January Round Up

I hope that the New Year is finding everyone happy and healthy! I for one can not believe that January is almost over and that we are already looking ahead to Valentine's Day! We will be having a class Valentine party on the 14th. I'll be sending home a class list for students who would like to pass out Valentine's.

We have been super busy in math during the month. We have worked on solving math equations with missing addends. We have learned about surveys and collecting data. We have learned strategies to help us solve bigger equations (values on each side of the equal sign) and deciding if these values are true or false! We have also learned and practiced efficient ways to solve equations and story problems with 3 addends. Throughout all of this the class has had some very insightful math discussions around strategy use such as doubles, near doubles, making 10, counting on and back strategies as well as using "known" facts! Wow are they growing as mathematicians!!

This afternoon we had a round up of all of our learning with some fun partner work including a missing addend scoot game and a partner dice game. Here are some highlights of math partnerships hard at work!

Children playing a 3 addend dice game and looking for efficient ways to add all three numbers including finding or making a double, making a 10, or using a known fact.

 
Partners working efficiently to solve equations with missing addends during a "scoot" game. Children used number lines, turn around facts, doubles, and related facts.

This month has also marked the start of our new unit of writing: Informational (or teaching) books! We jumped right in, brainstorming topics that First Graders are experts on. Boy were there a lot :) We also remembered how authors think of their topic and plan across pages before even starting to write. We learned how to change our writing voice from a "story teller" to a "teacher." We looked to mentor texts to help us determine what authors of teaching books do to teach their reader. We learned about twin sentences and pictures with teaching power. I am honestly blown away by their writing thus far. 

Today we worked with our writing partners to do a quick check of our "mechanics." We want to make sure our reader or our audience can make sense of our writing. After working with partners, children chose an "editing goal" to focus on over the next few weeks.

Here are some pictures of partner hard at work editing together!

I hope you enjoyed reading about our math learning and writing progress from the last few weeks! Check back soon for more highlights from Room 27!

Happy New Year!

December has been all about Gingerbread! We've spent the last several weeks reading versions of the Gingerbread Man, comparing story elements, and writing our own Gingerbread stories. Children were so engaged in creating their own Gingerbread characters! We also teamed up with Mrs. Scier's class right next door to work on a Gingerbread STEM project. Children worked in small groups with a set of materials to plan, build, and share a Gingerbread house creation. It was so much fun to watch them engaged and problem solving with each other.

Gingerbread Literacy Fun

Gingerbread STEM projects

Planning: Children worked in mixed groups (some from our class and some from Mrs. Sciers). They had to think about the type of Gingerbread house they wanted to build. They also had to think about the materials they would need and how to use them. There was a lot of listening, speaking, turn taking, and compromising!

Building: Children got back into their small groups and referred back to their plans. They were given 1 yard of tape, 1 tube of Elmer's glue, Popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, straws, and mini pompoms. Then they went to work! The end products were THE BEST! I am so proud of how flexibly they worked together to create a Gingerbread masterpiece!

I hope you enjoyed learning about our Gingerbread fun this month. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, enjoyed time with friends and family,  and made many merry memories!