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

Saturday, October 1, 2016

September 26-30

Hello families!

Our week began with a fun-filled and informative trip to the Retzer Nature Center and Planetarium in Waukesha. We enjoyed our program in the planetarium about the nighttime sky, our time listening to Lois Ehlert's book Leaf Man, and our nature walk!

On Friday, we used the materials we collected on our nature hike to create faces. We had a look at the work of Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo to inspire our creations!

We were delighted to find some insects hiding in our organic matter!

Look at all of our amazing creations! These will be in our hallway above our coat hooks, so you'll be able to see them in person during conferences later this month.

During Readers' Workshop this week, we added to our "Readers Build Good Habits" anchor chart as well as to our "Reading Partners Work Together" chart. We spent much of our time learning about how readers keep track of their reading volume with reading mats. Ask your reader about the STOP and GO sides of his/her mat and how s/he uses the mat to keep track of his/her reading. We also set goals for our reading each day with a continued focus on squeezing in reading time throughout our day. We know that the more we read, the better we get!

First grade readers learned that if we sound bumpy or boring when we read, we need to reread to smooth out our voices.

Ask your reader about his/her goal and how s/he is doing toward meeting that goal each day. What is helping him/her to reach or surpass that goal? What is not helpful?

Please be sure your reader is keeping track of the reading s/he is doing at home each evening. Book Briefcases should be returned to school on a daily basis. Thank you!

Word Rings are GREAT to read during Read to Self time!

Poems that we've learned are great to read as well. These are extremely helpful in developing our fluency!

After a book is read, we DO SOMETHING. Ask your reader to tell you what s/he might do AFTER reading a book (reread the whole book, reread their favorite part, retell). Next we record the title on our Reading Log and add a tally mark.

In Math Workshop this week, we began our Math Expressions curriculum. We're looking at the numbers 1-10, with a focus on five groups. We used stair steps and number cards as tools to help develop and extend our understanding. Everyone was so excited to finally get their math workbooks! We also added math to our morning routines with our math routines. On Friday, our activity was Ten Frame Flash. You can have your child practice it at this website: https://www.schooltube.com/video/1227af5819814d82ab3d/Ten%20Frame%20Flash%20Game%20(1-10)

Exploring Stair Steps.

Mrs. French joined us for Guidance on Wednesday and will continue to join us every other Wednesday throughout the year. We learned about bucket filling. Ask your first grader about what this means and what s/he does to fill others' buckets and how others fill theirs.

In Writers' Workshop this week, we continued to bring our stories to life. We learned that we can touch the characters in our sketches and make them talk by imagining what they were really saying during that small moment. We also learned that writers tell their stories in small steps, bit by bit!

We used George McClement's book Night of the Veggie Monster, looking very closely at how he told his story bit by bit. Ask your first grader to tell you how he did this!

On Friday, Stormonth School welcomed our local police officers for a Thank a Police Officer assembly. It was a beautiful and touching assembly, and I could see that the officers' buckets were filled to the brim!

Introducing this week's Kings and Queens:

Thanks so much for the book orders that came in! I was able to use my earned bonus points to get new bathroom passes, books/CDs for our Listening Station, a Ten Frame math game, and loads of books both for our classroom library and for read-aloud and shared reading experiences! I appreciate this support not only of our classroom but also of your reader!

Books galore purchased with Scholastic Book Club bonus points - THANK YOU!

Next week is our Scholastic Book Fair here at Stormonth, and I hope you'll take advantage of this other great opportunity to share the joy and love of reading with your first grader!

Until then...

Michelle

Mark your calendars!

Monday, October 3: NO SCHOOL

Coins due for "Reading Makes Cents." The PTO has decided to extend the collection date! Please send in loose change so that we can purchase books for schools in need. Thank you!

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

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!