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!

I Know a Bald Eagle...

Can you believe we have been back at school for a whole month already?! Here's what your first graders (and bald eagle experts) had to say about the fourth week of school:

We wrote stories about something disappointing. -Deniz

We read Bear Has a Story to Tell. -Kyara

We used the chromebooks to listen to books. -Alex

We made a song about skunks. -Jade
Have your first grader sing a song to you using our chart!

We did a fire drill. -Cedrus

We made bald eagles. We cut out our hands to make the wings. -Jaykob

We read part of the baby animals book. We learned about baby black bears. -Lorenzo

We watched part of Brother Bear because its setting is the coniferous forest. -Fabiana

We made another class book called Stuck. -Nya
Watch Oliver Jeffers read the original Stuck here!

We figured out that Chewbacca from Star Wars is a mammal. We know that because he has fur. -Damion

We read two books about bald eagles. -Anahi

We learned what oviparous means. We learned that bald eagles don't have sharp teeth to tear apart their food, but they do have sharp talons and a sharp beak. -Tanaya

We read Hello, Fredbird because Miss Kloczko likes the Cardinals. When I was in TK, Miss Kloczko liked the Giants. -Juan Carlos

We learned the word carnivore. -Aaqil

We did the E page in our America book. E is for eagle. We learned that skunk babies are called kits. -Anshika

We made the C page in our America book. C is for constitution. -Parker

We crumpled up the constitution to make it look old. -Isandro

We learned that the bald eagle only eats meat.  -Carol

Our third grade buddies came to read with us. I remember that when skunks spray it is called musk. -Ryan

We learned that the sum is the answer to an addition problem. -Jared

We learned that the bald eagle's wingspan can be up to 8 feet. -Cooper

The bald eagle is a symbol for the United States of America. -Kendall

A symbol is something that stands for something else. -Jules

We learned that the bald eagle has brown and white feathers. -Allyson

We are in the computer lab for the first time right now! -Indigo

The bald eagle's claws are called talons. -Lea

Baby bald eagles are called eaglets. -Tianna

We read Not a Box. -Liam

This week I received two bald eagles (one, a picture printed out from vacation and the other, drawn and labeled at home). Also, on more than one morning before school, I was presented with "a cone from a coniferous tree!" AND we met our stamina goal on Tuesday! We read for 20 minutes straight! (And we only stopped because we had to go to lunch!) -Miss Kloczko

Just for fun, check out our padlet from this week's homework! 

Have to share this too. :)

Thanks for reading! Leave us a comment! :)

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