Literacy Centers

 
Our literacy centers are going strong. This week was our third week at literacy centers. Center time is one of the students' favorite times of the day. The children love this time because they get to work independently on all sorts of engaging activities. Our center time practices important skills related to their academic and social development. At each center, the students are in groups of 4. Center time is filled with social interactions so the children are practicing important social skills like sharing, taking turns, cooperating, using manners, polite conversation, and encouraging others. They are also learning to handle and clean up classroom materials. Of course, all this while practicing their literacy skills. While the children are busy working at their centers, I have time to pull small reading groups. In the small groups, we work on reading strategies. So many great things going on during reader's workshop.

Pen Pals

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.  The children were so excited to receive their letters.  We also spent some time writing back to our pen pals. 

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!

Counting On

We have spent several weeks building a strong foundation for addition.  Now, the children are working on moving addition facts to fluency and solving addition word problems.  We have talked about some important addition strategies.  One strategy we worked on this week is counting on.  To count on, if students are given the problem 5+3, they would start at 5 and count 3 more, 6, 7, 8.  To introduce counting on we read the book Mouse Count.



In Mouse Count, the snake counts on to count the mice. After reading, we played a partner game to practice counting on. Everyday, I see that the students are getting more efficient with addition. So smart! After playing the Mouse Count game, we used an app called Addimals. The app Addimals walks the student through "missions."  To complete the different missions, the students must use the addition strategies we are working on developing in first grade.  The app begins with counting on.  Introducing Addimals worked perfectly into our math lesson.  Look at the concentration!

Here are a few more great math apps we will be doing in the next few weeks to practice addition strategies and fact fluency: Adding and Subtracting to Ten, Math Bingo, Teach Me Math Facts, Quick Math, Butterfly Math, and TopIt.

Nursery Rhyme Fun

The Connected Ones are excited about their upcoming performance on October 3oth.  On Tuesday, students will choose the nursery rhyme to perform.  On the day of the performance, students will come dressed as their character and recite their rhyme at the show.  Remember, the costumes can be simple. This performance is to celebrate reading , it is not meant to cause stress.  The photo to the left is from a couple years ago, just to give you an idea of how easy a costume can be.  My son was "Little Boy Blue."  We dressed him in blue and borrowed a horn. Simple!

On Tuesday, please make sure your child has a list of several rhymes he/she would be happy to perform.  That way, we don't have any tears if their favorite rhyme is taken by another child.  Here are some great resources to read and enjoy a variety of different nursery rhymes.  There is a great site at http://www.speakaboos.com/ that will read nursery rhymes and other stories aloud.  Also, if you click "nursery rhymes" on the top button bar of the blog you will be taken to a Symbaloo filled with links to nursery rhyme videos.

Our subscription to RazKids includes a nursery rhyme section!  To get to the rhymes, log in to RazKids.  Our username is "connectedones."  Then, go to the Book Room.

Once in the Book Room, on the left change "leveled books" to "nursery rhymes"...then enjoy!  I can't wait to show the kids this feature at school.  They will be so excited!

  

Alphabet Books

We have been reviewing the alphabet letters and sounds by reading and writing alphabet books. Here are some of our favorite books. There are so many fun and interesting stories organized as abc books!  When we read the book A my name is Alice, we did our own version of a rewrite.  The students had to use the first letter of their name and find something they liked that started with that letter.  Then, they made a self portrait.  The pages turned out darling!  The children love looking at them hanging up in our classroom.

We also wrote a class alphabet chart and individual alphabet books. During these writing projects the students learned how to navigate their way through a dictionary...the ultimate ABC book!  The students used the letters in their names to make their own abc book.  They are dictionary experts!

There are some great apps that work on identifying letters and sounds and writing letters.  Also, the app Endless Alphabet is a great vocabulary builder set up as an alphabet book.  The kids LOVE it!  Click on the app name to be taken to more information. Letter School, Starfall, Writing Wizard, Sound Sorting, ABC Magic, Endless Alphabet