Sharing our Personal Narratives

Hi Crew,
My goodness we have some wonderful authors in first grade! We've written stories that are sad, happy, or just plain funny!  These past two days have found us sharing our stories with Ms. Jill's crew.  The children are SO cute as they read their stories to each other and add questions and comments.
Enjoy the pictures of our share time!

Reader's Theater

Hi Crew,
This past week one of the reading groups was able to give Reader's Theater a try.  They loved it! Reader's Theater is a bit different than putting on a play in that it is not acted out and the people involved do not use props.  Each person reads from their script rather than memorizing lines. This format has multiple purposes:  It builds reading fluency, provides practice reading aloud in front of others, and it is fun! I hope to give all of the reading groups a chance at this.
(The headbands list their character in the play.  I got to be the principal!)
 

Crew News 1/29/12

Our Author Book Clubs looked like this...
Reading enjoyment, learning to buddy read with a crew mate, awareness of book jacket information and copyrights, and doing research on an author.  We have enjoyed this first book club so much!

 This has to be making you smile!  How sweet they are and how intense is their work!  They are serious learners. 
This week I will be sending pictures of the children presenting their authors to the crew. 

Notes for the coming week...

• We have P.E. this week so remember those tennis shoes.
• Our crew has been really healthy!  We've been diligent about using Germ-X before we eat at school.  Thanks for making rest and healthy eating a part of your family life.  It keeps our crew family healthy and happy too!
• Practicing our addition math facts helps!  Anytime you can practice at home would be appreciated.

Our Personal Narrative writing genre ends this week. I did some modeled writing with them about my dog Eddie coming to school, written from Eddie's perspective! (ask them to tell you about it)
The students have written some wonderful pieces about their lives.  We will share our stories with Ms. Jill's crew on Monday and Tuesday and then self-assess how we've grown as writers.  At the end of the week I'll be introducing Realistic Fiction as our next writing study.  I think some of the children will be disappointed that we will be sticking with this vs. writing fantasy fiction. (which tends to focus on zombies and ninjas and the like...).  My crew can free write fantasy during centers if they wish but I want to teach them about problem and solution and realistic fiction will help them write with  a beginning, middle, end as they add a problem and solution.  Fantasy stories tend to ramble with little ones! 
Have a wonderful week ahead. Welcome February!
Ms Mary Beth 

Math Test

Good Evening All,
A few notes about the way our test day looked in math:

• To keep everyone on track and to make sure each problem is understood, I read each test problem one by one AS I show the problem on the document camera.  Some of the children watch and listen, some of them don't and go ahead and work the problem while I'm talking.  This is one reason for some of the errors.  This is a learning curve...how to be patient, listen for instructions, then work a problem.  We are a work in progress:)
• Remember that Part A is to be mastered, Part B are problems that we are working towards mastering.  Surprisingly, the "What is a Rule?" problems were in section A although we have just begun these problems.  However, the ones they offered were fairly easy and most children got them.  Figuring out both the in AND the out answers is the tricky part, ESPECIALLY when one has to figure the in when given the out number and the rule is addition.  (i.e. the rule is +10, and the child is given 20 in the out box and has to figure out the in box number.  They are struggling to figure out they have to subtract to get to the in box number, even though the rule is addition).   HUH?  Try explaining this to a six year old!

NOTE:  We will review the test in class on Wednesday.  We will practice tricky concepts and you can do the same with your child at home if you can fit it in to your life.  This does help as math seems to be the area in which the children hesitate to ask if they don't understand a concept.  


ALSO...PLEASE read the Unit 6 Family Letter as it can really help you help your child at home.
Thanks for all of your support in helping us learn and grow in math!
Ms. Mary Beth

A Crew of Readers and Writers

To most people, this would look like a lump of snow...
but to the teacher of this crew, it looks like a home for Hedgie the hedgehog, one of the most frequently used characters in Jan Brett's picture books. (it looks like a little house with a front door just the size for a hedgehog!) I saw this on a snowshoe hike I took over winter break and just had to snap a picture to share with the crew.  Please show it to them!
Our crew has been studying Jan Brett as an author/illustrator for weeks now and through my modeling the children have learned how to wonder, question, predict and make connections as they begin reading as thinkers.  We have had a ball with this!  They love it.

So...we began Author Book Clubs, which have looked like this:

• pairs of students reading a basket of books by an author
• learning to read the inside of book jackets to learn more about the story and author
• using sticky notes to mark their thoughts and questions
• making venn diagrams to compare and contrast books 
• doing research about our authors on the web (I-pad and computers) 

I wish you could have been with us...
the room vibrated with the excitement of their discoveries.  Nothing short of heart-warming and both Ms. Dana and I agreed that all of them learned lots during our first round of book clubs.  We will end them this week and go back to learning centers, but we will have another round of book clubs before too long. 

Math assessment on Tuesday... 
Skills that can be tricky:
1.  counting coins when the dimes, nickels, pennies are in a different order
2.  quarter before and after on the clock
3.  New concept:  in and out box, what's my rule.  This was introduced this week.  The children need to figure out the rule, and be able to fill in missing parts of both the in or out side of the table...This is not yet to be mastered but is a very important concept going forward.
At home you could:  practice addition facts.  They have learned about turn-around facts and doubles.  Ask them about these!
  
We have Music this week and a five day week.  All of us will need lots of rest each night so we can be our best during the day!  Have a wonderful week ahead, and thanks for sharing your learner with me.

Mary Beth 

 

Chinese Cultural Pictures

Happy Wednesday Crew,
I was waiting until my blog was up and running before I sent you these pictures of our field work the day before the holiday. We had an amazing day! Enjoy the photos! (my personal favorite is the fan dancing)

Tidbits

Our Author Book Clubs start tomorrow and we are really excited to get started!

You can help your child make the most of this experience in a number of ways.  Here's how:

1.  Book Clubs are about talking and sharing books! Ask your child what book they are studying and have them share some of the stories they are reading and what they are enjoying about their authors style of writing, characters etc.  

2.  Check out some of the books your child is reading at the public library and or go to this website where you and your child can read some of the picture books they are studying in class. (free website)
http://www.wegivebooks.org/books#all

3.  Share your book club experiences with your child. (Oprah Winfrey did a good job getting our world into this!)


Here are the authors we are studying:
Jan Brett, Eric Carle, Dr. Seuss, Mercer Mayer, Nancy Carlson,  Judith Viorst, Kevin Henkes, Ted Arnold and Ezra Jack Keats.


Yeah for Book Clubs!

Crew News 1/7/12

Hi Crew,

Well, we made it through our first 3 days back, but I must say we all looked a bit worn out by Friday afternoon!  We all have to build back our endurance!

By the way, I did not receive and Thursday folder items this week.

Just want to share a few wonderful moments of learning that happened this week...
 Sticky notes!!  Can first graders actually learn how to think as they read and mark the text with their predictions, wonderings, questions and connections?  You BET!  I showed them how to do this and a few children actually tried it authentically that very same day! Yipee!  This is just one way they will be working during their author studies that will begin this week.  I love how this crew takes on new learning.

Math exchanges! On Friday we enjoyed time exploring how math works as some of us tackled an open ended story problem together while others worked on the I-pads (we have 2 now in our room) or computers or EDM games.  

Guest reader!  Ms. Deborah spent some time with us during math exchanges and then returned to read a few of her favorite books to the crew.  We enjoyed interacting with the books she read, especially Tikki Tikki Tembo.  We love to read and listen to good books.


We have a full week ahead and lots to do.  This week we will start our author studies and spend time with Mr. Doug in P.E. so remember those tennis shoes. 
Joyfully, Mary Beth



  

First Day Back!

Welcome Back Crew! 


We had such a wonderful first day back!  Boy did I miss the children!  And I am sure they all grew. (sorry to tell you this...and we are also half way to second grade!  Slow down world!)


My "boys" (dogs Jack and Eddie) came to school with me over break and the kids were so excited to see the pictures of them, especially Eddie reading a dog book in our class library and both Jack and Eddie sitting with our journal bear Integrity.  My real purpose for their visit was to have another personal narrative story of mine to share with the kids.  I will use this to model writing personal narratives.


We also read another Jan Brett book:  Hedgie Blasts Off!  Ask them to retell it to you.


Finally we had quite the fun time exploring in math today.  Pan scales, counting small items and covering the surface of an item as we learned about area were the three stations we rotated through.  We learned lots from each other during this exploration.

Welcome to my new page!

Happy New Year Crew!

How are all of you?  I am so excited to see the children on Wednesday.  I have mixed rest with work and am ready to get started again.  I have some great exciting new things planned to help my crew grow as learners.

Highlights:

• Author Studies!  As a crew we have been studying author/illustrator Jan Brett. I will continue modeling how we can look at a writer's style with her books.  This study will kick off group author studies where "like readers"  will be paired up with an author.  I've gathered books from these authors:  Ezra Jack Keats, Kevin Henkes, Nancy Carlson, Dr. Seuss, Eric Carle, and Judith Viorst and Tedd Arnold.   Starting next week during centers, the children will have the opportunity to work together reading these authors books.  Then they will be marking them with sticky notes, writing their connections, comparisons/differences, wonderings and other thoughts in their spiral notebooks.  On our class I-pads they will have the opportunity to do google searches on these authors and add facts about the authors to the author folders I have created for them.  I think they are going to love this!
• Individual spelling word lists.  I have a "thing" about spelling.  Although we have been working on a set of words during centers, I want to add to this, giving each child a list of words to work on and then be tested on.  I'm thinking this crew can test each other along with Dana which frees me up to work on work work with the entire crew.  We will be learning multiple ways to spell words.  I've recently introduced er, ir, ur.   
• In expedition we will be looking at notable people and national symbols and holidays.
• Addition facts will be a strong focus as will place value in math.  Start practicing those facts.  There are lots of math games on-line, or some kids prefer the old fashioned flashcards, or both! Such an exciting time as we move forward into more complicated higher-level thinking story problems.

In writing we will continue our work on personal narratives.  The children should have gathered lots of new memories and experiences over the break so I expect a flurry of new stories coming out of them. 

Dana and I have lots of great pictures from our trip to the Chinese Cultural Center which I'll share with you this week. 
See you soon! 
Mary Beth