Week 3: all settled in... with books!

All 26 first graders happily settled in with their books!

Hello first graders, families, and friends!

Today was another awesome day in first grade, but my favorite part was Reader's Workshop! First, we read the book Baby Bear Sees Blue by Ashley Wolff.



Then we voted... which book did you like better? Baby Bear Sees Blue by Ashley Wolff or Baby Bear by Kadir Nelson? (We watched the book trailer for Baby Bear this week for homework, and read it together on Wednesday. You can watch the book trailer for Baby Bear below.)



We talked a little bit about why we liked each book. Was it the pictures? The characters? The words the authors used to tell the story? It was so cool to see the kids making connections between the two books and to the things they have been learning about the forest habitat! We voted with our eyes closed, on which book we liked better, and it was a tie, 13-13!

After our time at the carpet, it was time for the kids to get out their own book bags and do some reading on their own. We have been working on building our reading stamina, and today we broke our record! Every student in the class was engaged with their own books for 7 minutes and 24 seconds, without stopping even once! I was SO impressed! (Our record before today was 2:50!)

After our independent reading time was over, we read another book together, I Will Surprise My Friend by Mo Willems. That was the funniest book I have read in a LONG time, and it made me so happy to see all of my first graders laugh so hard at Piggie and Gerald! :) Thank you to the special first grader who donated this book to our classroom library!

Thanks for reading! Are you a reader, too? What have you read lately? Do you have any book recommendations for our first grade class? Please leave a comment!

Welcome to first grade!

Hello first grade friends and family! We are now in the middle of our second week of school, and already, we're off to a great start. But what have we been doing?

We learned about the 7 continents and 5 oceans of the earth and where they are all located on a world map!

We learned what stamina means, and how important it is to have stamina when we are reading and writing. 

We met our reading buddies from Ms. Steinlein's third grade class. 

We learned about how to choose "just right" books... The right book for you will fit "just right," like your favorite pair of shoes. :)

We discussed ways that we can show respect to our supplies, our classroom, and most importantly, to each other!

We "put our heads together" to make predictions about new words, like "continent" and "habitat."

We talked about what writers actually do during writing time, and learned that there's more to it than just writing!

We had our first Fitness Friday!

We started making our heart maps, containing all of the things that we love and care about, to use when we are writing and can't think of a topic to write about. After all, it's easiest to write about things we love!

We reviewed addition and subtraction by playing games like "Addition Roll 'Em."

We started learning about the black bear, a mammal that lives in North America!

We learned classroom procedures and rules, such as how to put our supplies away when we are finished with them, and what to do when we finish our work early.

We read LOTS of books together!

Thanks for reading our blog! Do you have a question for our class about our time in first grade so far? Leave a comment!