Ready...Set...Learn!

We are rocking and rolling in here in First Grade! Can you believe we are already wrapping up week 3?! Time seems to be flying and we are having a blast learning new content. We are working hard to show all we know and reflect on our learning each day and how the content we are learning about is helping our brains to grow.

Ask you child each day when they come how about something they learned during the day that made their brains grow! Ask them to BE SPECIFIC!! If they tell you "reading made my brain grow," ask them to tell you specifically what helped them grow their brains. We are learning how to give detail in our speaking and writing. They might tell you that during math "subitizing helped my brain grow by learning how many are in a set quickly" or that "my brain grew today because I used Stretchy Snake to sound out my words in my story at read to self!"

During math this week we have continued incorporating fun ways to count, subitize and compare numbers. You can watch these fun clips below to help count by 1's and 10's, subitize and compare numbers (greater than/less than). These Firsties are pros at them already!

During Spelling and Phonics we spent time learning about and practicing a variety of word game activities. Many of these word games had us rhyming, finding word parts, and blending and segmenting. Soon, these activities will become part of our Daily 5 stations. This week we learned about how to complete them correctly so that when we are working independently at stations, we will be successful!

We had a lot of fun this week listening and working with a couple of new fables. We discussed each day what it means if a story is a fable - a short, fiction story that teaches a moral (or lesson). We also added a new feature this week - PERSONIFICATION. We learned that when a fable has personification in it, the animals do things that are human like. Ask your child about the lessons they learned from our stories this week. You can watch The Dog and the Manger , The Goose and the Golden Egg and The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing by clicking on the story title. Additionally, we used our interactive reading journals to teach a friend about the fables we have read. Below you can see our friends taking time to read to their partner about the plot, characters, setting and moral of the stories.

During Daily 5 this week we have continued learning about our independent stations. First we started learning about Read to Someone. Last week we were successful and built our Read to Self stamina up to 20 minutes!!! Our goal for Read to Someone is the same. We discussed our rules and expectations each day before practicing and found out that it can be a lot of fun reading to a partner. By Friday, we worked hard and built our stamina up to 20 minutes! We met another goal!!!!! We found out that it can be hard sometimes to fight the temptation to be silly and goof around with our friends. We have been learning that we can practice self-control and work hard and doing our job!

We also learned about our Listening to reading station. During Daily 5 we will be having 2 listening to reading stations, one will be on Chromebooks and the other on iPads. This week we learned how to use the app Epic! on iPads to listen to stories. You will be getting a letter sent home on Monday about how you can use Epic! from home to listen to stories. The great news is....the more stories our friends read from home, the more points our class earns. As we earn pints, they can be used to purchase items for our class!!! YAY!

Friday not only brought crazy beautiful and warm weather, but it also brought Library!!! Our friends were SUPER excited to see Library on our daily schedule when we came in the classroom in the morning. Not only did we get to go see our librarian, Mrs. Loper, and learn about our library rules, but we also found our that first graders get to check out TWO books each week!!! Our friends just couldn't believe it! Remember to send the books back on or before Friday morning each week to make sure you can check out two new books!

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend, enjoy the sunshine and stay hydrated!!! I can't wait to see you all back next week ready to learn some more!!!

If you make it out to the store this weekend and are willing to purchase a pack of antibacterial hand wipes for the class we would greatly appreciate it! We definitely want to make sure we are keeping our classroom clean and keeping our friends safe!