Holidays Around the World- Update

Today we learned about the holiday Diwali celebrated in India. We learned that Diwali is known as the Festival of Lights and people decorate with many lights including paper lanterns. We watched a video about Diwali, which you can check out below. We also made our own paper lanterns and recorded some of the information that we learned. 

http://youtu.be/HrrW3rO51ak

Holidays Around the World- Update

Today Globe Trot Scott sent us a package from Israel. We learned about the holiday Hanukkah. We were lucky enough to have a guest speaker, Mrs. Kravet, come in to tell us all about how her family celebrates. She even taught us how to play dreidel! 

Holidays Around the World

In first grade we are learning all about holidays and traditions from around the world. To help us learn, we are following the travels of Globe Trot Scott. Each day he sends us a package from a new part of the world that he is visiting. The package contains information about the country, a letter to our class, and a souvenir that shows how people there celebrate a December holiday. We have also been reading books, watching videos, and listening to guest speakers share about their traditions. 

So far Globe Trot Scott has sent us packages from the United States where we've learned about Christmas and Kwanzaa. Today our package was from Italy and we learned about Italian Christmas traditions.

We are excited to see where Globe Trot Scott takes us next! 

Teen Numbers and Place Value

Last week in math we worked on teen numbers and recognizing place value in numbers between 10 and 20. We looked at double ten frames that showed numbers in the teens, built the same numbers out of unifix cubes, and wrote and solved addition problems to match. This will help to begin building our understanding of place value, and our computation up to 20. 

Folktales

In reading this month we have been studying folktales. We began by reading different stories about Johnny Appleseed. We studied him by identifying his character traits and his actions during his lifetime. We have begun to explore other common folktales. Today we read one version of Jack and the Beanstalk. In the story they describe Jack as kind, hard working, and brave. We used evidence from the story to support each of these character traits. Tomorrow we will read a different version of Jack and the Beanstalk (called Kate and the Beanstalk) and use a Venn Diagram to compare the two stories. 

Fall Star Students

We've had lots of star students this fall! Each month teachers at Southeast choose 2 or 3 students who have been showing respect, responsibility, or safety. These students get to celebrate by having a special lunch with Mrs. Rodriguez. Congratulations to the following students: 

September: Brynn, Sakan

October: Max, Anna, Abigale 

November: Megan, Cordelia, Evan

Way to go! 

Perfect Attendance

The first trimester is over and today we celebrated students who had perfect attendance! In our class Jeffrey, Prakriti, Ben, Evan, Anna, and Dahlia received a perfect attendance ribbon. Great job! 

Turkey Trot: Southeast's Thanksgiving Community Walk

We had a great time today at Southeast's Turkey Trot! I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy the days off with family. I will be writing some overdue posts about what we've been up to in the past couple weeks over the weekend. :) 

Make the Sum

Today we played a new game in math called Make the Sum. The game is great for practicing basic addition facts. Students use a deck of cards with numbers 0-10, and choose a target number between 5 and 10. Partners then take turns drawing cards from the deck and laying them next to the draw pile. As students draw cards and lay them out their job is to find pairs that add up to their target number. If they find a pair that works they take both the cards and keep them. The game is over when the whole deck is gone or there are no more matches that can be made. Whoever collected the most cards wins! This would be an easy game to play at home to practice basic facts using a regular deck of cards. You would simply have to assign cards as 0 and 1 and remove the other face cards. 

Scarecrow Fest

We had a great time today building our scarecrows! Thank you to all of the volunteers who really made it great, and to all who were able to send old items in. We use this event to talk about teamwork and it really wouldn't have worked without each volunteer, each student's ideas, and each item that was sent in.

Small Moments Writing

Our writer's workshop is in full swing! We have entered the second week of our Small Moments unit. In this unit students practice narrative writing by telling true stories about their lives. Some key parts of this unit have been understanding the writing process, telling events in order, and zooming in on one small moment to tell a great story. This week we are focusing on bringing our stories to life. Today we learned that writers bring their stories to life by "unfreezing" their characters and making them talk and move. We worked together to revise one of my own stories and add some actions and dialogue. You would be amazed at the amount of writing these young authors are doing each day. They are full of stories to tell! The class has worked together to build some charts that help us remember what we've learned about writing. Take a look at some of the things we've worked on below! 

Sharing in Class Meeting

One part of each day's class meeting is sharing. This is a time for students to practice speaking and listening skills with each other. Today we shared about our weekends with partners. We used some of the skills that we've been working on when we partner shared: we said at least two sentences about our topic, we listened carefully, and we asked respectful questions to each other. After partner sharing a few volunteers shared out what they did this weekend. Then we played a game called Who Remembers which tests our listening skills. As students share I make notes and then I quiz the class on what was shared. We have some great listeners in our classroom! 

The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything

Today we did a special activity surrounding the book The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. As we read we worked on making predictions and inferences. Afterwards, we began to build our own scarecrows from the different items in the book. If you haven't heard the book you can listen to the story read aloud or listen to the song about the story below! 

Read aloud: http://youtu.be/LdrH2TqMeg4

Song:

http://youtu.be/5fvUFo-Y0ZM

Buell's Orchard

We had a wonderful time on our field trip today, and perfect fall weather! On our field trip to Buell's Orchard we got a tour of the orchard, picked our own apples, saw how apples are processed and stored before going to the grocery store, tried apple cider, and ate lunch outside at the orchard...all before recess! Thank you so much to our chaperones- Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Kravet, and Mr. Cartier - for helping us have a great trip.

Apple Seeds

To get ready for our field trip to the apple orchard we've studied seeds and how they grow. We started by looking at different types of seeds, and then we narrowed our focus to apple seeds. Over the last couple weeks we soaked apple seeds in water so that they expanded. After they soaked, we were able to peel away the layers to see the different parts of the seeds.

Junior Great Books

Last week we began our first unit in the Junior Great Books series. Junior Great Books is a reading program that combines high quality literature with art, drama, and discussion. The main focus is answering interpretive questions through discussion and using evidence from the text to support answers. To kick off our first unit we read a variety of stories and worked on asking and answering questions about the text. One story that we read was called "The Fox and the Stork." In the story, both characters play tricks on each other. The question that we answered after reading was "Who was meaner: the fox or the stork?" Students wrote their answer on a sticky note and then posted it. From their answers we had a discussion about why they chose one character over the other. We had a perfect opportunity to talk about how during discussion sometimes we change our minds when one student did just that. We will use Junior Great Books to support reading and discussion skills throughout the year.

Nature Walk and Descriptive Writing

As we work on narrative writing we've begun to think more about descriptive writing. Last week we started working on using our five senses to describe what we observe around us. This week we went on a nature walk on the trails behind Southeast. We were careful to pay attention to what we saw, heard, felt, and smelled (no tasting!). Afterwards, we started working on turning our observations into descriptive sentences. 

Literacy Centers

Today we began our literacy centers. Literacy centers are stations that we visit to practice skills that we've learned in reading, writing, and phonics. When we go to centers we have to practice responsibility and problem solving. Our centers will change weekly or biweekly. This week our centers are whisper phones, spelling beads, Raz Kids, and sandpaper sight words. Ask your first grader for more information about each center! 

Our First Published Books

Your first grader is an author! This week many of us finished up our Jasper's Beanstalk Part 2 books and we added them to our student library. Yesterday we had time to enjoy reading each other's work and seeing our own work on display. 

Measuring with Non-standard Units

This week we worked on measuring using non-standard units. We measured different objects around the room using popsicle sticks and recorded our findings in measurement booklets. For each item we measured we made an estimate and then recorded the actual measurement. We practiced measuring with no gaps and no overlaps between units. 

Next week we will try the same activity using unifix cubes (a much smaller unit). We'll compare the two units of measure and discuss why each object is more unifix cubes long than popsicle sticks.

Sharing in Writer's Workshop

Last week we started our first grade writer's workshop! Each day we have a writing mini lesson, lots of writing time while teachers conference with writers, and time to share our work. Today was the first day that we learned about how we share our work. We practiced reading our writing with a loud voice and keeping our papers in our laps so that we can make eye contact.

We are finishing up our first writing project, which some of your saw at open house. Last week we read a story called Jasper's Beanstalk. In the story Jasper the cat climbs a beanstalk, but we never find out what happens next. Our class wrote Jasper's Beanstalk Part 2! We worked on using our imaginations, writing with sequence words, and adding details.