October already?!

This week, I decided to share just a little something from each day with you...

Each Monday, at the end of the day, I show the kids the homework for the week. One of our digital challenges this week was to recommend a book. Check it out below!

Created with Padlet

We made a new world map together on Tuesday, showing European immigrants' journey to the United States. We learned that long ago, when the United States first began, many people moved to our country from Europe. When immigrants traveling from Europe reached the U.S. by boat, the first thing they would see was Lady Liberty. It was awesome to see that most of the kids remembered the Statue of Liberty from kindergarten!

On Wednesday, we watched a video of the story Owl Moon read aloud by the author, Jane Yolen. While watching the video, the kids had their writer's notebooks out, and they each made a list of interesting words that they heard in the story. Then, they logged into their google accounts on the chromebooks and with a partner, typed their words onto the padlet page below. It's amazing to see their technology skills AND their teamwork skills grow each time we use the chromebooks. :)

Created with Padlet

Thursday... what a great day for these first grade writers! Throughout our Woodland in Europe unit, we have been reading and discussing the story, Lacey Walker, Nonstop Talker. On Thursday, I asked the kids to retell, in writing, the story on their own, and let me tell you... it. was. amazing. The kids were so independent, so quiet and focused, and the writing they did was awesome! I was so impressed! In the afternoon, we all made our own little Lacey Walkers.

To finish off our week, and our Woodland in Europe unit, we painted little fallow deer on Friday. Some kids chose to make male deer, with antlers, and some made females, without antlers. Look at our sentence patterning chart for the fallow deer below, and ask your child to show you how we make a song!

Thanks for reading our blog post! First graders and families, have a wonderful fall break! Leave a comment below and tell us what you're up to. :)

Owls Here, Owls There!

What an exciting week in first grade! I can't believe it's almost October already! In addition to gaining knowledge, these first graders are becoming more responsible, more independent, and every day I am in awe of their kindness! Some of my favorite moments as a teacher are when I see my kids helping each other, which may be the reason why you'll often find so many photos on our class blog of kids working together. :)

We did our very first team task and we did awesome! We worked with our teams to make posters of either the tawny owl or the hedgehog.

During Reader's Workshop, we get to choose a spot anywhere in the room to read on our Read to Self day.

We learned about the tawny owl of Europe, and made some awesome tawny owl art!

Check out our "Owls Here, Owls There" chant!

We watched videos of some of our favorite books for Read with Technology. (I promise I included this picture for more than Rohin's Tim Lincecum shirt!)

On Friday afternoon, we used chromebooks to practice logging into our google accounts and we played games on abcya.com with a partner. Next time we will get to send our first email!

Thanks for reading! This post definitely does not cover everything we accomplished in our classroom this week... 

First graders, do you remember anything else that happened in first grade this week? Families, I'm sure your kids came home with some stories. :) Leave a comment below and tell us what you liked about this week in first grade!

This Week in First Grade

Here's what our first graders had to say about our week!

We read with our reading buddies. -Rohin

We ate lunch. -Jacob

We saw some Digital Challenge Math videos. -Sarah
(You can watch them on YouTube here!)

We learned about the bald eagle. -Thomas

We learned about the pallid bat. -Ariana

I read with Owen, my friend. -Cedric

We learned about the Kind Kids Club. -Katherine

We went to snack and recess. -Jalen

We made songs about black bears. -Amaru

We read lots of new books, like The Quiet Book. -Analisa

We went to recess. -Wesley

We made seahorses with Milo's mom for Fun Friday. -Leila

We got to watch book trailers on the iPads for Read with Technology. -Milana

We did art with my mom and she was the Mystery Reader. -Milo

We made a poster for Mr. Carlos and Mr. Nolan, my dad. -Courtney

We made videos of our chants with our teams. -Jacquelyn

We read The Monster Who Lost His Mean. -AJ

We read Alaska's 12 Days of Summer and it was a song. -Ainsley

We wrote in our Writer's Notebooks. -Eliana

Thank you to Amaru's mom for the photo!

We read to Jaquelyn's mom during Read to Someone during Reader's Workshop. -Emma

We did a pallid bat chant. -Noah K.

We did the Pledge of Allegiance. -Noah T.

We did Fit Friday. -Hailey

We did Morning Work. -Isaiah

We learned new things about the coniferous forest and earned awards. -Olivia

We shopped the library. -Parker

We got to see some awesome writing shared by a few of our first grade authors...

And we used chromebooks to log into our very own google accounts with Mr. Wood! -Miss Kloczko

Thanks, Mr. Wood, for the photo!

Thanks for reading our blog post! Leave a comment! :)

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