Youth Art Month Flag Design Competition

In Art class this week, Mrs. Broderick told students about this competition for Vermont students. Here is a web site if you want to read the details:

http://www.vtartteachers.org/youth-art-month.html

This is optional, so students can illustrate a flag at home if they wish to. Many of them brought home a 10 x 6" piece of white paper this week. If not, feel free to use any white paper cut to this size. The main requirements of the artwork is that it include these words somewhere on it: 

Vermont

2018

Youth Art Month (or YAM)

Linked In

I know we have some enthusiastic artists  in here who want to participate. Just send in any flags students make and I will pass them on to Mrs. Broderick. Also, feel free to email her with any questions: brodericka@hartfordschools.net 

Nonfiction Read Alouds

In Reading Workshop, we are wrapping up our unit focused on strategies for reading nonfiction. To celebrate our hard work and learning (and to show it off a bit!) I had students choose one of their books, practice and practice it, and gave them the chance to read it aloud to kindergartners. All students were eager to do this! We have been practicing these strategies to really sound great-- like experts-- when we read our books aloud:

-We identified and practiced explaining and thinking about the key words in our book that were super important in being able to learn about the topic.
-We marked with sticky notes interesting parts to remind us where we wanted to stop and have kindergartners examine and picture, or where we wanted to remember to explain what a key word meant.
-We practiced showing the feeling in each part in our voice. We noticed some parts of our nonfiction books were pretty serious and needed to be read in a serious voice (like owls needing to find food in winter), while other parts were sweet and could be read in a sweet voice (like baby owls hatching). Other parts we read in a slow, sad voice, or in an excited voice. 
-We figured out how our books were organized. Some were "all-about" books and some were laid out more like a story. 
-We practiced using drama to bring our book to life-- using a gesture as we read to help listeners picture and understand a part of our book. This last strategy was a lot of fun!

Some of us have already ventured upstairs to Ms. Cerasoli or Mrs. Trombley's rooms to read aloud and some of us will get to do so soon! 
 
 

Flannel Friday, Take 2

Our original attempt ended up being a snow day, so THIS Friday, January 26 is Flannel Friday! Remind your child to wear a cozy flannel shirt to school on Friday if they would like to.

Shields

In math we did a checkpoint today. This was a mid-unit assessment to see how students are doing with our work on number lines. When we have occasional written assessments like this, we use these privacy shields to help us keep focused on our own papers and so that I can see exactly what each student can do on their own and/or needs more help with-- even though there are so many other times in our school week when we work together or when students are encouraged to help each other and share ideas. While this may look awfully serious for first grade, the students seem to love the privacy and importance of getting to use these shields. :) 

"King Sam" Fluency Practice

Today in Fundations we reread the very short story "King Sam," discussing the main events, characters, and setting-- which we had to visualize in our minds since the story had no pictures to help us. We work hard to read fluently, which in part means "scooping" up words into phrases rather than reading one. word. at. a. time. After we reread the story together, students read it to one another to practice this scooping-- with copies of the story with phrases already scooped to help them practice this. Then with their partner they saw how many "glued sounds" they could find and mark with a box. The glued sounds we've been working hard on for the last couple of weeks are ang, ing, ong, ung, ank, ink, onk, and unk. These little stories are controlled texts, which means they feature only the trick words and spelling rules we have learned so far-- so they found a lot of glued sounds! Students brought the story home today and it would be great fluency practice if they could read it aloud to you a few times! 

Everybody Wins Reading Mentor Program

Today Ms. Tuson and Ms. Steins came into our room briefly to introduce the Everybody Wins! program to first graders. Information all about the program came home today. The permission form is on the last page. The basics of this program are that any students who sign up to do it get matched with a "mentor"-- a volunteer adult from the community. They get to have lunch and recess time with this mentor once per week. They eat their lunch while their mentor reads with them, they talk together, and enjoy books together (and occasionally games like a crossword puzzle). Middle of first grade is when students get to begin this program, then they can keep participating in it year after year at WRS (and you only have to sign the permission form once). If you have any questions about it, let me know or email the coordinators (their info is on the paperwork that when home). All students were eager to take these home today! *I did tell students that it can take a little time to find enough mentors for every student, but they get them started as soon as they can.

Number Lines and Workplaces

We've been working hard thinking about and problem solving on open number lines during our math lessons. Once two numbers are designated on the line, every other number has a proper place it belongs. We have to compare numbers, work within different ranges, think about tens and ones, and use flexible thinking to figure out what numbers go where on the open number line. It's hard work! We've also been doing some adding and subtracting on a floor number line by having a frog "hop" on it forward or backward by 1s or 10s.

Then we've had time for workplaces several days this week during the last portion of math time.  Here we are busy at some of the games. This is called Tower Race:

Cats & Mice (adding, comparing, subtracting, using greater than and less than symbols):

Doubles Plus or Minus One:

The Frog Jump Game:

Puzzle Progress

We're making good progress on a beautiful new class puzzle!

Word of the Day

Our "word of the day" today in Fundations was link. These are vocabulary words that incorporate the spelling rules we are learning. We mark the spelling features in the word and discuss definitions. 

We thought of links in a chain or links in a necklace. A student and I demonstrated how we could link arms. We recalled how sometimes I tell a student to link onto the end of our line. I taught the class about and sketched sausage links! And a student thought of a link that you click on to go to a web site! It's fun to see how many meanings and uses we can think of. Then we come up with a sentence and write it in the vocabulary section of our Fundations journal, with proper spelling and capitalization, to help us remember the word.

Catching Up

I am sorry I am way behind in blogging! As a way to try to catch up, here are a lot of pictures from before the winter break. I will try to do better in 2018-- happy new year!

In math we've used this model called a "number tree" a lot to help us see parts and the whole (total goes on top and the parts down the branches).

We used our number racks a lot. We found so many different ways a number could be represented, using one or both rows. The number racks have a total of 10 red and 10 white beads. Students have to subitize (see and recognize quickly rather than count) groups of 5 and 10 to quickly build or know a quantity shown.

We played a game 50 or Bust a number of times (and it is still in rotation as a Workplace game).

We made mkekas (em-KAY-kuhs), woven Kwanzaa mats. The weaving was challenging and highly engaging!

We enjoyed a tradition of Hanukkah by playing dreidel. The students loved this game. We also saw how to make latkes and got to sample them with applesauce and sour cream!

We read three versions of The Night Before Christmas, and wrote about which one was our favorite-- our first experiences with paragraphs and with opinion writing.

We've been working so hard on strategies for reading nonfiction, and we are getting smart about a lot of topics during reading time.