Mo Willems Celebration!

Pigeons in character

Geralds and Piggies in character

Piggie and Gerald

Fun With Mo!

Author Study

The students showed a strong interest in the author Mo Willems.  We began an author study, which required us to read many of Mo Willems’ books and engage in tasks across subject areas!

Students worked in groups to examine Mo Willems voice as a writer and became “Author’s Craft Detectives”. After brainstorming as a group the different techniques we noticed about the way the author writes, students worked in pairs to act as detectives and find examples of our observations in his books.  Students engaged in purposeful conversations and collaborated to complete the task.  In addition to reading and examining Mo Willem’s books, students also had fun writing like Mo Willem’s and discovering their very own author voice. 

Next week we will continue our study by learning more about Mo Willems, examining traits and writing comic strips. We will tie up our unit by writing to the author!

 

Author’s Craft: the way in which an author narrates a story

Visit Mo Willems website to learn more about Mo and play games: http://www.mowillems.com/

Math

What is a Ten-Frame and Why is it Important?

A ten-frame is a hands-on and visual model that teaches number sense and mental math.  It is a great way to help children recognize number without having to stop their thought process and count.  For example, the most “efficient” way of seeing 8 with a ten-frame is seeing one row of 5 dots and another 2 dots equivalent to thinking of 8 as 5+3.

Understanding that numbers are made up of tens and ones is a foundational concept for young mathematicians.  Mastering this concept sets the stage for working with larger numbers.  We spent the past few weeks focusing on this pre-requisite for place-value and mental calculations.

Students practiced using a ten-frame to see the relationships that numbers have to 10.  For example, students practiced seeing that 6 is 1 more than 5 and 4 less than 10.

Students practiced using a table as a problem solving strategy.  I was impressed with their diligence to this challenging task!

                               

Check out this online Ten Frame Game

http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=75

Check out this video to help your child subitize (instantly recognize) numbers on a ten-frame before they disappear! http://youtube.com/watch?v=wRR9LK3zfho

Fundations- Bonus Letters!

Rule: At the end of a one-syllable word if there is a f, l, s and sometimes z…you need to double the letter! (Of course there are exceptions!)

Ball

Cuff

Fuss

Buzz

Students had fun playing games, writing silly sentences, and engaging in multi-sensory activities to practice bonus letters. 

                                 

Mystery Reader!

Special Notes

 

Congratulations to all of the students who added their published books to Pug Corner this week!

 

A big thank you to all of the children and families who personally contributed to Toys for Tots.

Science Discovery Museum!

Room 101 In Action!

Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop

It is crucial for beginning and emerging readers to have strategies when they come to an unknown word.  Students learned and practiced various decoding strategies.  These strategies were sent home during conferences.

        

As student have spent the first few months of school avidly learning how to pick out “just right” books for independent reading, our themed library (also known as Pug Corner) was opened up to book shoppers.  We had a class discussion about having a variety of books in your book bin and not all books from the same genre, topic, author etc.  Students were very excited to have the liberty to pick books about topics of choice.  It is important as first graders’ reading skills develop that they are becoming responsible and aware readers.  Learning how to pick out a “just right” book is a challenging skill.  Independent reading level means a child can read most/all of the words, is fluent and understands what he/she is reading.

     

We began four Literacy Centers.  Literacy Centers are an opportunity for students to work independently or in pairs to have practice and enrichment for literacy skills being taught in the classroom.   As it takes time to establish expectations and routines, students were exposed to four centers so far.

Read to a Pug on a Rug (independent reading to a stuffed animal)

Poetry Station

Buddy Reading

Word Wizard

         

We worked hard on the Super Sentence unit across subject areas.  While we continued to focus on simple sentences and conventions, we also dove into the parts of speech.  Students worked in groups to sort nouns into different categories and think of their own.   

                     

A noun is a person, place, or thing.  The “who or what?” in a sentence.

An adjective is a describing word.  The word that describes the noun in a sentence.

A verb is an action word.  The “did what?” in a sentence.

Students enjoyed thinking of adjectives that describe one another and sharing their work.  We read the silly book, The Things That Are Most in the World by Judi Barrett. This book exposed students to funny adjectives describing outlandish situations.  Students got creative and wrote their own page for a class book (black and white copies were sent home).  

A highlight of the past couple of weeks was the verb game.  Students secretly chose a verb, had to act out the verb and find the other person in the class that was acting out the same verb.   The class then had to guess which verb the buddies were acting out.  The kids had a blast and begged to keep playing!

  

hop

sleep

dig

       

(students not pictured were absent or did not want a photo taken)

Fundations

Students learned about common consonant digraphs: two consonants that make one sound.

ch, sh, wh, th, ck

We had a lot of fun learning about digraphs by meeting the H Brothers…don’t forget their friend Rick!

Charles in the crazy brother!  Charles just loves trains.  He walks around town saying “choo-choo”

Then there is Sherman.  Poor Sherman!  He is the quiet brother and Charles drives him crazy!  He always tells people to “sh!”

Whit is the musical brother.  Whit wants to whistle so badly, but he just doesn’t know how.  When he tries it sounds like “wh.”

Theo is the impolite brother.  He always sticks his tongue out at people and it sounds like “th.”  Even though Theo is rude, he really helped us remember the “th” sound!  We tried to make the “th” sound with our tongues in our mouths and it was impossible.

Rick is the H Brother’s friend and he is always last in line.  Just like “ck” always comes at the end of the word!

Math

Students in room 101 are continuing to learn how to see the many possible interpretations of a subtraction equation.  This is achieved by experiencing numerous hands-on and visually appealing lessons focused on interpreting an equation such as 8 - 5 = 3 in the following representations:

1. Missing Part:

I have 8 pencils.  If 5 are on top of my desk, how many are inside?

2. Taking away from a whole:

I had 8 pencils.  I gave my sister 5.  How many do I have left?

3. Comparing Quantities:

I have 8 pencils.  My brother has 5 pencils.  How many more do I have?

We spent the past 2 weeks focusing on Comparing quantities, solving all different types of subtraction story problems, writing number sentences to solve a problem, using manipulatives to solve a problem and seeing the relationship between addition and subtraction.

To conclude the topic, students will use counters to act out and solve subtraction story problems.

For the next math topic, students will focus on Five and Ten Relationships.  The big ideas of this topic are:

Number Uses, Classification, and Representation

Equivalence

Operation Meanings and Relationships

Practices, Processes, and Proficiencies

Understanding number relationships is the basics for understanding ideas about numbers and operations.  The relationship of numbers to five and ten are particularly useful in thinking about various combinations of numbers. 

Think about the number 7…

The number 7 can be thought of as “5 and 2 more” and the number 7 can be thought of as “3 away from 10”

Thinking of the number 7 in these ways, can help answer 5+2, 7-5, 7-2, and 7+3.  In later grades, similar relationships can be used to mentally compute with greater numbers.

Numbers can be used for different purposes, and numbers can be classified and represented in different ways.  After the Thanksgiving Break students will focus on Number Uses, Classification, and Representation.   Students will accomplish this goal by using a ten-frame.

         

Mystery Readers