Shot, Pop, Plop

Avery started our morning by leading Morning Meeting to celebrate her awesome behavior!

We worked again this morning to generate words that would fit into our ___op and ___ot families.  During SWR, I continue to make some of our words plural.  We still need practice remembering to spell the ENTIRE word before adding that s on the end!

In math we used tens-frames to help us add easier.  We realized that if we broke a number up to make it 10 and a different number, it is much easier to add!

For example, 8+4 could easily be broken up to 8+2+2.  We know that 8 +2 is 10, then, we simply need to add 2 more!  We did this for a variety of addition number models and had lots of fun working with our tens-frames.  We love tens-frames because when they're full... we know there's always 10 there and can count on or combine. 

Tomorrow we will review for our Unit 4 math test which is on Thursday. Students will be asked to:

• fill in the missing numbers of a domino (part, part, whole); 
• fill in the missing numbers on a number grid;
• draw a missing shape from a pattern;
• count how much money someone has and show that amount using fewer coins;
• Fill in a Frames and Arrow grid; and
• Write an addition fact to go along with a pair of dice

Whew!

In reading, we read two more stories about gingerbread men/families.  We realized that many of the stories have the same components or have a lot of the same characters and story lines.  It has been really fun to look for how the stories are similar and different.

We also read fiction and non-fiction books about clouds and are starting to keep track of what we have learned about them on a chart in our classroom.

 Check out these awesome short "o" words!

     This first grader is using a non-fiction book to fact-check from a fiction book about the weather!  I am *consistently* impressed by the thinking and connecting that happens in first grade!

Our holiday celebration will be Friday, December 21st at 1:30 followed by a school-wide singalong!   We hope to see you then!

Turn Around

In SWR today we learned about a brand-new short vowel- o!  The two short "o" families we will be learning about this week are the "___op" and "___ot" families.  We brainstormed so many words that would fit in those families!  Our red word of the week is for.  We realized that this word is NOT a number word because that four has a "u" in it!  We are very observant in first grade! 

Our WOW word of the week is sweltering.  Sweltering means extremely hot.  We had fabulous examples of times we had all been sweltering.  

In math today we learned about fact power (knowing your addition facts by heart) and turn around facts.  We noticed that when adding, you can switch the numbers that are being added around and they still equal the same thing!

For example:

3+5=8 can be expressed 5+3=8 as well.  

We played a fun partner-game with dice and tried to roll as many fact combinations as we could, and find their reversals, before our partner did.

 Many of us continued our number-grid work from last week as well!

  

We started our week-long study about gingerbread men by reading The Ginger Bread Man. We really liked this book and couldn't believe how sneaky or sly the fox was to trick the Gingerbread Man!  We are excited to read different versions of this story as the week progresses so we can compare and contrast them. 

 Check out that uppercasing and sentence ending!

We continue to learn all about the weather in science.  Our focus this week will be about different types of clouds and the kinds of weather they bring.  To finish our week about the Water Cycle up, we learned a new song to the tune of She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain.  Here are the words if you'd like to sing with your first grader at home:

The Water Cycle

Water travels in a cycle, yes it does.  Yes it does!

Water travels in a cycle, yes it does.  Yes it does!

It goes up as evaporation,

Forms clouds as condensation,

Comes down as precipitation, yes it does.  Yes it does!

And then there's collection...



        

Timeline(s)

Today in math we learned about timelines.  We discussed how you can use timelines to keep track of important times in the day, a month, a year or even a lifetime!  We made small timelines in our room for exciting things that have happened in our lives since the beginning of the school year.  We also practiced more with telling time to the quarter-hour.

 Ryan works to roll and add

 Gavin and Mark play Domino Top It

 Summer, Matthew and Hailey explore measuring with a yardstick

 This reading group is practicing reading with expression 

(I think I should have video-ed... I promise it was a lot more "expressive" than the photos suggest.)

 This first grader practices making words plural.

And this one works to write red words

Our science word of the day is Collection.  When water falls back to earth as precipitation, it collects in the oceans, lakes or rivers where the water cycle starts all over again!

There is an important notice in your child's homework folder today.  Please read it and send it back to school next week!

Weather-filled Wednesday

We started our day by having Tucker lead morning meeting.  He selected "Teach it!" from our Awesome Behavior Catalog to celebrate his behavior.  The other first graders did a fabulous job following Tucker's instructions and answering his questions.  He even moved a few students up on our Super Student chart! 

During SWR we had a sentence that was worth 28 dots again!  Whew!  We were so glad that sentence was the last one we had to write before SWR was over.  The sentence was, "Come see my six pigs."  It was tricky because sometimes an "x" can sound like an "s".  The first graders thought that seeing six pigs would be very, very funny. 

In math, we finished graphing our heights.  We learned that the majority (that means most!) of first graders in our room are 48 inches tall.  Then, we learned about telling time to the quarter-hour.  This can be confusing because sometimes it's quarter after and sometimes it's quarter of.  If your child is struggling with the time at home- remind them that when the minute hand points straight up- it's o'clock; when it points straight down- it's half-past; when it's straight across it's quarter of/to.  Then, encourage them to look at the hour sign and see what number it is just beyond or almost to!  The more practice- the better!  Also, notice how many "quarters" you come across in a day- quarter hours, football quarters, quarters in a dollar, etc.  

During reading we read a story that Ava, our student of the week, brought in to share with us.  We rotated through our literacy centers and continued to work on our stories and practice reading with lots of expression.  We have a few first graders who are in the midst of publishing stories about an Elf on the Shelf, Sea World, and a Christmas Tree.

I had two lovely gentlemen join me for lunch to celebrate their awesome behavior.  Colin, Ryan F. and I had a great visit for lunch. 

Our science word of the day was precipitation .  Precipitation occurs when so much water has condensed that the air cannot hold it anymore.  The clouds get heavy and water falls back to the earth in the form of rain, hail or snow.      

Mental Math

Joud and Wallah turned 7 years old today!  Happy birthday, Joud and Wallah! 

At the beginning of every math class we complete a small section called "Mental Math and Reflexes."  During this time we think about numbers and their relationships in our heads before we try to solve the problem.  This is an excellent skill for you to practice with your first grader at home while you're cooking dinner or in the car together.  We try to make the problems ones they have to really think about and decipher the important information from the less important information.  For example, some questions you might ask are:

"Dad bought 13 red apples on Sunday.  On Friday, he only had 3 left.  How many apples did dad eat during the week?"

or "Abby and Andrew went to the zoo.  They saw 2 turtles, 6 monkeys and 3 lions.  How many mammals did they see?" 

and lastly, "We made two pizzas for lunch.  One pizza had 7 slices of pepperoni.  The other pizza had 11 slices of pepperoni.  How many more slices of pepperoni did the second pizza have?"

I've found that the first graders like it best when I make the stories about them and the things they find interesting. :)

Today in math we had an exploration day where we used our math materials in new ways.  We used the geo boards to build shapes with specific edge lengths.  We built structures with base 10 blocks and had to record the number of flats, longs and cubes we used.  We also used a tape measure to record our heights on a classroom graph.   Who knew measuring heights could be so much fun- it was their favorite part of the entire hour!

In reading and SWR we continued to work with adding the letter "s" to the end of words to show more than one.  We also worked hard to read with expression and change our voices slightly for different characters.  I love listening to the students read with expression, they are becoming so good at it!  It was especially fun that one of the characters in our story was a Grandma.  Their idea of how a Grandma should sound varies completely and is pretty comical.  

Our science word of the day was condensation. Condensation is when water vapor in the air gets cold and changes back into a liquid, forming clouds.

We pretended that we were a tiny drop of water in an ocean, lake or stream.  The sun came out and started to turn us to vapor and bring us up to the sky.  Then, we got very cold and condensed together to form a cloud. 

Look at these first graders pretending to be water:

       Here we are, just waiting for the sun....

We are evaporating from the sun and turning into vapor

We are getting colder, turing back into water, and forming into a cloud!

New Month Monday

We were so excited to come to school today and realize that it was a brand new month!  Some of us are very anxious for the month of Decemember because there are so many exciting activities at this time. 

Our WOW word of the week is glisten- to reflect sparkling light.  We did a fabulous job using this word in sentences and showing that we understand the meaning.  We also made the connection that we know a song that is sort of like glisten- Shine Like a Diamond by Rihanna.  When we were using this word in sentences a few first graders used "glimmer" and "sparkle" instead and realized that these words are all very similar.

In SWR this week we are practicing making words into plurals (more than one) by adding the letter "s" to the end.  We learned that when an s is at the end of a word it can say "sssss" or "zzzzz" we thought of many words where this was true:

Sounds like "s": toys, girls, boys, lips, bibs, lids, trips
Sounds like "z": his, homes, phones, pigs, labs, crabs

When we practiced adding s to the end of words, some of us forgot to add the final consonant sound!  When we wrote pigs instead of writing p-i-g-s, we wrote p-i-s.  Intead of writing b-i-b-s we wrote b-i-s.  We talked about how important it is to listen to the ending sound/s of a word and to always remember what we know about words when we're writing.  Even though we're adding something new (s) we can't forget what we already know!

In math today we (finally!!!) we able to use tape measures.  Our tape measures have inches on one side and centimeters on the other.  We realized that tape measures can be easier to use because they are smaller but they can measure larger items when they're all spread out!  We had a great time measuring our wrists, elbows, ankles, heads and hands with a partner.  We also practiced part/whole number relationships by adding with dominoes.  We added to parts together to get a whole and we also found the missing part by looking at the whole and 1 part.

During reading we looked for __ing and ___s at the end of words.  We found so many!  We learned that sometimes you can't just add an "S" to a word to make it plural, but you need to add an "es" or even an "ies" if the word ends in y and sounds like "ee".  There are so many things to remember when we read and write- the more we practice, the better!  The first graders love learning all about words and letters and finding them in their own books and using them in their stories.

We read two weather books today and learned about the water cycle.  Our VIP science word of the day is evaporate.  Evaporation is when the sun heats up water in rivers, lakes or oceans and turns it into vapor or steam.  The water vapor or steam leave the river, lake or ocean and goes into the air.