did the story start?
Next: Describe details about the story. What happened next?
Then: Describe details in the story. What happened next?
Finally: How did the story end? What event happened last?
Solution: How was the problem solved?
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After reading Knuffle Bunny Too and Knuffle Bunny Free by Mo Willems, we retold them while following the "Yellow Brick Road!"   We also read Olivier Dunrea's very funny book Boo Boo. Ask your first grader to retell this story following the Yellow Brick Road!  Guided Reading groups are in full swing. Here are some of our readers reading with their "whispermaphones!"   During Math Workshop, we continue to use the strategy of counting on from the bigger number to solve addition story problems. Your first grader should be able to determine the larger number, say it, then count on from it to find the total in an addition equation. They should also know what an equation is and if an equation is true or not true.   |
Our Star of the Week shared her poster and her talent: the violin!
Thursday was Chicken Soup with Rice day!
Friday was a day full of excitement! In the morning we followed a How To piece which taught us how to draw a scarecrow. We then outlined our scarecrow with sharpie, drew in yellow straw hair with a crayon, and finally water colored it!
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| Aren't they wonderful! They're all so unique - just like all of our friends! |
We also read 
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We stopped a bit through the book to estimate how many seeds were in our class pumpkin. Then we wrote our estimations on a post-it and added them to our chart. We then brainstormed as a group different ways we could count the seeds. From the looks of it, there were A LOT, so we needed to come up with a really good solution. Here's what we decided:
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| We created groups of 10! |
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| We decided it was very important to circle each group so that they wouldn't get mixed up. |
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| Some friends decided to label their group, too! |
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| After we organized them into groups, we each told how many groups we had while we crossed them off. Mrs. Mullen made a tally for each group, then we counted our tallies by 10! Would you believe we didn't have any extra ones? |
In the afternoon we got into our costumes and enjoyed our celebration rotations:
At the end of the day, it was time for the costume parade, and oh what fun it was! Thanks so much to everyone who was able to donate items for our celebration and to our celebration helpers. We couldn't have done it without you!
Next week, November will be upon us. Time sure does fly!
Until then...
Michelle Mullen
Star of the Week Schedule
Athena – October 31st – November 4th
Ben – November 7th-11th
Lexi – November 14th- 18th
David - November 28- December 2nd
Madelyn – December 5th-9th
Cameron - December 12th-16th
Giselle - January 9th-13th
Oscar – January 23rd - 27th
Alex P. – January 30th- February 3rd
Evy – February 6th -10th
Josh – February 13th-17th
Eleonore – February 27th- March 3rd
Darius – March 6th-10th
Alex M. – March 13th-17th
Brayden – March 20th-24th
Mark Your Calendars!
Tuesday, November 8th: Picture Retake Day
Tuesday, November 22: Music Concert (Last Names A-M at 10am/Last Names N-Z at 2pm)
Wednesday, November 23: Early Release Day
Monday, December 5: Report Cards Come Home
Wednesday, December 14: Early Release Day
Friday, December 23-Monday, January 2: Winter Break
Wednesday, January 11: Early Release Day
Monday, January 16: NO SCHOOL
Wednesday, February 8: Early Release Day
Monday, February 20: NO SCHOOL/Teacher In-Service Day
Wednesday, March 8: Early Release Day
Wednesday, March 22: Early Release Day
Thursday, March 23: Musical (2pm & 6:30pm)
Monday, March 27-Friday, March 31: Spring Break
Wednesday, April 12: Early Release Day
Friday, April 14: NO SCHOOL
Monday, April 17: NO SCHOOL/Teacher In-Service
Wednesday, April 26: Early Release Day
Wednesday, May 10: Early Release Day
Wednesday, May 24: Early release Day
Monday, May 29: NO SCHOOL
Thursday, June 8: Last day of First Grade!
See you later, Second Grader!
