A Writing Celebration!

To wrap up our nonfiction writing unit, First Grade had a WRITING CELEBRATION today! We always get to share our writing with our own classmates, but today we got to share with ALL First Graders! From 1:00-1:30 we spent time going between the four first grade classrooms to share our animal teaching books with our friends from other classes. Check out pictures from our celebration! You might see a twin or a friend from kindergarten in Room 16! :)

We Are A BLUE RIBBON School!

We Can Use STRATEGIES!

What Would An EXPERT Know?

We Are Good Listeners!

First Graders know how to be good listeners on the carpet!

How To Write A TEACHING BOOK!

Monday Update!

Happy Monday Fantastic First Grade Families!

Here's a quick update about what's going on in Room 16:

Writer's Workshop: We have officially ended our Small Moment unit and moved into our next unit - Non-Fiction Chapter Books! We started out our unit today by discussing the difference between a "story teller voice" and a "teaching voice." We have been using story teller voices throughout our whole first unit, but now we will be using teaching voices! We also learned we ALL are experts on different topics - sports, animals, games, you name it! Help your child brainstorm different topics they are experts on - we will be writing LOTS of teaching books, so they will need LOTS of ideas! :) 

Math: We are continuing our work with addition. More specifically, we are learning different addition strategies. We know that the best strategy is to just know it, but we're learning other strategies to use for tougher addition. Some addition strategies we are learning about/will learn about:

• Counting On (in your head AND on a number line!)

• Doubles

• Doubles Plus 1 (Near Doubles)

• Making 10 To Add

• Related Facts

• Fact Families

Spelling: Breaking Words into BEGINNING and ENDING Chunks!

As we become more experienced readers, our brain effortlessly searches for known letters, sounds, and parts of words we know to help us “solve” the parts we don’t know. Finding and remembering chunks of letters to decode (reading!) and encode (writing!) is a very important strategy we use throughout our entire lives!!!

• BEGINNING CHUNK - The beginning chunk is the letter(s) in front of the vowel. These are consonants, digraphs, or blends. Most words begin with a beginning chunk. These are also known as onsets.
• ENDING CHUNK - The ending chunk begins at the first vowel to the end of the word or syllable. Every word has an ending chunk (because EVERY word has a vowel!). These are also known as word families or rimes.

What is Math Workshop?

What does math look like in room 16? Math Centers and Small Groups!

After a short, whole group mini-lesson, students go out to centers while I pull multiple small groups each day...

1. Materials used in centers are based on previously taught concepts and provide continuous concept review. 

2. Centers do not change weekly. Instead, materials are used to reflect a student's level of math understanding and strategies for review. 

3. Centers are used for meaningful independent or collaborative group work. 

4. Centers have different tasks to differentiate learning for students with different needs.

5. Small groups are pulled for differentiated, guided instruction. Groups are not concrete and change depending on each student's level of understanding for each concept taught. 

Check us out in some of our centers!

Daily 5!

We are working HARD in Room 16 to develop our Daily 5/Guided Reading routines! When Mrs. Marting and I are meeting with small reading groups, first graders are busy with their Daily 5 choice. Our choices are:

Read to Self

Read to Someone

Listen to Reading

Word Work

Work on Writing

Can you match each picture with a Daily 5 choice? Ask your child for help!

Fantastic Friday!

What a great week! We are really getting into the swing of things and everything is falling into place!

During Math, we continue to learn and practice more center choices. It is important to have many options! We are now using laptops, iPads, and the interactive white board daily.

Writer's Workshop is almost in FULL SWING! We officially know our routines, expectations, and location of all our writing supplies. On Tuesday, we are ready to start our first official unit - personal narratives (small moments). Keep an eye out for a "seed story idea page" in your child's binder coming soon. 

All reading assessments are officially finished! Check your child's Flyer Binder for a note with their current reading level. 

I hope everyone has a fun, relaxing Labor Day weekend! See you on Tuesday!

Our First Full Week!

Wow! We did it! We made it through our first full week of first grade and man was it FULL! We did A LOT! We continue to get to know our classmates and our classroom. We are spending a lot of time practicing routines and procedures. 

DAILY 5 - We have been working on building our READING STAMINA! We know that when we Read to Self, we all (Miss Greteman included!) have important jobs:

MATH - This week we spent time learning about and practicing MATH CENTERS! So far, we have learned and practiced three math center activities, PLUS iPads!

WRITER'S WORKSHOP - These first graders are writing MACHINES! I can tell they worked hard during Writer's Workshop in Kindergarten! They are remembering things they learned and are using them in their writing as first graders! This week we've learned that writer's are NEVER finished writing and our pictures help tell our story.

BUDDIES - Today we met with our fourth grade buddies in Miss McNamara's class! We played a fun get to know you game with our buddies. Look how cute we are together!