The next couple of weeks will include updating some of the September assessments to share with families at conferences. One of my favorite parts about teaching first grade is all the growth that children make over the course of the year. Two months into the school year and we are already seeing the results of everyone's hard work. If you haven't had a chance to sign up for a conference you can call the office and schedule a time. This week we enjoyed reading a few versions of the old favorite, I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. We read, chanted and sang the words of the story. Students also created their own old lady to use to retell the story. I love how creative they look. We will have these up in the classroom for everyone to enjoy before students bring them home to share with their families. One of our lessons in Reader's Workshop this week focused on breaking larger words into parts (syllables). Here is a picture of the collection we have started with words students are reading by using this skill! It has really encouraged students to tackle big words in their reading! In math we continue to work on identify and using a variety of addition strategies. While students are at Work Places I am meeting with each student to talk about what strategies they use to add and subtract. I'll be sharing this information with you at conferences. Reminder: Friday is a Planning Day for teachers as we prepare for conferences so there is no school for students.
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The highlight of the week was definitely our walking field trip to the Apple Festival with our 3rd grade Buddies. Even with the stormy weather we had a great time tasting fresh cider, LOTS of different kinds of apples and watching their puppet show. Portland Nursery is such a wonderful neighborhood partner and this is an experience that is a favorite every year!
In reading we have finished our Word Detective training and students received their badges! The work doesn't start there as we started new challenges this week. The reading strategies are focused around "snap" words which are sight words you can read in a snap! We played a game called Guess the Covered Word where students use the meaning of the text to determine what the covered word in a sentence might be. They then use the letters/sounds of the word to cross check their thinking to solve the mystery word. Readers identified words from the books they are reading that would make good snap words for us to add to our Word Wall. I was impressed with the words they chose - great high frequency words that are tricky to read and/or write which will make great additions over the next few weeks. In math we did some apple math activities with our apples on Thursday. Some of the activities had students weighing their apples with marbles, measuring them with unifix cubes and creating their own story problems. In art we finished our cubism inspired Picasso portraits by adding a watercolor wash. They will be up on one of our bulletin boards in time for conferences so be sure to give them a look! Upcoming Dates Picture Retakes - Tuesday, October 24 Health Screening for 1st Graders (Hearing and Vision) - Wednesday, October 25 Parent Meeting with Ms. Clark regarding literacy - Wednesday, October 25 @ 8:10 Harvest Festival - Friday, October 27 5:30 - 8:00 We had our first Art Infusion lesson this week. Students created ndebele houses using oil pastels. First students listened to the book My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken and Me. They were then shown examples of South African ndeble houses which are traditionally colorfully painted with geometric symbols and patterns. The results were beautiful! Be sure to see them on display in the hallway outside Room 108. I've also included a few photos of the artists in action on our photos page. I am so grateful to the volunteers for sharing their time and talent with us! In reading, students just finished their 5th Word Detective Mission. They spent the week learning how to be Word Detectives. Here's a copy of our anchor chart with 4 of the missions. When they encounter a tricky word, Word Detectives stop and solve the problem (rather than guess and go or skip over the tricky word). They think about all of the strategies they know and use the ones that are best for the problem. It might be looking at the picture or looking at all the parts of the word. In science we have begun our earth science unit with the goal of using observations of the sun, moon and stars to describe patterns that can be predicted. Observing the sky at this time of year can be a little tricky with the weather but we are giving it a go. Flexibility is our motto! We were going to do a sky observation one day and the forecast predicted rain in the afternoon so we quickly switch our morning math time for the afternoon science and got to observe the sky while it was still clear in spots! I will be sending home an At Home observation activity. I am hoping that there will be at least a moment or two sometime during the week where students can gather information. Here is a link to the record sheet just in case you need another one.
We had our first get together with our 3rd grade Buddies in Mrs. Clarke's class. Students completed a Getting to Know you activity and then spent time reading together. It's wonderful to watch these new friendships blossom. We will be going to the Apple Festival with our buddies this week. Upcoming Dates Late Opening - Wednesday, October 18 Apple Festival with Buddies - Thursday, October 19 Great American ShakeOut Earthquake Drill - Thursday, October 19 Book Order Due - Friday, October 20 Picture Retake Day - Tuesday, October 24 Student Health Screening (Hearing & Vision) - Wednesday, October 25 Harvest Festival - Friday, October 27 We are finishing up our study of the work of Picasso with Cubism inspired crayon resist portraits. They take a bit of time to complete so we'll be working on them over the next couple of weeks. We have finished our first reading unit, Readers Build Good Habits and are beginning Word Detectives. This promises to be an engaging unit where students complete missions each day that introduce them to different reading strategies. Our first mission was to "Notice a Problem and Stop to Solve It" encouraging students to monitor their reading, stopping at difficulty rather than skipping the word and reading on. I am enjoying getting to know each student as readers during our reading conferences. In math students are using dominoes as an addition model. The ability to recognize the arrangement of dots on a domino (or dice) instantly, without counting is called subitizing. This is a fundamental skill in the development of number sense. In the stages of counting we are trying to move students from counting one by one to counting on. The ability to subitize or instantly recognize a group of objects helps develop this skill. Dominoes and dice are excellent tools for this. This week students were introduced to the game, Domino Top Draw where each player turns over a domino and determines the total number of dots (either by counting by one's, counting on or instant recognition). The player with the higher number collects both dominoes. This is similar to the card game "War" which is another game that can be played at home. For additional challenge students can use a Double-Nine set of dominoes rather than a Double-Six set. We have our first spirit day this Thursday - Rainbow Day. Each grade level is assigned a different color to wear. First graders are asked to wear blue. This is a fun day that includes a whole school picture so get those blue clothes ready!! We received our first book order last week. Included with the order was a Mo Willems activity book for each student. It was a huge hit! The October order is coming home this week. Thank you for supporting our class. Here's a peek at the books that were added to our classroom as a result of the September order - thank you! It was so great to see everyone at Back to School Night! I loved seeing how proud the kids were show you their work and where they spend their days. If you didn't get a chance to sign up for a conference you can call the office or email me and we can get it set up.
In reading we changed things up a bit getting new reading partners. Each day in Reader's Workshop there is time for students to meet with and read with a partner. This next week our minilessons will focus on developing our partner skills. In math we are exploring measuring using non standard objects. We started with popsicle sticks measuring things like bookshelves, chairs and our classmates! Before measuring students estimate how many sticks they think they will need and then record the results. We then switched to measuring with linking cubes - comparing the different results they would get measuring the same objects with a different tool. This is something you can do at home using different measurement tools like paperclips, pennies, shoes, etc. Be sure to estimate first! Volunteers are set to go - thanks for those of you who have signed up already. Please be sure to have a current background check on file before you come. We have such a great response so far - I'll add some more spots. Thank you so much for your support!! If you are looking for other ways you can support the Glencoe community, the PTA is selling the Chinook Book app. You can purchase the app for $15 and Glencoe receives $9. What a great return on the investment - plus all the money saving coupons. I bought mine and can't wait to start saving. Here's the link: https://chinook.co/glencoeelementary. Upcoming dates for October Wednesday Morning Meeting - Wednesday, October 4 8:20 Art Infusion - Monday, October 9 1:00 No School - Friday, October 13 |
MS. SCHIADAI teach first grade in southeast Portland where every day brings a new adventure!
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