And We're off!

     What a bunch of hard working first graders! We officially began our Writer's Workshop this week. This is our last activity of our day and it is a wonderful way to end our day, sharing and writing stories. We are currently working on narrative stories- writing about “small moments” that we want to share. Our focus is on telling the story in sequence with a beginning, middle and ending. We work on using transition words such as “and”, “then”, and “when”. We are learning to plan our story, tell our story, and finally write our story. We are also reading and discussing many stories written by Kevin Henkes, a new favorite author of ours!

Writer's Workshop

     During Math, we are focusing on Counting and Quantity. Children are focused on developing strategies for accurately counting a set of objects by ones. We are working in our Math Activity books and also exploring the characteristics of cubes, pattern blocks and geoblocks.

What we noticed!

     During our Literacy time, we are learning how to choose a “Just Right Book”. This is a book that is interesting to read and a book where we can read most of the words. For children to read independently and practice reading, they need a variety of books at their direct disposal. In our classroom, each child has their own book box, complete with three to eight Just Right Books. The most important thing to do to become a better reader is to read Just Right Books. 

Preparing or Book Boxes

     Our theme time sometimes consists of science, social stories or literacy projects. This week we participated in another experiment “Mixing Colors”. We focused on Inquiry- asking questions and finding answers! Our color mixing experiment was very cool as children explored the ideas of liquid, oils and colors!

                                                       The Color Mixing Experiment

           Weekly News is going home for the first time. Children are writing a sentence or two about our week at school. Please read your child's news and respond with a sentence or two- you can write directly in their journals.