Fri-YAY!

It's Friday...YAY! What a fun week it's been. As exciting as Fridays are, it is sort of bittersweet. We really start getting in the swing of things Wednesday-Friday and then we must take a break! We have worked really hard this week at lots of things. Take a look!

Our focus this week for spelling/phonics was short /o/. We do many things with our focus letter/sound: add movements to the words (Move and Spell), brainstorm as many words as we can, practice handwriting, build the word with letter tiles, read a poem, read a phonics story, find it within text, and lots of hands-on, fun, word building activities. A favorite is using the dry erase board at the work on writing station, like Marlee is doing in the photo above.

Have you heard about EPIC? Our students LOVE hopping on our new chromebooks to listen to stories on EPIC. It's so important for them to hear fluent reading in order to become a fluent reader! This program does a nice job, without sounding robotic.

Some kids like to use whisper phones to practice their spelling words by themselves. It's a nice quiet activity.

Other students enjoy using magnadoodles to write their sight words (ball words), or spelling words!

Colin has chosen a "Build It" writing activity----these writing prompts get them cutting, gluing, and writing sentences and stories in a really fun way! These are a favorite at the writing station.

We are still working on building number sense and adding within 10. We have worked with making numbers in a variety of ways, and adding numbers together in lots of fun ways, too! This group really "gets it" when it comes to working with numbers to 10. We are well on our way to adding. Unit 2 coming up is all about addition and subtraction. Our class has learned that there are a variety of strategies and tools to help us learn. When we work with numbers we can use:

*fingers

*drawings

*mental math

*math mountains (number bonds)

*patterns in equations

*blocks for counting

*number lines....and more!

Delainey likes to use a number line to add and subtract. We are learning that everyone will find a strategy and tool that works best for them!

We played a card game called "Pick 2". To find the partners (addends) of 7, 8, or 9, students chose one number card and counted on more blocks to get to the total of 7, 8, or 9---depending on the day/focus number. These girls are showing that 6 and 3 more make 9.

We also continue to work on being great writers! This week, we have started writing our first small moment/personal narratives. Writing is such a process...but one of my most favorite things to teach, besides reading! Once we got some ideas under our belt, we hit the ground running. I was so impressed with how well our class planned their first writing. They were able to take their big topic and narrow it down to one small moment to focus on. Then, we used graphic organizers to help us tell our story in order so that it makes sense from beginning to end, using transition words (First, Next, Then, Last). This means, your young writer is striving for 4-5 sentences!

We will finish these up next week, and I can't wait to see the finished product!

This week you will see that some of your child's daily work was used for a penmanship grade. In first grade, we do have a place on the report card for penmanship. Not all things will be graded for handwriting - but you will know if a grade has been entered when you see this rubric attached to a work sample. At first, we are learning and practicing a lot!! Sometimes it takes awhile for students to know that handwriting counts---but as we become authors, they especially start to care when they want to read what they have written to an audience, or when they want other people to read their writing! Encourage your writer to take their time and control their fine motor muscles when writing/coloring at home!