Best Selling Authors
This week, our class has shared the spotlight with one another while at our Author's Chair, showing off their small moment stories. Our class has been focused during Writing Workshop the last few weeks on developing small moment topics and describing the details within our stories. We have been finding out how to add introductions, detail sentences using signal words (first, next, then and last), as well as closing sentences to our stories. Below you can see pictures and watch some videos of our friends showing off their hard work to the class. While at Author's Chair, our friends have also been working on being attentive listeners - making sure they are watching and listening to each author while they read their stories.
While reading our stories we worked on projecting our voices and speaking loudly so that all friends could hear us. Some of our friends used a pretend microphone to help them remember to project their voices.
Our friends were very excited (and a little nervous at first) to share their stories with the class. We discussed that when authors publish their stories, they share them for others to read. As authors in our class, we will be sharing our stories for our friends to hear throughout the school year! Continue watching a few more of our small moment stories below:
In addition to our writing workshop, we began a 2 week study on bats. This week we focused on the story of Stellaluna; a young bat who was separated from her mother, who showed bravery and persevered to survive and find her mother again. Throughout the week we have been discussing various things we have been learning about bats. We will be continuing this discussion into next week when we read nonfiction text about bats as well as another story called Nightsong. Throughout the week, our class has been participating in various writing activities, asking them to expand their learning and think about the character and how she changed throughout the story, from beginning-middle-end, as well as characteristics of Stellaluna and about new vocabulary. Our class has learned definitions and motions to the following new vocabulary words: clambered, clutched, swooped, escape, curious, echolocation, and nocturnal. We have also learned about the structure of a bat´s wings and that there are nearly 1000 different species of bats - we couldn't believe it, that is a lot of bats!
During math this week, we continued our focus on addition to 10 as well as counting on from a greater number. This is a very important skill to have. We have learned that it is much faster to start with the greater number and count on from there, rather than counting each number! Below is the video we watched this week as an introduction to counting on:
This week we were also able to play some fun games/continue working in math center to help us understand the concept of counting on from the greater number to find unknown totals. During math ceters, students have been able to receive extra practice which is always an important part of learning. You can see in the pictures below that our friends are having a lot of fun playing a number quilt game and are very engaged in their math station activities.
It has been a busy yet fun week full of new experiences! We cannot wait until next week and all of the excitement to come with Halloween and continuing our bat unit. Additionally, we will be celebrating Baseball Day on Monday - ALL OF OUR FRIENDS HAVE PASSED BASEBALL WORDS!!!! Way to go First Graders!
Don´t forget to check out our homepage for important, upcoming dates. Click on this link and it will take you there:
Also, our November snack calendar has been sent home. The calendar is posted on our site for you to access if you need it. Our classroom party schedule is there too. Please let me know prior to Monday if you cannot send our items so that I can make necessary accommodations. The calendar/schedule is posted here for you to see:
Don´t forget to send Halloween costumes with your child on Monday. Students cannot wear them to school, we will make sure they have time after lunch to get them on before our school parade!
Enjoy your weekend and have a fun, safe time trick-or-treating with your kiddos!
