November 10-14

Follow the Yellow Brick Road! Yes, that is what we've been doing during Reader's Workshop this week! This is a fun and concrete way for us to practice retelling with story elements. Our focus this week has been on PLOT. Ask your first grader to make a triangle with his/her hands and retell a story by telling the BEGINNING of the story with the rising action, the MIDDLE of the story with the PROBLEM, the falling action and the ENDING with the SOLUTION. Here is one of our friends following the Yellow Brick Road as she retold Cynthia Rylant's story The Glory Flower. 

In our book bins we each have a bookmark of the retelling road so that we can refer to it when reading independently or during partner reading.

After time spent learning each of the story elements, we put all of that knowledge together to create a retelling of Cynthia Rylant's The Kittens alongside a project where we needed to use our listening and observation skills to create one of our favorite characters... MUDGE!

In writer's workshop this week we continued to turn to authors we love to notice craft moves that they use in their writing that we'd like to try. On Monday, each partnership was given an "old favorite" to explore. They then presented the craft move that they noticed and planned to try. Here we are exploring our texts with our partners: 

Here are some examples of their presentations which they shared using our HoverCam: 

 
One of our partnerships noticed how Kevin Henkes showed that the kitten had to climb a long time by repeating "and she climbed and climbed and climbed..." After seeing this great craft move, another friend decided to include it in her story about waiting for a movie to start. She wrote "I waited and waited and waited..." Another partnership noticed how Cynthia Rylant made a list of the balloon colors instead of using and again and again (this is an important lesson for first graders who tend to want to connect their sentences with and!). We then recalled that this is one of the expectations on our writing checklist (separating items in a series with a comma), so this was another great lesson for our friends!

In math we continued to work with unknown partners. We are really solidifying our understanding of the connection between addition and subtraction! I'm noticing that many of our friends are beginning to devleop fluency with their facts to 10! Math games at home to support fact fluency is highly recommended. You can find apps online such as "Ten Frame Fill" or even try the following: take a handful of ten coins, show some in one hand and hide the others. Your child tells you how many are missing!

Quiet on the set! During guidance this week the kiddos made a documentary of sorts with Mrs. Gianopolos! Each first grader told what s/he would like to be when they grow up and why. They'll see this video again when they're in fourth grade. Here is one of our friends on set... 

This week we also began our vowel unit. For the next two weeks we'll be focusing on the long and short sounds for Aa. Some of you are beginning to see strategy cards coming home with books tht say "Try the other sound." Sometimes we say "Flip the sound." This is a strategy you can use with your child at home if s/he is stuck on a word such as "bait." They may say "bat" then realize that wouldn't make sense. Instruct them to "flip the sound." 

This week's word wall words: 

there

how

if

will

too

Please be sure to visit www.spellingcity.com

Mark your calendars:

November 21: Betty Brinn Field Trip 9-Noon *A bag lunch would be appreciated on this day if at all possible. However, hot lunch/milk WILL be available.
November 25: Informance at 2pm
November 26: Half Day - Student dismissal at 12:30pm
November 27 & 28: NO SCHOOL. Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanks for stopping by!
Michelle Mullen 

November 3-7

Dear Families,
Happy November! Here's a sneak-peek at our week:
During Writer's Workshop, we turned to mentor authors to see what they do in their writing that we would like to try in our own writing. We also turned to our writing partners who are helping us to make our writing pieces the best they can be. Ask your first grader to share with you some craft moves we noticed Rachel Vail use in Sometimes I'm Bombaloo and Mo Willems use in Knuffle Bunny. Also ask your first grader what craft moves s/he tried this week and what s/he wants to try next. 
















In Reader's Workshop we began our look into story elements. We focused this week on characters (main and supporting) and setting (where and sometimes when). Ask your first grader to tell you why it was important for us to note both the where and the when of the setting in Cynthia Rylant's book Henry & Mudge in the Family Trees. 

During Partner Reading time, we were sure to discuss the setting and characters when retelling our books!

 

During Word Work time we were introduced to Making Words. We read Leo Lionni's book The Alphabet Tree which inspired us to use letters to make words. We discovered that we could create more words by focusing on word families. In this particular sort, they were the -an and -at families. 

This week we'll continue to focus on the same word wall words from last week since they were so tricky! We'll also begin our close look at vowels beginning with short and long a.

when

went

were

your

said

In math this week we finished up unit 2 with a focus on relating addition and subtraction. We also learned what a vertical form is. We also learned that it's important for us to include a category or label with our answers to number stories. 

All of this work with addition and subtraction equations is helping us become 

fluent with addition/subtraction to 10 and beyond!

Reminder:
Please keep in mind that our recess time has been extended, and the kiddos are outside for quite a bit of time. It's wise to keep hats/gloves in backpacks just in case. With the wind on Friday, it was incredibly cold out there. Thanks!

Mark Your Calendars!
November 12: Early Release Day
November 14: Picture Re-takes
November 21: Betty Brinn Field Trip 9-Noon *A bag lunch would be appreciated on this day if at all possible. However, hot lunch/milk WILL be available.
November 25: Informance at 2pm
November 26: Half Day - Student dismissal at 12:30pm
November 27 & 28: NO SCHOOL. Happy Thanksgiving!

October 27-31

Dear First Grade Families,

What a BUGGY week it was! At last week's assembly, we all learned about how we can earn BUGs for Being Unusually Good. Well, so many of our friends did just that and earned an "earned encouragement" which comes in the form of a paper ticket of sorts. One copy of the BUG goes in our classroom bug jar, and the other copy goes home so that families can celebrate the buggy behavior! Our bugs are then transferred to a grade level bug box where Mrs. Grimm-Nilsen selects one child from each grade level to have their photo taken with her. These will be placed on a special "BUG" board in our school.

During Reader's Workshop, we continued discussing strategies we can use when we come to tricky words, and we practiced these together as a whole group then independently and with partners. It's been great to see the boys and girls not only using these strategies during guided reading groups but also telling the HOW and WHY they used a particular strategy/strategies. 

Our Writer's Workshop lessons this week tied in with our Reader's Workshop focus which makes for some very powerful lessons! We talked about how we can use familiar words to spell new words. In other words, if I know... then I know... We added this to our Ways to Spell anchor chart.

d

This past week we also received a kid-friendly editing checklist to help remind us to reread our work to check for capital letters at the beginning of sentences and punctuation at the end. I shared with the kiddos a small moment piece I wrote that Mr. Mullen read out loud, and I discovered that it wasn't at all how I meant for the story to go! We learned that we really need to think about our reader and make sure our story is the best that it can be, so that the reader reads it the way we thought about it. Friends shared their pieces with each other by having their partner read their work out loud. Many discovered that they needed to add punctuation to their work. 

 

During Writer's Workshop we also took another look at George McClement's book Night of the Veggie Monster and discovered that he used ellipsis, POP OUT words, and wrote about the exact actions of his characters in order to bring his story to life. Many of our friends said, "Hey, I want to try that, too" and they did...

 For Fire Safety month, Mr. Scott came to talk with us about fire safety. He also brought along a special friend for each classroom: Sparky! When it's our turn to be Star of the Week, we'll bring home Sparky and his scrapbook. The boys and girls are SO excited about this!

We had a special visitor to our classroom this week. Ask your first grader what this visitor  was and who brought it in: 

In math this week, we began looking at subtraction. We discovered that for our circle drawings we shouldn't draw MORE circles but rather cross some out. This was tricky for some of us. With a lot of practice through games with friends and with Mrs. Mullen, we had it!

 

On Friday afternoon we celebrated Halloween! Here are some highlights of the afternoon:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


As you can see, it was a REALLY fun time! Thank you so much to our volunteers who sent in items for Frankenpudding and to our classroom volunteers! We couldn't have done it without you!

Next Week's Word Wall Words:

were

when

your

said

went

Be sure to visit www.spellingcity.com during the week so that your child can practice his/her words. We will likely spend two weeks with these words since they are some of the more difficult of the year and because this will be a short week.

Mark Your Calendars:
Friday, November 7: NO SCHOOL for students. Professional Development Day for Staff
Wednesday, November 12: Early Release
Friday, November 21: Betty Brinn Field Trip - Permission slip was sent home Friday
Wednesday, November 26: Half Day
Thursday & Friday November 27 & 28: NO SCHOOL for Thanksgiving holiday

Thanks for stopping by!
Michelle Mullen

October 20-24

Hello Families!
October seems to be flying by at the speed of light! You know what they say: time flies when you're having fun! Here's the fun we were up to this past week in first grade...

In writer's workshop this past week, we were busy bringing our stories to life! Here is what we have learned so far - 

We also talked about how we can use our hands to help tell our stories in small steps across our fingers. I've seen many of our friends grabbing onto small moments and putting them in their imaginary pockets. Then they bring those stories out at writing time and tell them step by step across their fingers! We can even grab those small moments and put them in our pockets when we're not at school! Ask your first grader to tell you what part of our story we tell when we tell our story in between our fingers. 

We all enjoyed acting out our small moments. 

Here are some of our friends acting out their stories with their partners: 

During Reader's Workshop this past week we became word detectives! We are gradually learning strategies that we can use when we come to tricky words. Our first strategy was focused on how we get our minds ready to read by looking at the cover, thinking about the story, then going on a story walk so that we can get the story in our minds. When we do this, we can be better word detectives, because we have some context for the story. Our first strategy was linked to meaning/comprehension, because understanding what we read is what is most important. Ask your first grader to tell you about the

 other ways we learned to solve tricky words. 

During math we continued our focus on counting on strategies when solving addition word problems. During our workshop rotations we played math games to reinforce our learning. 

I can tell that so many of our friends have been on spelling city to practice their word wall words! GREAT job on this week's assessment! Here are some of our friends practicing their words during word work time:

In science we participated in our first experiment! We used our thermometers to find the temperature of a cup of cold water and a cup of hot water. Each group of scientists then decided on how many smaller cups of cold and hot they would put in their mixed water cup and recorded that temperature as well.

Here is our chart where we gathered data from all four groups. Team 2's data was a bit surprising to us. Ask your first grader to tell you why it was surprising and what we found out about how team 2 measured their water. This was an unexpected lesson in accurate data!

Word Wall Words for the Week of October 27-31:

but

not

what

all

over

Mark your calendars: 

Friday, October 31: Costume Parade

November 7: No School for Students - Professional Development Day for Staff

November 21: Field Trip to Betty Brinn (more info to come soon!)

November 25: Informance

November 26: Half Day

November 27-28: Thanksgiving Holiday

Thanks for stopping by!

Michelle Mullen