What better way to end our week than with Pajama Day! We earned this special event by transitioning quickly and by working to support our peers and learners and ourselves - in other words, on task! Each time we were able to meet these expectations as an entire group, we received a letter in PAJAMA PARTY. We've been stopping to talk a bit here and there about the messages we are sending to others when we are not listening, talking when others are talking or speaking very loudly when others around are trying to concentrate. Looking at these lapses in the Stormonth Way in this way, how others are perceiving me or how others think I think about them, has been very powerful. Here we are celebrating PAJAMA DAY! Here we all are - in our PJs and proud! Our vowel focus this week was short and long i. We looked at short i and long i words made with the silent -e pattern. One of the fun activities we did to support this learning was to first sort a list of words with short i/long i words, match up the short i/long i partners (i.e. cap/cape), then write all of short i words with Skittles for the dot on each i! This was a yummy and fun way to learn!
In Reader's Workshop this week we began our nonfiction mini-unit. We began by doing a bit of exploring in our own classroom library and in bins of nonfiction books from our school library. We each looked for some topics that we were interested in learning more about then wrote them down. That way I now have an idea of what we need more of in our nonfiction collection and can hand-pick some just for them! 
Our science this week was about different types of clouds and how by observing them, we can anticipate the coming weather. We learned in Reader's Workshop about how readers put on the brakes before reading a nonfiction book. They stop to think about what they already know about the topic and what they would be interested to learn about the topic. We then used this knowledge to create a KWL chart with The Cloud Book by Tomie DePaola.
We'll be using Lilian Hoban and James Howe (Pinky & Rex series) as
our mentor authors for this unit.
We are nearing the end of our current math unit. This past week we spent a lot of time solving subtraction stories with various unknowns. We also spent some time discussing what the = symbol means. Ask your first grader to explain to you what it means. They should be able to tell you that it means that what is on one side of the symbol is the same amount as what is on the other.
We also looked at fact families and discovered that we could write four equations for our three math mountain numbers!Friday brought our December poem and enjoying chicken soup with rice! I had to microwave our gluten-free option and keep it warm for a bit in our room, so I put the bowl carefully into a gallon ziplock bag. Well, learning is everywhere! Here is what happened inside that bag:
Ask your first grader how this demonstrated the water cycle which we discussed in science last week!
Our countdown to winter break is on! We're counting down the last 12 days. Each day we draw a name out of our name bucket. Who ever is selected gets to take home that day's candy cane. YES, we do have school on Friday the 19th! Our last candy cane lets us know that there is ONE day left!
This past week we began collecting mittens for our Mitten Tree service project for COA Youth and Family Centers. Thanks to everyone who has already made a donation!
Mark Your Calendars:
Monday, December 8th: Progress Reports come home
Wednesday, December 10th: Early Release
Thursday, December 18th: Share Your Talent Day in Music Class
Saturday, December 20th: Winter Break Begins
Monday, January 5th: School Resumes
Wednesday, January 14th: Early Release
Monday, January 19th: NO SCHOOL/Professional Development Day for Staff
February 11, 12 & 16: Parent Teacher Conferences (NO SCHOOL on 2/16)
Thanks for stopping by!
Michelle
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