Going Batty

Spiders...and now bats! Can you tell we are getting closer to Halloween?  Bats are so interesting, although I wouldn't want to run into a roost in a dark cave.  Bats do make for a great topic for first grade research though!  We used the topic to discuss informational text.  As we read different nonfiction books and articles, we recorded our learning on a RAN (Reading and Analyzing Nonfiction) chart.

The chart starts with our background knowledge.  The students brainstormed what they already thought they knew about bats.  As we read, we moved and added post it notes to the other categories.  When our background knowledge was correct we moved the note to "Yes, we were right."  Of course, when we found text evidence of our thinking we were sure to note the source on the the postit.  Sometimes, as we read we found that our thinking changed.  For instance, some students thought bats were blind.  As we read, we learned that bats can see quite well in low light.  If our thinking changed, our postit moved to "We don't think this anymore."  There was also a category for new learning and another for wonderings.

Next, we brought our learning about bats into writing.  We made a bat diagram and took some notes on a graphic organizer.  The notes on the graphic organizer became our big ideas.  Then we came up with supporting details for our big ideas.  We made a chart to organize big ideas and details.

When the students put all the learning together the writing was pretty impressive.  Not bad for first graders!  Writing informational text is not easy and these children did awesome!

Stellaluna

We read the wonderful story Stellaluna in class.  Click on the title to see a fabulous reading of the book by Pamela Reed.  The story was filled with rich vocabulary and we added six new words to our word wizard board.  The new word wizard words are clutched, crooned, adapt, gasped, sighed, and plunged.  We put adapt and plunged into our vocabulary notebooks.

The Arctic Hare adapts to winter by changing his coat.

Stellaluna plunged from the nest.

Be listening for your child to use these new word wizard words.  Ask your child if they can define the words!  We are word wizards!

Pumpkin Play

  
      We can't wait to see you this Friday at 1:30 for the pumpkin play! Please feel free to call me with any questions or if you need help with preparations. Continue to practice with your child this week on their rhymes and their lines. It will be a wonderful event.
      We will be having a dress rehearsal on Friday morning so it is important that the children come to school Friday morning with their nursery rhyme costumes. Further, if your child is a pumpkin in the play, please dress them in orange if possible.
      I could use some help with treats for the play. After the performance, we will enjoy some treats together. The children will be making pumpkin bars in class to share but we would love to have more, especially because the first grade bakers will most likely want to test their dessert. Click on the Pumpkin Play Treats  and you will be taken to a shared document. Sign up for what you want to bring, for example "Spider Cookies" and put your name. If you have any trouble with the document, give me a call and I will get you signed up. Thank you!

Spiders Spiders Everywhere

Creepy, crawly, and an engaging way to get first graders to work on important reading, writing, and math skills: spiders, spiders EVERYWHERE!  We did so many different spider activities I had to divide it up in four separate posts.  In reading, we read both fiction and nonfiction books on spiders. 

We worked on retelling a story using the story elements of character, setting, problem, ordered events, and solution or ending.  We took the very familiar story of the Itsy Bitsy Spider and made a story map to include the elements of a complete retell.  Listen to this student use the map to tell all the elements of Itsy Bitsy.  So smart!

Another important foundational reading skill that we practiced with spiders this week was recognizing rhyming words.  We practiced rhyming by playing a game called "Web of Rhymes."  Students had relay race.  They had to run to the "Web of Rhymes" balancing a spider on their heads.  Then, the first graders had to find a rhyming pair.  After the rhyming pair was selected, the racer brought the cards to their score keeper and handed the spider off to the next team mate.  The children had so much fun collecting rhymes, they didn't realize how hard they were working.

Spider Writing

Spiders are a great topic for writing.  All week, we read nonfiction books on spiders.  We also watched this video from Discovery, click here.  We collected our information on a chart.

One of our major objectives in writing is for first graders to be able to write on opinion piece.  First we sorted some statements about spiders into fact or opinion.  Then, before we wrote we talked about OREO writing.  In an OREO piece, students state their Opinion, give a Reason, give some Evidence, then restate the Opinion.  The first graders had to choose their opinion: Are spiders creepy or cool?  Then, they were to use the information we had learned about spiders as their reasoning and evidence.  The first graders worked very hard.  Such hard work on an Oreo opinion piece deserves a cookie treat, yes?

The pieces turned out great.  Here are just two examples read by the authors.  One creepy opinion and one cool opinion.  What do you think?

We also made some cute spiders to go with our opinion pieces.  You should check out our writing and art work in the hallway during conference time.

Spider Math

Spiders were even incorporated into math this week.   Spiders were the topic for data collection.  We surveyed 8 friends to find out if they thought spiders were creepy or cool (more with opinions).  Students had to tally their results and then color in a pie graph to represent the data. The end result, it was a close race but most students in our class think spiders are cool.

Spider Sum Up

We ended our spider activities with Spider Soup!  The children interactively wrote a recipe for spider soup.  They were creative, silly coming up with the "grossest" ingredients they could.  Ha!  Weren't they surprised when I told them I caught enough spiders to make a whole crock pot of their soup!  All morning long, the children were looking in the pot in disbelief.  "Did she really make our recipe?"

After recess, the soup was ready to be served.  Best comment ever...."It tastes just like chicken!" Love these first graders!

We had such a super spider week.  I couldn't put all the photos in the blog posts so here is a slideshow to show a few more!

Customize your own free picture slideshow

Pen Pal Letters

Our first inquiry unit in reading explores the question "How are my friends and family connected to me?"  In our small reading groups and in our class big book we are learning about different ways friends stay connected.  One group learned about pen pals.  In the picture above, the reading group took turns presenting their reading and teaching the other children about being a pen pal.  After learning about pen pals, the students were so excited to learn that we were getting our own pen pals!

We will be exchanging letters with a group of pre-service teachers from Rocky Mountain College.  The group is taking a methods class on developing literacy.  For our first letter exchange, the college students came in to our classroom.  They wrote the first letters and read them to all the first graders.  The children were so excited.

We wrote letters back to our pen pals right away.  Reading and exchanging the letters will give us great practice of literacy skills and a fun purpose for writing.  The students worked really hard on their letters.  We have already had the opportunity to practice skills like writing a question, answering a question in a complete sentence, and friendly letter form.  The first graders can't wait to get the next round of pen pal letters!

Word Wizards

    Many parents have commented to me about Word Wizard. Vocabulary is one of the strongest predictors of reading success. Word Wizard is an activity we have been doing in class to help the children build their vocabularies in a fun and meaningful way. New and interesting words that we find in our reading or content area studies are added to our vocabulary logs and word wizard board. The children try and put the words into their everyday speech. When a child uses a word wizard word, they tell the class the context they used the word in and they get to put a sticker up on our chart. The children are trying to get enough stickers to earn a popcorn party.      Hopefully, the children have been trying some of the word wizard words at home. I even have gotten a couple notes from parents that their child used a word wizard word. I love it. Our first word wizard words this year came from the wonderful book, Ruby the Copycat. Click on the title above to see an excellent video version of the book.      After reading the book and watching the video, we have been studying the words, coincidence, murmur, recite, loyal, bitter, and sensitive. We even added sensitive and bitter to our vocabulary notebooks.

Bitter

Sensitive

     Ask your child what all six of these words mean and see if they can use examples. Try and use the words in your conversations and see if your child notices. Please be listening for word wizards! I would love to get some more notes! Thank you for your continued support!

We Can Add Doubles

Doubles, doubles, we can add doubles! Knowing doubles facts is a great strategy for becoming fluent with addition facts. Practice those double facts! Here is an easy game to play at home. Take one die and roll it. Have your first grader say the double of the number rolled. For instance, if a two is rolled, the student would say, "Four." Here are some boys in class playing "Doubles Snap."

Doubles are not only easy to memorize but they can help students with other related facts. For example, students that know 5+5 can easily figure out that 5+6 would be one more, 11. In the app Scribble Press, we made a book using stickers to illustrate the doubles + 1 facts.