Day in the Life of a First Grader in February

Reminder: I will place book orders this Friday. There are some great books this month!

Day in the Life of Your First Grader💜

Discovery Challenge: 

Build a structure using only three popsicle sticks and some Duck Tape that supports the most weight (in cubes). We discussed qualitative vs. quantitive data, the importance testing out your work and making revisions, and the how to be flexible creator. We will use the data collected for our math lesson on organizing and graphing data. It was pretty awesome to see our kiddos in action!

Working with a partner on their first creation

Made a plan first before executing their first trial

Our Winner! We wondered if this structure won because she utilized the most surface area. 

Reading: 

Book boxes out, favorite books in hand, and now we are ready to go on adventures!

Shared Reading

We're loving this book of poems

Building vocabulary skills and decoding words by looking for parts we know in this fun book inspired by our friends who love KARATE!!!

Writing

We used an "OREO" structure in writing to help us plan our opinions. We've been working on convincing others of the best animal on the planet. The students start by stating their Opinion, writing a Reason (usually 3-5 reasons), providing an Example, and then restating their Opinion....OREO.

Math- Graphing Practice
Addition Fluency


Movement Break! Building friendships and taking a wiggle break.

Terrific Tuesday

February 23rd will be the final day for students to turn in their Jump Rope for Heart donations to 

Mrs. Patti.

💖💖💖💖💖

Conference Sign up Link:

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080a4cacac23a1f49-mrs

Field Trip Volunteer Link:

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080a4cacac23a1f49-20172018

Math Homework packet
Homework packets came home in your child's blue folder today. Please have your child return his/her homework by Friday. Thanks!

Questions for the dinner table:

What is a compound word? How do you spell popcorn? What are the different parts of this word that you know?
Today was the TANGY TUESDAY OLYMPIC CONTEST. Did you enjoy the contest? Share about the puzzles you completed. 
We completed our first Grand Conversation. How did it go? Why are we doing Grand Conversations? What are the rules that we developed for Grand Conversations?

Thankful Thursday

Questions for the dinner table
What story did you retell today? What tools did we use to retell? Why is it important to be able to retell a story?
Spell the word stirring. What interesting words parts do you recognize. (ir, ing, st)
Who is Ella Fitzgerald? Why is she important in our history?
Convince your families of the best place in the world. Give reasons and details for your reasons. 

Jada stands on one end of balance and put six bricks on her head. Kendal stands on the other end of a scale and puts four bricks on her head. The scale shows that both girls are balanced. Who is heavier?

Black History Night

Mr. Meyer, our amazing music teacher, works to help every child find his/her singing voice. First and second grade students sing on the Clayton High School stage next Thursday at 7:00 to open Black History Night. 

I will be in a high school classroom just off the front doors at 6:30 to take care of our students while families find seats in the auditorium. I'll sit with the students while we watch the rest of the program. It ends at 8:00, and 1st and 2nd graders exit first so parents can pick up their children back at the classroom. 

Our first grade performers should wear black and white clothes. 

Please let me know if you are unable to attend.

Terrific Tuesday

Reminders: 

Valentine's Day Celebration on Wednesday- Please have your child decorate a bag or box to be used for Valentines. 

Friday is an early release day- See you at 1:15pm

No School next Monday, February 19th

Questions for the dinner table
Can you explain your thinking through this problem:

How do readers go on adventures? (Get ready! Take a sneak peak!; Keep track of WHERE and WHEN, Predict what might happen next)

List words that have the "ar" chunk. List words that have the "ir" chunk.
What reasons did you give in your disagreement about Kaelyn's rock choice? How did you respectfully disagree? Did you remember to start your writing with an uppercase letter followed by lowercase letters? Did you capitalize "I"?
What coins would you need to make 13 cents?

Discussing the details of their chosen rock. How will they write "persuasively" to convince Kaelyn to change her rock choice?

Finally! We persuaded her to change her favorite rock! It was hard work. 

Fun Friday

Questions for the dinner table:
An orange is heavier than a lemon. An apple is heavier than an orange. Which fruit is heaviest? Lightest? How do you know?
Why do readers take a sneak peak? (to find our where they'll go and what they'll do) We will continue to focus heavy on comprehension within our next reading unit.
Where did you go in your adventure today? (the current book you are reading)
What kind of writing are we focusing on right now? How did you revise your writing?
Who is Duke Ellington? Why is he important person in the history of the United States?
Spell the word carpenter. What chunks do you notice? Why does the "a" not make it's typical short a sound ("ar" chunk)

Coaching each other through our reading

Family tip: While reading with your child, allow your child to stop and talk about what is happening, questions they have, and changes they notice in the plot. As parents, we sometimes focus so much on how much our child is reading and her/his accuracy that we forget that reading is not a race, it's an experience. We want our kiddos to be able to synthesize what they are reading, no matter what "reading level" they are entering.

We love the games Mrs. Winkler brings

Reading to the kindergartners/Sharing our audiobooks

Terrific Tuesday

Questions for the dinner table
In the book Each Kindness, the narrator changes her thinking about the new girl? How did she change? Why did she change?
This morning we had a guest teacher, Mrs. Klaus. Mrs. Klaus loves our class and was impressed by our first grade readers. Were you able to do the right thing, even when no one (Mrs. McCallister) was looking? How?
Today, with Mrs. Taylor, we learned about the importance of "let it go" when it comes to "stuck thinking." What does "flexible thinking mean?" ( think about what other people need; change our thinking, change our plan)
We took a math assessment on length today. What did you notice about this assessment? What did you do when you got to a challenging problem?

The Great Migration Simulation

The Great Migration Simulation

Wow! We had an amazing day learning about the The Great Migration. The Captain community organized 8 different stations in which our students rotated through learning about this important movement in our history. We had parent volunteers, administrators, and teachers come together to grow our students understanding of the history of United States.

Unfortunately, I was so engrossed in the simulation that I did not take pictures. However, we do have.....
Questions for the dinner table:
Why did African Americans from the South head north during The Great Migration?
What were some of the cities in the North that many African American people went to during The Great Migration?
What is soul food? Why is soul food important in the history of many black people?
Who was Louie Armstrong? Langston Hughes? Jacob Lawrence?
What was your job in the Great Migration? Did you have money on the trip? Why type of housing did you have?
When thinking about our five stances (persistence, resilience, empathy, optimism, and flexibility), what the people of The Great Migration Show?

Background knowledge:

The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million African Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and South that occurred between 1916 and 1970. Until 1910, more than 90 percent of the African-American population lived in the American South. In 1900, only one-fifth of African-Americans living in the South were living in urban areas. By the end of the Great Migration, 53 percent of the African-American population remained in the South, while 40 percent lived in the North, and 7 percent in the West, and the African-American population had become highly urbanized. 

Today's Great Migration Simulation kicks off our student of African American in history. Unfortunately, many of you share my similar history of learning mostly about history through only the eyes of the white population. During our social studies unit, we will learn about famous African American inventors, artists, scientists, and musicians. Questions at home can focus not only on the contributions and character of these great North Americans, but why they were important for the creation of the country that we live in today. 

Fun Friday!

Reminder: Students can bring in a blanket or sleeping bag (and a stuffed animal) to school today as we "burrow" into reading on Groundhog's Day.

Questions for the dinner table
Is oobleck a solid or a liquid? How do you know?
Which object from your collection did you pick as your favorite? Why? Explain with details. (developing opinions/review for our writing unit)
We measured our tables with cubes. Then we measured our tables with paper clips. Why did we get different amounts?
What does a quarter look like? How much is it worth?
Have you caught any sneaky sounds in your reading? Which sounds? How were you able to figure out the word?
Have your recorded your audiobook for the kindergartners yet? How did it go? After listening to your own reading, what goals do you have?
Why does the number 102 have a 0 in the middle?

Wondering Wednesday
I am working to increase our kiddos' curiosity. Research shows that the longer kids are in school, the less questions they ask. This research breaks my heart and thus I am actively fighting back! Every Wednesday (Wondering Wednesday....💗 alliteration) during our class meeting, we go to the website https://wonderopolis.org/. Each day a new question is posted. Yesterday, we had a riveting conversation about the inside of a baseball. Do you know what baseballs are made of? Ask your kiddo. Please encourage questioning at home. As we think about raising future entrepreneurs and change makers of the future, we want our students to be able to question and wonder.

Gallery Walk of a our collections as we prepare for writing

So thankful for our instructional interns, Mr. U and Ms. Kavanuagh!

Two of our students teaching our partner reading mini-lesson. Today they taught how to take on the role of the reader and the journalist.

Getting ready for writing by talking about how favorite item in our collection and providing reasons/details.

The kiddos loved bringing in their collections. Not only were the students able to
"oral rehearse" their writing, but they were able to share a part of who they are with their friends.