We had so much fun on our field trip! Our favorite part was the black hole and the roller coaster. Check out the pictures!
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I'm happy to be back! I missed this wonderful class :)
We got to work right away reviewing math concepts. This includes fractions, properties of shapes, time, and measurement. We are currently assessing these concepts. For measurement, we reviewed nonstandard measurement with an activity. I placed tape on the floor in curvy lines. In groups of 3, the students had to choose a measuring tool that "is consistently the same size and is small enough to measure with." The groups then measured the lines with their objects and wrote the length on our class chart. Check it out below! More pictures posted here. To tie in with literacy and content, we had the opportunity to make Gingerbread Houses. Here's how we used the Gingerbread books to help us learn:
Literacy We discussed beginning, middle, and end We made connections to the story We identified characters and settings Content We learned about folk tales, myths, and legends from around the world and the lessons we can learn from them We enjoyed making the houses! Thank you to the family members that came in and helped us out! More pictures can be found here. We finished our eBook and we are excited to share our hard work with you! There are a couple ways you can view it. Let me know if you have any difficulties viewing our book! Download the file below. Follow the directions to open the book using Google Chrome (an internet program).
iPads in the classroom are a wonderful tool to help bring our learning to a higher level. Often, we use our iPads for review or to practice concepts we are currently working on. We also use our iPads to create, share, and learn in our classroom.
Our iPads have apps that we use in our classroom to help review and practice concepts. These are apps that you can have at home, too! Nearly all apps listed are free. We use more than these, but I find these apps to be the best when it comes to practicing 1st grade skills: Over the past few weeks, we have been studying features of Informational Text. Although we do not have a complete list of features yet, we do have some that we find and use regularly in our reading. This week we specifically searched for headings in our National Geographic Young Explorer Magazine.
This week our schema focus was on Informational Text. We use Informational Text (or non-fiction) to get information. Each day we read a little bit of the book Frogs by Gail Gibbons. Then the students evaluated their new knowledge to create this chart: While we were reading, a few students thought a piece of information in the book was incorrect. The book stated that frog eggs are laid underwater and showed a picture of the eggs towards the surface. A few students said the eggs should be at the bottom of the pond. One student utilized PebbleGo! to do research for us. On the pink sticky note, she wrote what she found: "Frogs lay eggs under the water." We decided this could mean anywhere under the water, including the surface and the bottom of the pond. It's great to see their minds questioning and researching! Next week will practice that research
The past few weeks we have been talking about using our "schema" to make connections. Schema includes things we know and experience that we can use to help us understand the story. There are 3 types of connections we focused on: Text to Self
Text to Text
Text to World
Today, Students were able to make a Text to Text connection using the books Little Oink and Little Hoot by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. We found quite a few similarities between the books. Some students made Text to Self connections by connecting with the characters with these books as well.
Yesterday we practiced making Text to Self connections using the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. In groups we wrote "This book reminds me of...because..." to help us make connections that are meaningful to our reading. We explored partners of 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 this past week. We used many different math tools to help us explore. We used the tools and recorded our results. Today, we played a partners of ten game that introduced us to counting on. When we count on, we grab the first number, tap our fist (like we are playing rock, paper, scissors), then hold up fingers until we reach the total. Finally, we count how many fingers we had up. Lets say our problem starts with 6. How many more do we need to reach 10? We imaging 6 in our hand and say, "6". Then we open our fist one finger at a time and count, "7, 8, 9, 10." By the end, the studtns
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What have we learned?
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April 2014
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