March 9-13

Hello First Grade Families!
This past week Stormonth hosted another Scholastic Book Fair. It was great to hear about how many of our students were able to attend and purchase new books! Thank you so much to everyone who was able to donate coins. Stormonth raised over $2,000! This, along with the very generous gift certificates I received, allowed me to purchase a great collection of new fiction and nonfiction books for our classroom library. Here they are:

During Writer's Workshop this week we continued to work on our persuasive writing pieces.

After seeing the Ivy and Bean musical on Monday, we each wrote a review of it. Everyone did a terrific job using what they know about opinion writing to write top-notch reviews of the show! Here's one of our reviewers busy at work: 

This week we also selected our best review to share in small groups of writers who wrote a similar review. Here we are sharing our reviews and giving each other feedback based on what we noticed each writer did to convince their reader:

                                                      

During guidance this week we learned about the Peace Bridge. The Peace Bridge is a tool on our playground that we can use to help solve problems. Ask your first grader to tell you about some of the steps on the Peace Bridge. Here we are practicing:

We were not only lucky to have the Irish Dancers come and perform for us, but we have one of the dancers right in our classroom! She demonstrated her skills for us the day after the performance! 

One of our lessons in math this week found us working in small groups to devise and use a systematic way to count large quantities of objects. We discovered that we could count the objects much faster and more accurately when we put them into groups of tens and left-over ones. Here is one of our small groups working together: 

In science we separated ink into its component colors. We discovered that some mixtures (marker colors) contain "hidden" substances that are revealed only when the mixture is separated. We used black and green ink, a water dropper and a coffee filter to separate these inks into their component colors. Ask your first grader to tell you what happened!

 

In Reader's Workshop we continue to add to our growing list of strategies we can use when we come to tricky words always with our focus being on comprehension. Hopefully you're seeing your first grader using these strategies when s/he is reading to you at home.  

Thanks for stopping by the blog to read about another fun week in first grade!

Michelle Mullen 

Mark Your Calendars:

March 28: Spring break begins

April 6: First day back

April 7: Referendum VOTE. Please check the district website tab titled 

Referendum Update for more information about the referendum. 

April 15: Early Release

April 29: Early Release

May 13: Early Release

May 25: Memorial Day holiday

May 27: Early Release

May 28: Schlitz Audubon field trip

June 10: Tentative date for first grade's "Show & Share" family picnic

June 12: Last day of first grade

March 2-6

Hello First Grade Families!
What a wonderful week we had really stretching ourselves and learners and as teachers to our peers! Here's what we were up to:

During Writer's Workshop we continued to work with our reviews. Our focus this past week was on revisiting introductions...

 and learning about catchy conclusions! 

On Tuesday we spent time focusing closely on capitalization and punctuation. As our first graders have more and more to say, it seems that those basic conventions get a bit lost in the process. Because this is an end-of-year first grade expectation, this will be an ongoing focus for the rest of the year. Here are a couple of our writing partners editing a review written by one of my first graders from last year. They are checking very carefully for missing punctuation and capital letters as well as capital letters where they don't belong. For this editing, we use our special editing pencils!

I encourage you to include writing in your child's weekly homework diet. Writing just a few sentences about the best or worst part of his/her day would offer some great opportunities to practice these skills as well as serve as a conversation starter between you and your child. With this activity, they won't be able to just respond with "nothing" when you ask them what they did in school!

Wednesday was a pretty exciting day during writing workshop. We worked with our partners to give each other writing checkups! I likened this to a trip to the doctor for a physical. After some discussion of this analogy, we worked together to give one of my reviews a writing checkup. After that, the kiddos gave each other writing checkups, letting their "patients" know what they did well and offering our kind suggestions for what they could work on next. We even signed our name Dr. _____________. They really enjoyed this! 

                                      Here is Dr. Art writing a prescription for his patient.

During Reader's Workshop this past week we spent a good deal of time with comprehension strategies. Some of our teaching points were:

* Readers think about what is happening in the story and 

what might happen next before they start to read a page or part.

* Readers pay attention to the setting , using pictures and 

words to watch for where the story is taking place.

We also learned another accuracy strategy...

* Readers think about the kind of word when they come to a tricky word.

and an expanding vocabulary strategy...

* Readers are on the look out for new words to learn. 

With this strategy, we didn't just focus on figuring out what the word means and moving on. Instead, we talked about how it's important for us to understand the word well enough that we could explain it to someone else. In addition, we talked about knowing it so well that we begin to USE that word when we talk and write! One of our examples was the word "clustered." I hope some of you will hear your first grader using this word!

In math this week we focused on creating and solving teen story problems using both addition and subtraction. The unknown was in various places in these problems. We had to determine if it was an unknown total or an unknown partner. Here we are working with small groups and showing our group members what strategies we used to come up with our solutions: 

And here is one of our friend's solutions:

In science this week we worked with sugar grains again. This time we completed an experiment to see if the temperature of the water would have an effect on how quickly the sugar grains dissolved. Ask your first grader to tell you what happened in his/her experiment.

Finally, we ended our week with Maurice Sendak's poem "March" from his book Chicken Soup with Rice and, of course, enjoyed eating chicken soup with rice together. It was a perfect tummy-warmer for such a chilly day!

Just a reminder: Monday is our trip to see Ivy and Bean. We will eat early in our classrooms that day, and it would really expedite the process if the children brought a lunch to school.  While this is not necessary, it would be very helpful. Feel free to choose hot lunch though. We will be out of the building from 11:05-2:00 pm that day. 

Thank you so much for all of the coins, dollars and checks that were sent in this week! We'll keep our fingers crossed that we win an ice cream party! If not though, this money will still go toward new books for our classroom library, and what could be better than that?!

Thanks for stopping by our blog!

Michelle Mullen

Mark your calendars:

 March 9: Ivy and Bean play at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center   

March 10: Book Fair/Cake Walk Event

          March 28: Spring Break begins      

February 23-27

Hello Families!  
I can hardly believe that we are finished with February! This is when the school year really begins to zoom by! Here is a sneak peek at what we've been up to in first grade and what's coming up:

The Spring Book Fair is coming! The fair is Tuesday, March 10th from 3pm-8pm in the Stormonth cafeteria. The Cake Walk will be held in the gym the same evening from 6-7pm. On March 2nd we'll begin a school-wide "Coin War!" It is a wonderful opportunity for kids to give a small donation to help us purchase additional books for our school. Donations can be brought in from March 2 - March 6. The classroom with the most donations will win an ice cream party!

Stormonth will be focusing on the Stormonth Way in the hallway as we have noticed that a lot of our friends (teachers even!) have been forgetting our "0" voices in the hall rule. This means that we should not be talking in our hallways. Ask your first grader why this is important. Our PBIS team came up with an acknowledgement for this expectation: the GOLDEN HALL PASS! One classroom from each grade level will receive the pass each week for demonstrating The Stormonth Way in our hallways. We would appreciate it if you would remind your first grader of the expectations. A problem time during our day is right after lunch before heading to recess, so if you would specifically focus the conversation around that time, it would be MUCH appreciated!

Our Jump Rope for Heart to benefit the American Heart Association was held this week, and what fun it was! Our specialists put together a fun-filled and health-filled 45 minutes during our special time. Mrs. Grimm-Nilsen even joined in on the fun! Thank you to everyone who participated in raising money for this wonderful event!

In math this week, we continued to work with solving and creating teen story problems. We did this with the unknown in various locations in our stories. Here are some examples of stories and the strategies we used to solve them.

I encourage you to spend time each day having your child practice his/her fact fluency. Again, there are numerous apps for you to practice this in a fun and engaging way.

On Friday we had the pleasure of attending 2nd grade's Character Fashion Show! What a fun time it was! We were given clues as to who the character was and then called out our guesses. We have done so much reading this year that we were pretty good at figuring out who our second graders were dressed as. They did a terrific job, and it was fun for us to imagine who we might dress up as next February!

 

 

 

Our first grade scientists discovered that the salt we thought had disappeared last week was actually still in the water even though we could no longer see it! After a week of evaporating, beautiful salt crystals were left behind! They were much bigger than the crystals we observed last week! Some of the crystals even had an "X" right in the center of them. It was pretty spectacular - almost like looking at snowflakes!

For this week's experiment, we observed sugar grains and sugar cubes and recorded our observations. We then had a dissolving race! Ask your first grader what they discovered!

 

In preparation for our upcoming field trip to the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center, we read Ivy & Bean. What a great story! The author, Annie Barrows, really helped us get to know Ivy and Bean. Ask your first grader to tell you what kind of a person each girl is and what these characters did/said in the story that supports their response. We can't wait to see Ivy & Bean on the stage! We're especially curious to see if Bean will throw real live worms in Nancy's face!

 We continue our tricky words unit during reader's workshop, and our chart of strategies grows and grows! We have so many strategies from which to choose, and it has been great having our readers share their strategies with the whole class and with their partners! Again, with all these strategies we always ask ourselves: Does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense? When I got to the end of one of our read-alouds this week, I realized I was a bit unsure as to which character was which at the  end of the story. Instead of just choosing a new book next, I knew that I had to go back and read the book again and really pay attention to the characters as well as each part of the story as I read. The first graders helped me along, and after the second read I could demonstrate my understanding, and it made the book so much more enjoyable!

During writer's workshop this week we continued to work on our reviews. I have noticed that revising has taken center stage with our writers. They have really grown in this area! Instead of ending a piece and saying, "OK, that one's done," they are going back to old pieces each time we learn a new strategy that review writers use to convince their readers and adding them! It's so fun to see! 

That was our busy, busy week!

Mark your calendars:

March 2: First graders will be celebrating Dr. Seuss' Birthday and Read Across America by wearing red and white and  bringing in their favorite book and a stuffed animal.    

     March 9: Ivy and Bean play at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center   

March 10: Book Fair/Cake Walk Event

          March 28: Spring Break begins      

Thank you for stopping by the blog!

Michelle Mullen

February 17-20

Hello First Grade Families!
Here's a sneak peek at this past week...

During Writer's Workshop we continued on with our opinion writing and even assisted our writing partners in selecting their best piece of opinion writing about their collections! Partners awarded each other a first place ribbon and told them all the reasons why they thought that particular piece was the best one.

Now we are busy at work on review writing! Thank you so much for compiling a list of review possibilities. The kiddos have taken to this writing right away and are hard at work convincing their readers! One of our friends is convincing her readers not to go to McDonald's because the only thing healthy there is the water, while another is convincing his reader that they should download the Minecraft app. Many of our writers are talking right to the reader by asking questions right at the beginning...

"Do you like to have fun? Do you like to roller skate? Then you should head right out to Ozaukee Skateland!" 

In Reader's Workshop, we are continuing our focus on strategies we can use when we come to tricky words. This week we talked about reading across a word part by part, flipping the vowel sound, trying other sounds for the letters, and thinking about what is happening in the story. With all of these strategies we are sure to be sure that it not only looks right and sounds right, but that it makes sense. Comprehension should always be the focus!

In math we played 2-digit addition games, then prepared ourselves for our unit 4 assessment on Thursday. On Monday we'll begin unit 5. In this unit first graders will use tens and ones to add, subtract, and solve story problems to find teen totals and unknown partners. They will continue to add with tens and also learn to subtract with tens and add three numbers. I strongly encourage you to have your child practice his/her addition and subtraction math facts within 10 daily. There are many great apps that you can download for free to help your child become fluent with his/her facts. We did another fact fluency check this past week. This particular assessment had the unknown in various positions. This was a bit trickier for some. Be sure to include these types of problems when practicing at home. Examples: 4+__=7

                         ___ = 8+1

We learned about Abraham Lincoln and about Chinese New Year through our Scholastic News magazines. We found a lot of root words in our "All Aboard, Abe!" issue and highlighted them in a separate activity. This was one of our reading strategies from last week, so we were really able to put it to practice!

On Tuesday we spent a lot of time discussing bullying: what it looks like, how we can help someone who is being bullied, what to do if we see or hear about someone being bullied, and what to do if we are bullying others. I hope you were able to discuss the bullying pamphlet that came home with your child. 

In art class, first graders painted their snakes. Aren't they fantastic?!

In science we separated our solid/liquid mixtures. We discovered that we could separate the gravel and the kleenex from the water, however, we still didn't see our salt. Now we have our salt/water mixture in in petri dishes. I think the kiddos are going to be very excited when they see those petri dishes in the morning! 

Mark your calendars: 

February 26: Jump Rope for Heart event during PE classes

March 2: First graders will be celebrating Dr. Seuss' Birthday and Read Across America by wearing red and white and  bringing in their favorite book and a stuffed animal.    

     March 9: Ivy and Bean play at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center   

March 10: Book Fair/Cake Walk Event

          March 28: Spring Break begins