In math, we are studying groups of 5 and some more. This helps prepare us for groups of 10. It is also easy to see groups of 5 quickly without counting. Sometimes, we need practice seeing groups of numbers. We did this through a website. We will also practice using dot cards and 10 frames. To practice, a group of dots is flashed in 3 seconds or less. It is our goal to quickly figure out how many dots were in the image. IMPORTANT - we also talk about how we see the dots. In the sample above, the left hand circle is the easiest. If it were flashed in 3 seconds or less, we could say there are 5 dots. Then we say we saw the dots in a group of three and two more. Maybe we saw a group of two, another group of two, and one more. There are many ways to see the 5 dots on the plate. The right circle is much more difficult. I see 5 green, 2 blue, and 3 red dots. Therefore, I see 10 dots. I could also see a group of two on the left, a group of three on the bottom right, a group of four towards the top, and one small one in the middle. I would still see 10 dots. Once we are able to see groups, then we are able to find groups of 5 and some more. This will help us learn our addition and subtraction facts to ten. View the pictures below to see how we've been practicing!
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It's hard to believe we have almost completed our first week of school! You should receive a newsletter every Friday in your email. If not, let me know! This week we learned A LOT of expectations, but we also learned new material in Daily 5, writing, and math. This week in writing, we focused on Labels. We learned how to draw a picture and to label it to give the viewer information about the picture. Our first opportunity to practice labeling included a teamwork exercise. Students were to choose a buddy, think of (and agree on) what they would draw and label. Finally, they had to carry out their plan involving both people. The students eagerly cooperated with and included their buddy in the process. The results are wonderful! Here are a few things the students drew and labeled with their partners:
Today we made our Landform Cookies! We have been studying maps for a few weeks and were excited to experience some hands on learning! Our cookies had different parts: Green Frosting - Plain Blue Sprinkles - River Crushed Graham Crackers - Desert m&m's - Hills Candy Corn - Mountains Our pictures are posted on Photobucket if you want to see them all! Thanks to everyone who donated the materials!
We are learning about the community in our current content unit. This consists of three parts: 1. Maps 2. Landforms 3. Long Ago and Today When talking about maps, we need to know and understand two specific things. A compass rose... ...that tells us the direction. We also need to understand and use a map key... ...to label the different parts of a map.
Soon we will get into natural and man-made parts of a map. In the map key above, all the examples are man-made. Some map keys include rivers, forests, and mountains which are natural. Landforms are the various "natural" occurrences that we see on Earth. We will study mountains, hills, rivers, plains, desert, ocean, and island. This is where our cookie project comes in! Finally, we learn about the changes that happened between long ago and today. The students have some schema on this. We read a book during our families unit titled Nathan of Yesteryear, Michael of Today. This time we will talk about long ago and today when describing the community, rather than families. During the month of April we worked on opinion writing. We learned the difference between fact and opinion, why our opinion is important, and how to write opinion pieces. Our final project included posters "selling" something in an imaginary store. We practiced writing our opinion on TodaysMeet in 5 words or less to strengthen our writing. Check it out below!
This week we worked on Choral Reading. I created a separate webpage with videos of the students reading their poems. Check it out here!
This week we studied Word Choice in our writing. We realized words can engage us in an author's writing. We read the book A Leaf Can Be... by Laura Purdie Salas. We noticed how Laura did not say, "The giraffe eats leaves." Rather, she says, "Leaves can be a mouth filler." We used this inspiring book to write about our own topic of choice. We put our words in poetry format. One poem came out like this:
Owls in the Forest by Fiona Owls can be cool like a panda amazing like a unicorn eating fruit like a zebra living in trees like a monkey A few students even created inferences for their poems! We are working hard on learning and applying strategies to our writing! We have learned a lot about our Solar System! We are preparing for our field trip to the Planetarium and the Field Museum. So far, we've learned... ...terminology.
...components.
...locations.
...importance.
To prepare for the Planetarium, we created our own constellations after viewing some on Google Sky. Check it out!
The past few weeks we studied geometry. We played with geoboards, pattern blocks, and 3-D shapes. We learned about shape attributes (the qualities of each shape), composing and decomposing shapes. Along with this study comes a variety of vocabulary words including turn, rotate, flip, slide, stack, and so on. As a project, we made a class quilt modeled after quilt blankets... ...and barn quilts. Each student used shapes and patterns to create their own unique quilt square. I put them together to create a Class Quilt. Here it is! In case you're interested, the geoboard app we used in our classroom can be found here.
This week we started exploring time. The first grade benchmark requires students to tell and write time to the hour and half hour. We started by learning the hour hand by using a 1 handed clock. The times above can be described as 7 o'clock, a little after 9, half past 2. Using one hand helps us learn the hand is directly pointing to a number at the hour (:00) and it moves throughout the hour. We then introduce the minute hand to tell time to the hour. Today, we learned about telling time to the half hour. There are three things to remember:
1. The minute (big) hand is on the 6. 2. The hour (little) hand is between the hour stated and the next hour. 3. Time to the half hour is written as :30. Please practice telling time to the hour and half hour at home! |
What have we learned?
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April 2014
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