Time for Africa!

We read Oh No, George! -Mihir

Today we wrote our own stories about discipline after reading Oh No, George! -Aiden

We learned about the African elephant. They dig up roots to eat with their tusks. -Lilliana

Baby elephants have baby tusks and they fall out just like our teeth do. -Owen

We read a book called Little Elephant's Trunk. -Alexis

There are different teams now. Our teams are Lions, Cheetahs, Elephants, Giraffes, and Ostriches. -Antonio

We celebrated Dr. Seuss this week. We did a Cat and the Hat math job during workshop. -Noora

We learned that there are different species of elephants. We are learning about the African elephant. -Jacob

We did Kahoot. It had questions about the world map. -Oscar

We learned new chants. My favorite is the chameleon one, because I like when we say "I'm a... chameleon!" -Krishelle

Last week we used an app called Chatterpix to make animals talk. We made our animals from Europe say facts. -Sophia M.

We made a new world map. It shows where savannas and deserts are. -Logan

We started "Polar Bear March." We get to adopt a polar bear if we walk to school the most. -Brielle

We learned a new word, matriarch. The matriarch is the female leader of a family or group. Elephant groups are led by a matriarch. She is the oldest and biggest. -Lucia

One our new literacy awards that we can earn
for showing respect, making good decisions,
or solving problems!

We did a new blue chart. We are working on discipline. Discipline is when you have excellent self-control all the time. -Savannah

We brainstormed times that we showed discipline after we read Oh No, George! George showed discipline when he was on his walk. -Alexia

We watched a video with a fact family song. It has the same tune as the continents and oceans chant from the beginning of first grade. -Ella

A fact family has 3 numbers, the mama and two children. If we are being scientific, we call the children offspring. If we are being mathematicians, the mama is called the sum or the whole, and the babies are called parts or addends. You can use a fact family to make related facts, which are math facts with the same 3 numbers. There are two addition facts and two subtraction facts. -Jonah

We learned a word called savanna. A savanna is a warm, grassy place with scattered trees. Elephants live in the savanna. -Henry

We learned about two types of trees in Africa. One is called an acacia tree and one is called a baobab tree. -Sam

We wrote on sticky notes about what we know about African animals. -Carson

We have a new inquiry chart with lots of information and lots of questions. -Sophia D.

We learned about the African elephant and it took two days to finish the whole chart. We didn't do smart cards on the elephant or the world map yet. When we first did the map, Miss Kloczko forgot to label the continents, but we reminder her the next day! -Ginger

Striped Skunks Galore!

So much fun and so much learning this week! We are becoming more and more independent during writing time and workshop, we are getting really good at working together and agreeing with our teams (even though it's tough sometimes!), and we have new math groups!

With our new math groups, everyone has a chance to meet with Miss Kloczko during math time, and we all get to go at a pace that's right for us. (Note from Miss Kloczko: I am SO proud of how these kids stepped up to the challenge this week as mathematicians, even when asked to think critically and write about math! They have been so brave during math time! They are practicing math skills independently, and helping each other, so that I can spend time teaching and checking in with each group! Yay!)

Coming in the next few weeks, now that we have our TV and working internet... more technology during math time! We can't wait!

Here's what we did in first grade this week:

We talked about things that awesome readers do. The little boy in the book Bear in the Book was an awesome reader!

We learned how to play a new math game, Addition Face-off! If you have a deck of cards, you can use just the number cards in the deck and play at home with your first grader!

Ms. D read The OK Book to us during writer's workshop. This book inspired us to write about things we are "just OK" at, and about things we are great at!

Our new TV was delivered! We used it right away to watch a few videos about black bears. Then we wrote about what we observed on sticky notes.

We also did our chants using the TV! So fun!

We completed our black bear and bald eagle learning logs. We learned so much, and came up with great questions and connections!

We practiced using our resources while writing the room!

We learned about another animal, the striped skunk.

As a class, we came up with lists of words to help us make detailed sentences about... skunks! Then, we made sentences, read them, and sang them. So cute!

We wrote our favorite skunk facts, and made the CUTEST skunks for Fun Friday!

Just for fun:

Ask your first grader to tell you what one of these signal words means: vertebrate, mammal, addition number sentence, verb, or resource. :)

Thanks for reading! Leave a comment and tell us what stuck with your first grader this week!

You're Finally Here!

First grade is finally here!

The 2016-2017 school year is off to a great start! Here's what we've been up to!

We introduced our first social skill: responsibility. Our teams have been earning lots of points every day for showing responsibility.

We introduced the world map and its seven continents and five oceans. Over the next few weeks, we'll be focusing on North America and the coniferous forest, and we'll learn about a few animals that live there.

We are getting used to our routines for math time and we have been able to review some math concepts from last year. During math this year, we will work together and independently!

This year, your first grader will hopefully start to see just how connected reading and writing are, how often we use reading and writing every day, and more importantly, how much fun they both can be!

We learned about different ways we can read a book. Ask your first grader if he or she remembers the three ways! We read a story together without looking at the words (much harder than it sounds!) and had so much fun!

Why do readers read? Gino told us, "to know how fast you can go when you're driving." Every year the kids come up with new, more creative evidence that we read ALL the time. :)

We talked about all of the different things that writers write, and the kids got to choose to write anything they wanted that day. I loved reading the grocery lists and to-do lists in particular. ;)

In first grade we will read lots of nonfiction books. The kids worked with their teams to sort their books into two piles: fiction and nonfiction.

We worked on our reading stamina! The kids were most successful when they each chose a comfy spot to read.

Our first animal—the black bear!

Almost every day this year, we'll learn a new word together. Friday's signal word was "habitat."

So many BOOKS already! The kids are very quick to remind me if we go too long without reading a book together. :)

Thanks for reading! What has your first grader shared with you about first grade? Leave us a comment below.

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