Happy Snow Week!

I hope everyone is enjoying this week of snow as much as these first graders are on the playground!

We wrapped up our How To writing unit this week. On Friday we shared our published books with our kindergarten friends!

Next up in writers' workshop: persuasive letter writing!

In science we used our knowledge of balance to make mobiles!

In math we finished up unit 5.  Our next unit will focus on:

-Subtraction!
-Fact families
-Fact triangles
-The centimeter
-Quarters
-Digital clocks
-Using a reference book for math

Happy weekend, everyone!  Enjoy the snow!

First Grade Happenings...

Our week was short in order to honor the big dreams of Martin Luther King Jr.  Its only fitting that upon our return to school we celebrated MLK Jr. with a community meeting.  Students learned more about MLK Jr.'s childhood, courage, and life work.  They then had an opportunity to share their own dreams!

In math we've been learning math fact strategies to gain fact power!  So far we've practiced:
+0
+1
Doubles
Doubles +1
Friendly 10's

Students use color coded math fact cards to practice their addition skills and gain fact fluency.

In science this week, students had a chance to use all of the knowledge they've gained over the last couple of balance experiments to figure out a way to use wire and counterweights to make a pencil balance on it's point.  Here are some of the creative results!

Weekly Snapshots

Here are some snapshots and video from our week!

Students partnered up during writers' workshop and acted out each others' how-to books to help with the revision process.

We gained fact power by making math facts with dice.

Our balance experiments this week focused on the use of 

counterweights to make objects stable.

Happy New Year!

This first week of first grade in the new year proved to be one filled with lots of new beginnings.

We started off the week by creating a new set of classroom rules for 2015.  The students were completely in charge of the content and wording...I was merely the scribe.  Everyone seems very happy with the outcome.

Each student also created a new hope or dream for the second half of first grade.  Students were very thoughtful, taking the time to think about the thing they most want to achieve in the coming months.  They are now hanging in our classroom as a reminder of what each of us is working toward.

We started new reading and writing units as well!  Students are writing how-to books in writers' workshop, and are digging deep into nonfiction texts in readers' workshop.

In science we started our Balance and Motion unit.  In our first balance experiment, students discovered different ways to balance an oaktag crayfish on their fingers with and without counterweights!