Geometry, Grace Lin, and Pajama time

First of all I CANNOT believe we are coming up to April vacation!! The days can be long, but those months sure fly by....especially here in first grade where there is ALWAYS so much going on. This week was no exception. There was the excitement of pajama day, the anticipated visit from author Grace Lin, and of course all of the great learning that happened!

Geometry
The last 2 weeks of math have been all about exploring 2D shapes. The goals of this unit are to teach children how to develop language that describe attributes of shapes (including sides and corners), how to take shapes apart, and how to put shapes together in different ways. We used our pattern blocks and pattern block cut outs to fill various outlines, create designs, and play games like Fill the Hexagon.

Playing Fill the Hexagon

Filling the same outline in different ways

Filling an outline with more and fewer shapes

Pajama Day
They followed directions, they did their best work, they were kind and helpful to each other, they thought about expected and unexpected behavior at school and they earned .......PAJAMA DAY!!

Morning Meeting with a few extra friends

Reading to Someone during Daily Five

Working with Words 

Reading to Self (and friend)

Reading table

Reading table

A Visit from Grace Lin
What an exciting treat! Grace Lin, author and illustrator, came to our school for a visit. She taught us all about the difference between a published and not published book. She taught us all about the many people who help publish a book including an editor, art director, and binder. Some of us even got to volunteer! We got to hear her read from one of her books and learned about how the Chinese years were named. Ask your child about the Year of the Dog and The Year of the Pig. We even learned how to draw  lucky Chinese Dragons. Ask your child how many whiskers they added to their dragon. :)

Grace Lin's first book

Publishing takes a lot of people...

A lot of hard work...

And at least a year...sometimes longer!

Teaching us how to draw a lucky dragon

Proud of our pictures!

HAPPY APRIL VACATION!

Habitat Habitat...Have to Have a Habitat!

"Habitat Habitat...Have to Have a Habitat! Have to have a habitat to carry on!!" sung to the tune of "Lollipop,Lollipop." It's one of our newer poems and it's a very catch tune! It's also the main topic of science over the last couple of weeks. We are learning all about organisms and their habitats. We've created 2 habitats of our own; freshwater and woodland. We even had a visitor from Stony Brook that helped us learn a little more about some of the habitats we'll be exploring on our upcoming field trip including; the pond, forest, and meadow.

Let's Observe....

A group looks closely at moss and a tree seedling and records their
observations in their science journal.

This group is looking at all of the organisms in our aquarium. We have plants called Elodea and Cabomba as well as guppies and snails.

This group is noticing the differences between the woodland (or forest)
plants and recording their ideas on a Venn Diagram. 

Pond snails! We wondered what do they look like, how do they move, what
parts do they have??

A Visit from Stony Brook

Learning about what organisms need in their habitats

Learning which habitats we'll get to see when we visit Stony Brook

Groups Working to create and share posters of habitats

Finally....a special friend!

What Time is it?

It's time to learn about time! This week we have been busy learning all  about digital and analog clocks. We learned how a traditional number line is different than the the numbers on a clock. We brainstormed am and pm activities and made our own illustrated clocks. We made our own analog clocks complete with an hour hand and a minute hand. We used our clocks to show the passage of time to the hour while we read, The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle. We also read  The Clock Struck One by Trudy Harris and had a discussion about the minute hand and why it's easier to count minutes by fives. We created a second timeline to demonstrate time to the half hour. You can help your child at home by giving them opportunities to tell time to the hour and half hour and encouraging them to count the minutes by fives as practice. Time sure flew as we we were learning :)

Working as a group to put our timeline of am and pm activities in order.
Lots of discussion about whether to start with 12 or 1. This is how we discovered
the first difference between a traditional timeline and the numbers on a clock.

We turned our timeline into a circle and created 2 clocks! We took turns
telling time to the hour.

Telling time along with The Grouchy Ladybug.

Social Thinking 

Mrs. Goldstein was back in our room to teach us about the 3-point scale for judging problems. This is a great visual tool to help children assess a problem situation including how they should react and how to find a solution. Children can judge a problem as a 1 (a small problem that can be solved independently), 2 (a problem that requires some adult intervention), or a 3 ( a big problem that needs special kind of adult help such as an emergency.)

A visual of the 3-point scale 

Children using their fingers to judge a problem scenario as a 1, 2, or 3.

Reader's Theater
Reader's theater is a great way to practice fluency. As children re-read a story they become more fluent and can focus on phrasing, expression, intonation, tone, and stress. Each of my reading groups will be able to share 1 (or more!) reader's theater stories. 

This first reader's theater actually took place a little while back. The group practiced hard  and were really proud of their performance. We're  still working on the kinks of technology so the volume is a little iffy. I still wanted to share though, since they were so excited.

Deput Reader's Theater

http://youtu.be/jaVFv_5UW0s

We attempted a second reader's theater with another reading group. The focus was a little different this time. Instead of reading from a book, this group read a book about the Apatosaurus, (Brontosaurus), and then shared some of the facts they learned. Although I did record their reading, the volume did not come out again. Here is a picture of their performance! And somehow I'll figure out this recording thing!!!

March Madness

So many fun things to share this week!! First of all though, it was wonderful to meet with all of you during spring conferences. Hopefully you left our meeting with an understanding of your child's academic progress and social growth as well as clear expectations for the rest of our school year. Official progress reports will be sent home on Tuesday, March 25. As I iterated at our conference if you have any questions or concerns please contact me. I am happy to clarify :)

Now onto our highlights from the week!!

Monday...

Wouldn't you know, the leprechaun came and mixed things up! Can you tell what he did??

Dressed in green and working on a St. Patrick's Day poem...

Tuesday...

Curious Creatures came for a visit! Mr. Dean taught us about the many animals he's rescued on his farm. We saw everything from a bunny to a tarantula. We even got to touch most of the animals! Ask your child what they liked best about the show!

Social Studies

Over the last 2 weeks we've been studying Neil Armstrong. We learned that he was a pioneer and a legend. After reading about him we created a list of character traits that would describe him. Some of the words we brainstormed included leader, determined, daring, and brave. Then we searched through our read alouds to find evidence to support our characteristics. Here is some of the work we did to show what we learned about Neil Armstrong.