Reader's Theater

Here are 3 Reader's Theater presentations that my reading groups presented for Mrs. Baer's reading groups.  Sorry that the recordings are a little quiet and a little bumpy!

Reading Group: How Grandmother Spider Stole the Sun

Reading Group: The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal

Reading Group: First Strawberries

Enjoy!

Poetry!

We have been working on writing poetry about objects you might see all the time.  First graders are putting on their poet eyes and thinking about the objects in a different way.  As a class, we wrote a poem about this screw.  We first wrote down our thoughts, and then divided them into lines to make them sound more like a poem or a song.

Week of March 18th, 2013

I hope everyone enjoyed their half day of school!  This week we were busy busy writers in our classroom.  We worked on our "How To" books and some poetry.  Some students get stuck on what they can write about during Daily 5 writing time.  This helps students to remember the different kinds of writing we have practiced this year.

As first graders, we are really working on slowing down and checking our work.  These are the four steps we are using when checking or editing our work.  Students must check that their letters are formed correctly,  they started their sentences with an uppercase, ended with a punctuation mark, and pointed to every word to make sure they have not left anything out.

We had an awesome Author's Celebration with our kindergarten neighbors.  Both classes shared their "All About" books.  Some students shared in small groups and some shared with a partner!

We started our unit on plants.  We read the book The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle and students shared what they knew about plants using the words have, need, and give.  Next week we will plant seeds, so that we can do some observations.

Here are 2 videos we watched this week to help us learn about plants!

Math Centers

For math centers this week, students used an app called Mathmeteer.  This helps students with multiple different math skills such as adding, subtracting, counting by different numbers, shapes, and much more.  We started a new math center called Math Problem Box.  Students write addition and subtraction story problems and put them into the box.  They then get to pick a story problem someone else has written and solve it in their new Math Journal.  At the Ms. Henault center, students worked on adding 10 to a number.  Students used hundreds charts to help them discover that when adding 10 a number the ones place doesn't change but the tens place does.

Our Word Wall words this week were these, other, and more.

Week of March 11th, 2013

This week we have been working on graphing and answering questions about our graphs during Morning Meeting.  As a celebration, every student got to graph the number of each color of M&Ms inside a Fun Size pack of M&Ms.  

Students learned a new game called Make a Train.  This helps students to identify a pattern and the units within a pattern.

We have been practicing reading our "All About" books to a partner.  We will be having an Author's Celebration on Monday in Mrs. Bouchard's kindergarten class.  First graders will be paired with kindergartners to share their "All About" books.

Math Centers

On The Ipad center, students worked independently on an app called Notability.  These were the steps they had to follow.

At the game center, students played Minus Maze which they learned last week.  Students came to me to prove 2 different math conjectures.  Students proved that adding 1 to a number will always make it go 1 number higher, and that when subtracting 1 from a number the number will always go 1 numbers lower.

During Science, students continued to explore magnets.  One day they explored different things magnets would or would not stick to.  We will be starting a new unit about plants on Monday!

Our Word Wall words were write, word, and many.

Week of March 6th, 2013

We had a lot of fun exploring magnets on Thursday!  Our discussion question was, "What do magnets have to do with force and motion?"  Here are some pictures of the class exploring!

Math Centers

Our math centers this week focused on our addition and subtraction skills.  Students played Sum Swamp and used apps that focused on these skills.  I taught students a new board game called Minus Mission that helped practice subtraction skills.  We discussed efficient ways to solve subtraction problems.

We started a new Math Unit called Color, Shape, and Number Patterns.  We started today by building patterns and discussing different ways to describe a pattern.

Our Word Wall words this week were out, use, and time.

Week of February 18th, 2013

We had E.L.F. and learned a lot about galls!

Our Force and Motion experiment this week focused on changing the ramp from the smooth side to the bumpy side.  Students had to make a prediction if the texture of the board would affect how far the ball went.

We started writing procedure pieces or "How To" books.  We started this week by watching this video of a child describing how they ate the Oreo   We wrote the steps down as a class.  Students then got to eat one Oreo and write their own "How to Eat an Oreo" piece.  Students worked on using transition words like next, finally, and after.  It was a lot of fun!

Here is the video if you would like to watch it!

We are working hard in our reading groups!  This group read Freckle Juice this week.

Our Word Wall words this week were this, their, and make.

Week of February 11th, 2013

This student is marking up words on the BrightLink.  This helps us to remember spelling and writing rules.

These students are checking out the goodies in their Valentine's Day mailboxes.

Mrs. Jop taught us how to make "Magic Books" in special Valentine's Day colors!

On Wednesday, Mrs. Jop taught us how to paint the covers for our "All About" books.  She even came back on Thursday to put them on for us!

Lupe Sears came in to tell us about her job as a scientist, and the different kinds of birds she studies.  Mrs. Baer's class joined us too!

Monday was the 100th day of school!  We celebrated by reading Jake's 100th Day of School, and we did some writing using the number 100.

Math Centers

Our math centers this week consisted of Ipads, the BrightLink, and small group work with Ms. H.  Students at the Ipad and BrightLink centers practiced their addition and subtraction skills.  The BrightLink games were Penguin Party and Minus Mission.  The small group work focused on how to solve story problems that have more than one rule.  Students had to create and label multiple equations that had the same answer.

Our Word Wall words this week were which, them, and that.