First Grade is SUPER fun! It was a pleasure meeting everyone at Parent Partnerships and at Back to School Night. I look forward to a super year in First Grade.
We have had such a fantastic first few weeks of First Grade! Here are our 1st day of 1st grade pictures...
Reading
The children have been busy learning the routines in First Grade. This week we started Reader's Workshop and we learned the routines that go along with it. We reviewed the consonant sounds and worked on the short a sound. We worked on syllables, rhyming words, sight words,and alliteration. We talked about what good readers do and we focused on tracking, using picture clues, and looking for patterns in a story. We began working in our Literacy Centers. We worked in the listening center, used magnetic letters to make short a words, we used playdough to make different sight words,and wrote alliterative sentences. We also read the room with superhero masks and worked in the stamp a word center. Here are a few pictures of the children working in their centers...
Fantastic Books We Have Read
Some wonderful books that we read are
A... My Name is Alice by Jane E.Bayer,
Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert,
Superhero ABC by Bob Mcleod,
First Grade Here I Come by Nancy Carlson,
ABC I Like Me by Nancy Carlson,
Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes,
1st Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg,
My Friends by Taro Gomo, and
First Grade Stinks by Mary Ann Rodman.
One of our favorite books was
Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watts. It is all about a squirrel that is looking for the "perfect" friend. After reading the story we discussed what makes a good friend. Then each child picked a classmate's name from a jar and they had to draw a portrait of them and then write waht makes them a perfect friend. They did such an awesome job and they LOVED hearing all of the reasons why they would make a great friend. Stop by and check out their portraits.
Math
The children have been very busy in Math. We reviewed counting by 1's and 5's and we worked on number formation and counting. We also played Number Line Squeeze to practice number sequencing. We also played Top It and was definitely a favorite in our room.Then we moved on to Tally Marks. The children learned how to write and count tallies, played Tally Top It, and then created tally charts by surveying their classmates. We also used our Smartboard during calendar time to reinforce these skills.
Writing
We have been working on penmanship and writing mechanics. The children began writing in their journals. They did a great job writing their Guess Who's for Back to School Night. We just started writing our own super hero themed All About Me books. Stay tuned...
Science and Technology
We have just started working on an apple theme in Science. We learned about different kinds of apples, how an apple grows, and the parts of an apple. We did a really fun activity using the Smartboard with Mrs. Burg. We talked about how apples were a favorite fruit here in the U.S. but we did a little research to find out what the favorite fruits are in other countries and then we each got a map and we found the countries and put the fruits on each country. It was a lot of fun. We also did a few activites on the Smartboard about how an apple tree grows. The children began using the iPads and LOVED it! We used the app Doodlebuddy to practice tally marks and we also used Word Bingo, Teach Me 1st Grade, and Moofy Patterns. This week we will do a few inquiry based science experiments involving apples. Stay tuned...
Scroll all the way down for some fun links and reminders.
Have a great week!
Jennifer Molloy
