December 21st, 2012

 We celebrated our little bit of snow by making snowmen inspired by the book The Missing Mitten Mystery.  We also did a snowball greeting during morning meeting.

This week students measured the area of their feet using square tiles and pennies.  We collected the data and created two different graphs.

Math Centers

For math centers this week, students explored money.  Students are working on identifying coins, building amounts using different coins, and counting coins to determine different amounts.  Mr. Bouchard taught us a new app called Coins, that helps practice these skills.  At the Ipad center, students used three different apps to practice their subtraction skills.  At the BrightLink center, students played One Hundred Number Chart Game and Base Ten Blocks.  These games help with identifying, ordering, and building double and triple digit numbers.

Our Word Wall words this week were her, him, and when.

Enjoy your vacation!

Our Author's Celebration!

Our Author's Celebration was a huge success!  Thank you to all of the families who came in to hear the author's read their stories.

Last week we started learning and exploring different maps.  This is part of our community unit.  These students are creating maps of a room in their houses.  We have been talking about the different parts of a map such as, a title, key, labels, and compass rose.

Our Word Wall words this week were had, were, and what.

Author's Celebration!

Please come join us on Thursday the 13th to hear these awesome first grade authors share their Small Moment stories. They have been working really hard to publish these writing pieces!

Week of December 3rd, 2012

Students have been working hard using their author brains this week.  Every student has finished editing and revising their Small Moment story, and now they are working on illustrating their final published copy.  We will be having an author's celebration this Thursday from 9:00-9:40.  Every student will get a chance to sit in the author's chair and read their story to the audience.  Families are invited to come hear these wonderful stories being read out loud!

Math Centers

 

At this center, students worked on their addition skills.  Students had three Investigations addition games to choose from.  Every student is working on using the strategy of counting on because it is the most efficient!

At this center, students played the game Fishy Addition.  Students had to create a fishy train by matching an equation to it's missing addend. 

 Students continue to be working hard at the Ipad center.  This week we kept working on the app Zoom.  This helps students with number identification up to the thousands!

  

Our marble jar is filling up!  Please remember to be reading at home 4 times for forty minutes.  The Reading Log has to come in on Thursday in order for students to be able to put a marble in the jar.  We are hoping to be able to get our new classroom book soon!

Our Word Wall words this week were there, like, and are.

Week of November 26th, 2012

 

Students are are working on publishing one of their Small Moment Stories.  Students have been learning how to revise and edit their writing using highlighters.  They have done this independently, with a buddy, and with Ms. Henault.

This is our "Marvelous Math Work" wall.  Students are working on showing their math thinking in an organized way.  The four steps to checking our math work are making sure we have shown our math thinking, we have an equation, a labeled answer, and all of our numbers are formed the correct way.  If students have a math problem that shows organized math thinking, it is hung on our "Marvelous Math Work" wall.

Math Centers

During math centers, students worked with me on building numbers using base ten blocks.  Some students worked on adding double and triple digit numbers using base ten blocks!  At the Ipad center, students tried out a new app called Zoom.  On Zoom, students work to place different numbers on a number line.  At the BrightLink center, students played Base Ten Bingo and Base Ten Boat.

Our Word Wall words this week were they, have, and from.

Week of November 12th, 2012

 The firefighters came to visit the whole first grade.  They shared about fire safety, and every student got to go into the fire truck!

Math Centers

This student was participating in the Ms. Henault Math Center.  Students worked on showing their thinking in an organized way.  Students then shared their work with the group, and thought about what makes math work organized.

The other two centers were the BrightLink and Ipads.  The BrightLink games we played were Base Ten Fun and Addition Tug of War.  Base Ten Fun helps students with place value and Addition Tug of War helps with adding skills.  Our new Ipad app this week is Base Ten Fun.  It is very similar to the game we played on the BrightLink.  Our class has quite the menu of math apps to choose from!

 Check out our new bulletin board in the hallway!  We made turkeys, and wrote about something we were thankful for.

On Tuesdays, we use the Ipads during Word Study.  Students create words out of tiles.  Our Word Wall words this week were into, said, and one.

The Friday Reading Folders will be coming home but they aren't due to come back until the Thursday after vacation (11/29/12)!  Have a great vacation!

Week of November 5th, 2012

Our new unit we are learning about is Community.  As a class we came up with our own definition of community.  We are playing The Million Dollar Word Game with some community and map words.  Our words in The Million Dollar Word Game so far are globe, map, community, urban, and rural.  Students are also creating Community Bulls Eyes.  Each circle represents a community that we are a part of.

 Sometimes there is an odd number of students when we are doing Read to Someone.  Students can then choose a stuffed animal to read to.  This student is reading with our owl Echo.

Math Centers

 

At this center, students worked on ways to make ten.  They also worked with me on the "backpack strategy." This helps students add single digit numbers to the number 10 quickly because they think of the 0 as a backpack that other numbers can "jump" into.

On the BrightLink, students played two different games.  The first game was called Building Expressions.  Students had to solve addition equations quickly.  The equations could also be reversed so instead of seeing 2+1=__ they would see __= 2+1.We had a great conversation about how equations have to be balanced or the same on both sides.  The other game students played was called Ten Bonds.  During this game students had to figure out ways to make ten.

 The last center students participated in was Ipads.  Our new app on the Ipad is called Number Line.  This helps students to sequence numbers and show addition equations on a number line.

Students are working on forming their teen numbers in the correct way.  Here is a music video we watched to help use remember!

 Our new read aloud book is James and the Giant Peach.  It is bringing out a lot of great discussions!

Our Word Wall words this week are your, you, and or.

New Books to Share

We recently added some new books to our bookshelf. We read Crickwing during social studies, and discussed the communities in the book and how the characters were being positive community members. Froggy Plays In The Band was read during writing, as a good example of using sound words to make your writing more interesting. We just finished reading Gooney Bird Greene on Friday, which was our first chapter book. The class voted to share The Three Little Wolves and The Big Bad Pig.

Week of October 29th, 2012

Happy November!  We continue to work on our Daily Five choices.  These students are practicing Writing, Word Work, and Reading to Self.  This week for Word Work students are working on bonus letter words. These are words that have 2 of the same letter at the end.  For example, yell, miss, cuff, and buzz.

 During Word Study this week, we read a quick story called The Big Mess.  Students read it independently and then we read it fluently as group on the BrightLink.  We had to become detectives and search for certain things in the story.  We marked up uppercase letters, punctuation marks, quotation marks, digraphs, and bonus letter words.

Math Centers

 Our first center was on the Ipads.  Mr. Bouchard taught us how to use a new app called Geoboards.  This helped us practice our shapes.  Geoboards is a free app, if you happen to have an Ipad at your house. 

Our second center was on the BrightLink.  Students played two different games.  The first was called 100 Number Grid.  Students have to find certain numbers on a blank 100's chart.  This helps student become familiar with how to use a 100's chart and it helps with identifying numbers to 100.  The second game was called Penguin Party Addition.  This helps students become faster with their addition math facts that use numbers 1-9.

Our last center was starring me, Ms. Henault.  Students showed me how they could compose a hexagon using different pattern blocks.  They also chose different shapes to fill and built some of their own shapes.  Students then had to count the number of blocks they used to build.

Our Word Wall words this week were she, we, and all.  These are some sentences we wrote during morning meeting with these words.  Our Word Wall Specialist did a great job writing the Word Wall words in the sentences.

Week of October 22nd, 2012

 

Every morning when students come in they have a piece of morning work they have to complete.  On Mondays, students sign up for their Daily Five choices and pick out their books for the week.  On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursday, students complete a page in their math packet.  On Fridays, students sign up for their Daily Five choices and write ten Word Wall words.  If students finish their morning work, they may read books from the classroom library.

  

Students were able to choose which Daily Five activities they would like to participate in during the week.

 These students are practicing Reading to Someone and Word Work during Daily Five.

Math Centers

 

These students are making their Making Ten Rainbows and practicing their facts that add up to ten.

  

These students are on the Math Garden App, which helps students practice their addition facts.  The other apps we have been using are Quick Images, PopMath, Find Sums, Adding Apples, and Hungry Fish.  Some of these apps are free and some cost money, if you happen to have an Ipad at your house!

 

 These students are playing Roll and Cover.  Students must roll three dice and add them up.  They then find that number on the board and cover it with a pattern block.  The game is over when the whole picture is covered.

We have been working on using LOTS of details in our writing.  We have been using questions words (Who?, What?, Where?, When?) to help us remember different details.  Each student filled out a graphic organizer to them prepare for one of their Small Moments.

Our Word Wall words this week were go, do, and be.