Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Visualizing

We ALL earned another Granny's Whacky Prize for transportation behavior this morning!  We are so excited!
Today in math we learned all about the quarter and how to count by 25's.  This is very tricky for some of us, the more you can practice at home, the better!  For those first graders who are already counting by 25's you can practice giving change back and writing dollars and cents. 

In literacy we learned that readers visualize as they read- they paint a picture in their mind.  Today, we read books and recorded the things we visualized.  We were on-task and successful and enjoyed to share our work with our friends.  



One student even found an awesome example of how to wrap-up a non-fiction text!

We also filled our warm-fuzzy bear all the way to the TOP!  This calls for a Granny's Whacky Celebration!  Granny is so whacky- she decided we could celebrate with STINKY FEET!  Yuck! Tomorrow, we can take our shoes OFF inside the classroom. 

Monday, January 26, 2015

Venn Diagrams and Chapter Books

Wow!  We had another amazing day!  We even earned a Granny's Whacky Prize for BUS BEHAVIOR!  On the VERY FIRST DAY!  We are so impressive.

Today in math we revisted function machines.  We have been seeing this in our work on Dreambox so we were excited to see them again as a class.

In literacy we read an information book about amphibians and reptiles.  After we read it, we filled out a venn diagram to comapare and contrast these animals.  We also tried one on our own.  



In writing we searched with a partner though chapter books to see what kinds of chapters we might add to our informational books.  The chapters we saw the most were:

All About_________
Did you know?
Words to know
Small______________
Big________________

We are excited to write our own chapter books.  

I will be working at Central Office tomorrow with first grade teachers.  If you have any last minute transportation changes please call or email the office to let them know.

Friday, January 23, 2015

WOW!

What a day!  We earned all of our Granny's Whacky Prizes and EVEN earned a HAT DAY on Monday!  Please send your child to school in their favorite hat!
We have been working SO hard! 

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Oh, What a Day

Today is the first day we have all been back together as a class since our holiday break!  Wow!  We had a fabulous day all together!  We played Pax games, and we even played our longest game yet- 90 minutes!  This was a *very* long time, so we upped our spleems to 8.  Two groups did not earn ANY spleems in that whole time!  Our Granny's Whacky Prize was to stand on our chairs and JUMP OFF!  Yikes!  Don't tell anyone... because that is definitely NOT allowed!  Granny is super whacky sometimes. 

We are really excited because we're going to start playing Pax games at dismissal and on the bus.  We are Pax experts so we're looking forward to helping our friends. 

Today in math we practiced measuring to the nearest centimeter, played addition Top-It, and rolled dice to make the largest 3-digit number we could.



In literacy we read an informational book about ships and boats. We learned how to pronounce the word trirmeme (its Greek), and learned more about Chinese junk ships.  We had a GREAT day! 

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Dreambox

We had a class check-in about Dreambox today.  We realized, as a school, that many students were spending a LOT of time in the arcade in Dreambox instead of completing activities.  We re-visited Dreambox expectations and I shared individual reports with each first grader (a copy of the report is also in their folder). 

We set goals as a class to help us be more successful on Dreambox:
1) Complete activities even when they are hard- DON'T QUIT!
2) Always choose yellow flashing activities first
3) Be focused!

We should also be spending about 30 minutes on Dreambox 4-6 times/week.  Please let your child access Dreambox from home if you're able- if you have questions, let me know!

Thanks!

PIO PASTA SUPPER IS THURSDAY!  WE HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Guest Teacher

Today we had a guest math teacher, Loree Silvas, to teach us fun new ways to subtract.  Our first graders were model students and did a fabulous job with 8 additional adults in the room! Wow!  We also learned a fun new subtraction game that we are excited to play again.



In literacy we learned about writing recipes- another fun technical piece of writing.  


Check out those transition words! 


In writing we used an editing checklist to see where we are using great writing strategies and where we still need to work.  Finding areas to improve is so important.

Please remember the PIO pasta dinner and raffle this THURSDAY! 

Monday, January 19, 2015

IT IS NOT TOO LATE!

To register for the...

PASTA SUPPER AND RAFFLE - THURSDAY JANUARY 22ND – THIS THURSDAY!!

RESERVATIONS CAN STILL BE MADE UNTIL NOON ON WEDNESDAY

ON LINE BY GOING TO THE PPS WEB SITE or...

COMPLETE AND RETURN THE PINK FORM THAT WAS SENT HOME, or...

PRINT THE FORM THAT WAS SENT HOME BY EMAIL, COMPLETE AND SEND TO SCHOOL!

There are some AWESOME raffle prizes as well! 

WONDERFUL RAFFLE ITEMS – 32 OF THEM

CHECK THEM OUT ON THE PPS WEB SITE

ORDER TICKETS FROM HOME ON THE FORM GOING HOME ON MONDAY (TODAY)

STOP BY SCHOOL FROM 2:40-3:00 ON TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY

PURCHASE THEM WHEN YOU COME TO THE SUPPER ON THURSDAY
 
So many ways to support this fundraiser for Project Inside Out!  Come join us for dinner! 

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Pictographs

Today we learned about pictographs.  We use pictographs to share information through pictures.  Check out these first graders and the ideas they had for their own pictographs.  We learned how many students eat cold lunch per week, how often people went on an iPad and how many times they went on Minecraft.



In math, we have been taking notes as we learn and recording examples of our learning.  Today, we learned about fact triangles, number families and reviewed name collection boxes.  We are learning so much and love to show what we know! 


Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Visual Reading and DARE

We continued to learn about technical texts today and learned how to read and create maps.  This will be very helpful when we get to our mapping unit in social studies!  We learned about symbols and keys.  Check out these first grade maps:



We also had our first DARE class with Officer Fontaine.  We learned about signs and symbols in our community that help to keep us safe.

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Brrrr...

It is COLD outside!  We stayed warm in first grade during recess by having lots of fun!



Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Charting Information

We use charts all of the time in first grade, but today, we learned how they can help our writing and how we can make them ourselves!  We had a great time deciding what information to display visually in our chart.  Check out these charts from first grade:



Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Bar Graphs

As part of our Technical Text(s) unit we are learning about graphs, charts, maps and recipes.  Today, we learned all about bar graphs.  We learned that all graphs have a title, an x axis with a label, a y axis with a label, and tell us information. 

We read a bar graph together, we created a bar graph together and then we got to create our own!  We really enjoyed this activity because we could find out what our friends favorite games are, or ice cream flavors, or even flowers.  




Some of us liked this so much, we asked to create another graph after we finished our first!  If you come across any bar graphs at home, please share them with your first grader and send them to school.

Thanks!

Monday, January 5, 2015

Happy New Year!

We had a fabulous first day back together! It seems like everyone enjoyed their break. We learned a lot of new things today, but our favorite was a new joke. We especially liked that it was about one of our favorite movies...

Why can't you give Elsa your balloon to hold? 















Because she'll let it go. :)