Think Ten

We've been practicing a strategy called Think Ten in our Number Corner time. When you are adding to a number that is close to ten (7, 8, or 9 plus something), it can help to think how many more you need to make ten and imagine taking that many from one number. This flexible thinking is called composing and decomposing numbers. Then what you are left with is an Add Ten fact (ten and some more) and that is easier for most of us to solve. For example, instead of counting on to find the sum of 8 + 6, a student could imagine moving 2 from the 6 to make the 8 a 10 and then it would be the same as 10 + 4, or 14.

Here we are using two colors of Unifix cubes to represent the two addends. We put some of the second number on the tens frame to complete the ten and then saw the two quantities differently, as ten and more. We also practiced just imagining this in our heads with tens frames, and doing it with magnetic tiles. We made and read equivalent expressions such as 7 + 4 = 10 + 1.

New Quilts

Earlier in the year we created a sea star quilt to help us practice counting by 5s. Last week, as part of our current geometry unit, each student made a mini quilt. 

First, each student designed four different 2-colored 9-square quilt blocks. 

Next, each chose one design and copied it four times. This involved careful arranging and gluing.

Then each student cut out his/her four copies. Here they are drying.

With our own four copies in front of us, we each tried out several different ways we might arrange them into a four-block mini quilt. We found that some of the quilt block designs were such that no matter how they were turned, the resulting mini quilt was the same! These type of blocks had rotational symmetry. 

Some of us had quilt blocks that, when we experimented with rotating them 90 degrees/a quarter turn or 180 degrees/a half turn, it made for some very different resulting designs. We each chose our favorite way to arrange our own mini quilt and then named them whimsically based on what they looked like. Here is the pretty display in our hallway.

Telling Time

We've been working hard on telling time. In first grade we focus on time to the hour and the half hour.

We learn to read digital and analog clocks, do matching games, and draw hands on a clock to show o'clock and half-past times. We have a number of patterns concerning clocks on our current calendar markers. We first focus on just the short hour hand, checking if it is on the hour, or if it is halfway between two numbers. If the hour hand is halfway between the 8 and 9, we connect it to "half-past eight" or 8:30 and the minute hand will be pointing straight down. We know the minute hand has to take an entire trip around, and the hour hand moves from one number to the next, every hour. This is the language we've been using in our classroom. The students are catching on and I am seeing many aha! moments as they are getting more confident. We've had several fun interruptions in our day involving increased awareness of our classroom clock, such as, "Look! It's 11 o'clock right now!" I am sure some more practice at home would help.

1st Grade Community Meeting Times

At the end of the day on Friday afternoons Mrs. Turunen and I have been getting all the first graders together. We have spent some of this time teaching things like a "work-it-out" process and script for when inevitable conflicts with peers come up. Then we give them time to play. This is because we have read and believe that 6- and 7-year-olds still need play time, and still have a lot they can learn from play. It gives us a chance to observe social patterns, and interests, and a chance to see little conflicts or other opportunities for problem-solving arise and to watch or help them through it. 

The last two Fridays, rather than all getting together in one of our rooms, we mixed it up with half of each class in each of the rooms. Students seemed to enjoy the quieter volume, having more space, and getting the chance to play with different people than they might normally.

Field Trip

Our field trip was a success today! Ask your child about the costumes, scenes, and voices. It was interesting to see what choices they made. Also, ask them about what was the same as and what was different from the book we read.

Reading Red Clover Books

We are currently enjoying this year's Red Clover books during our read aloud time. Here's a blurb from the web site:

"The Red Clover Book Award is designed for children in kindergarten through fourth grade. Each year thousands of Vermont school children read the 10 nominated picture books and vote for their favorite in the spring. The award has been handed out annually since 1997."

Mrs. Haynes passes around a bag filled with these books from classroom to classroom throughout the school year until most students in our school have read them all.

I love reading the Red Clover books because there's great anticipation each time I pull the next one out of the bag. They are all so different and that's the fun-- biography, fantasy, poetry, and more, with different styles of writing and illustrations. Some are short and easily accessible, some are longer and more of a stretch for first graders. We always learn new things. Today we learned a lot of facts about otters, including that they are very playful. We'll each get to vote for our favorite and find out the winning book is in our classroom, school, and in the state.

Feel free to check out the web site where you can see a list of the books and see lists of great books nominated in past years as well:

http://libraries.vermont.gov/services/children_and_teens/book_awards/red_clover

Making our own Music

We have started our science unit on sound and light. The big idea about sound for first grade is that all sound is caused by vibrations. 

Here are some pictures of us having fun making our own "head harps" with just a string held on our head, covering the opening of our ears. We plucked the string and could really hear the vibrations-- yet someone near us couldn't hear it well since it was vibrating on our own ear. We found the sound was higher or lower in pitch depending on how tightly we held the string, and on how long or short we held it.

We also made a bell sound with a coat hanger and string. Wrapping the ends of the string around our index fingers, we put our index fingers on the flap of skin in front of our ears. The sound vibrations of metal can carry on for a bit and it made an impressive "gonnnnggggg" sound when we gently swung it back and forth and tapped the hanger into things like our desks or the bookshelves. The coat hanger vibrated when it hit something and the vibrations traveled through the string, into our fingers, and into our ears. As it vibrated the sound would ring through the string and sound like chimes! We compared it to the way our classroom bell vibrates and carries on its sound for several seconds when rung. 

...Also, we watched a quick video about sound effects artists and the surprising ways they create some of the sounds we hear in movies. We did a fun energizer to try this out, trying to make the sounds to go with a muted cartoon rain storm: we rubbed our hands together (wind), patted fingers against our palm (gentle rain), clapped (rain), stomped (lightning strike), then reversed the process till the storm was over! 

Field Trip!

Our class as well as the other first grade and the two second-grade classes will be going on a field trip on Monday, March 19 to see the show My Father's Dragon at the Lebanon Opera House. (We will be gone from school from about 9:15 until 11:30. We will eat lunch once back at school.) You all signed a field trip permission slip in the beginning of the year so there is nothing you need to do in order for your child to attend the show. Here is a link to some information about the show if you are curious. Let me know if you have any questions.

https://lebanonoperahouse.org/events/my_fathers_dragon/

This week I just finished reading the book My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett aloud. The students were completely engrossed! It was written in 1948 and tells the adventure of Elmer Elevator as he rescues a baby dragon from a place called Wild Island. There are two more books in the series-- Elmer and the Dragon and The Dragons of Blueland. So those fun continuations of the adventure might be fun for your child to read with you at home...

Movie Night

Just a reminder that tonight is Family Movie Night at WRS

6:15 PM

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Attend with a parent; no drop-offs

Bring a chair or blanket to sit on

Bring a snack for yourself and/or a canned good to donate; popcorn and water will be available

Shape Detectives

Today we began looking at the difference between 2-dimensional, or flat, shapes and 3-dimensional, or solid, shapes. 

Partners went on a shape hunt around our classroom to try to find examples of seven different 3-D shapes. They found a lot! It was interesting to think about why we did not have many cones or pyramids in our classroom, yet lots of rectangular prisms.