Hello everybody. We are just two days away from our holiday break. Things are wrapping up nicely. Here's the latest...
Language Arts This week we will be reading several versions of The Gingerbread Man. We will be comparing and contrasting the different versions of the fairy tale, working on a sequencing craft, and creating our own gingerbread man. Writer's Workshop Our writers will be continuing to write their informational teaching books. They are working on strategies including how to use readers to add and subtract parts of their story. We looked at a 1st grade checklist to give the writers an idea of what the expectations are during the unit. Finally, we continue to touch upon punctuation, spelling and capitalization to make our informational text publishable. Math We will be wrapping up our unit on Base-10 and assessing on Friday. The students have been learning more about grouping tens to help count bigger numbers. We are also continuing to learn more about place value, and the difference between 4+5, 40+50 and 40+5. The students learned more about odd and even numbers, and why Science/Social Studies Snowflakes were the focus this week. We watched several videos and learned about how these mysterious thing form, and that every snowflake is unique. As I'm sure you saw, the kids created their own snowflakes too. We will also be learning about charitable giving during this holiday season in our Scholastic Newsletters. Miscellaneous -I will be sending a homework packet/holiday checklist home to you on Friday. This is optional work for the students, as it will not be graded. I had several parental requests for this, so use it as you see fit. -The 1st grade musical will be held in the gym tomorrow morning at 9:00. Please make sure your child is looking sharp for the performance. Have a great holiday break everybody. Safe travels and we'll see you in the new year! ~Mr. Layes
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Hello everybody! Here's the latest...
Language Today we held our first and only performance of "The Three Little Pigs" reader's theater. We had two groups perform in front of Ms. Kozlowski's first graders this morning. All of our young actors did a superb job, keeping up with their lines (however big or small), and being a respectful audience member when not on stage. Afterwards, we talked about what it felt like performing in front of their peers (excited and nervous being the top two responses). We will finish up this week by reading and listening to a story about the Little Pigs from the perspective of the (not-so-big-and-bad) wolf. Quick edit: I am deviating a bit from what the reading letter mentioned that was sent home on Monday. I wanted to finish off this unit on Fairy Tales with a performance, but we will be resuming our normal plans next week. Writer's Workshop The young authors are learning new techniques to use in their informational text writing. One lesson includes asking themselves about the readers/students of their text, and trying to answer questions they might have about their topic. Also, we will touch upon the importance of illustrations (using lables/captions) to teach the readers as much as the words. I will be stressing both how much writers must plan, just like teachers plan lessons and that "once your done, you've just begun!" Math We are in the middle of our unit on Base-10. Yesterday, I introduced a new math game to the kids that involves rolling a die, picking out the corresponding ones cubes. Next, once they had more than ten, exchanging the 10 ones cubes for 1 ten stick (and finally exchanging 10 ten sticks for 1 hundred flat). This knowledge will help them with their number sense when we begin to add two digit numbers together.I will also be covering greater than, lesser than and equal to with numbers up to 99. Science We discussed and illustrated how liquids take the shape of the container that the are in. With partners, students learned how liquid will remain level regardless of how you tip the container. We will be having our final solids and liquids assessment later this week. The kids have really enjoyed the learning about science and I can't wait to start our next unit on Rocks in the new year. Miscellaneous -The 1st Grade Musical will be performed on Thursday, December 18th at 9:00. -Don't forget to keep sending in those box tops. Thanks! That will wrap it up for this week. Take care everybody. Stay warm! ~Mr. Layes I'm back for my first post of December. Here's the latest...
Language Our final week in Unit 2 deals with understanding characters, how they can change over the course of a story, and what lessons the reader can learn from the story. We will dive into the fairy tale "The Three Little Pigs" and read several versions of the story. We will also begin a week long effort to pull off a reader's theater based on the story. Each student has been given a script and part to read, and we will have a classroom performance early next week. Writer's Workshop We have begun a new unit on non-fiction/informational text writing. In the two lessons we have already had, the students have been excited and focused on writing about topics they feel they are an expert on (including legos, riding a bike, McDonalds, and playing tennis). The students will learn to use their fingers as graphic organizers to help generate facts about their topics. We will also look at another checklist to give the students an idea of the writing expectations during the unit. Math During this new unit of math, base-10 will be given the primary attention. We will learn how teen numbers are 10 + another single digit number. We will start to understand how to regroup numbers to help addition facts (i.e. 9 +3 = 10 + 2). Base -10 blocks will be used extensively as well as numerous online resources to get this important information to the students. Science We will be continuing our discussions and experiments with liquids. New vocabulary list includes viscosity, transparent, and translucent. We will be sorting liquids and solids in a collage, reading about the water on planet Earth and how it impacts all of us, and I will introduce density in a fun experiment too. Side note, the kids love the song "Solids, Liquids, Gas" by They Might Be Giants. You can find the video on youtube. Miscellaneous -Our "Wear a Hat on Monday" campaign was a huge success. Thank you to all of you who donated. Those hats looked great! -Again, thank you to all of you who were able to make it to the parent/teacher conferences. It was great to see all of you, and meet a few new faces as well. That about wraps it up. Take care everybody. ~Mr. Layes |
AuthorMr. Layes hails from the Pacific NW, cut his teeth on the streets of NYC, and now calls the Midwest... home. Archives
September 2017
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