Finally Feeling Like Fall!

What happened in first grade this week?

This week we started our unit on Weather and Matter. Ask your child to tell you what the word "matter" means. That was one of our signal words this week! We learned about solids, liquids, and gases, which are everywhere!

We also reviewed the four seasons of the year and the different weather each one has.

Check out this week's Science Digital Challenge...

Created with Padlet

Since it's officially feeling like fall, we talked about all of the things we know about fall. There is a lot to do and wear and eat during this season!

We brainstormed a big list of settings for stories. Some of these came from things we have learned about, like habitats, but most came from places we have been or places we have seen in movies of read about in books. 

We also learned about informative writing, or writing that gives information. We wrote informative pieces about something we each know A LOT about... ourselves! The kids did so great. I LOVED reading them!

The social skill we are working on right now is self-control. We launched our discussion about self-control with this silly video! 

We thought of some ways that we can show self-control at school, and throughout the week, we read some stories about characters that learn to show self-control!

Mad Science came to visit us for an assembly where we got to see some super cool experiments. A few first graders even got to participate! A form came home in your child's Friday Folder about the Mad Science after-school program.

A special visitor came to our class! On Friday, Wesley's mom was the mystery reader, and she brought Cinder, therapy dog-in-training. Cinder was a great guest and a great listener during the story! And the first graders were SO surprised to see a puppy in first grade!

For Fun Friday, we made pumpkin mosaics with Milo's mom. They turned out so cute!

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. :)

My Trip to the San Francisco Zoo by Noah K.

On Sunday I went to the San Francisco Zoo and the Golden Gate Bridge. I had so much fun. I loved it, even though it was cold. I saw a lot of the animals that we've learned about in class.

I saw ungulates like a rhino, a zebra, a giraffe, and a sheep. I found animals that live in a coniferous forest like a grizzly bear. I saw mammals, like the gorilla, that just had a newborn baby.

When we were done at the zoo, we walked on the Golden Gate bridge with my two brothers. I wanted to see the San Francisco Giants but we didn't have time. I had so much fun. Finally, we drove home and I fell asleep.

Puppies Inspired by...Puppies!

Maybe you have seen this video on YouTube...

The first graders LOVED it. We watched this video together this week, and we learned about how authors use dialogue to make characters in a story talk.

Then, we looked at some silly pictures of puppies, and made up our own dialogue, which we wrote in our writer's notebooks.

Using what we wrote, we made our own video... Puppies Inspired by Puppies!

What did you think of our first graders' ideas? Leave a comment for us below! :)

Some Things Are Scary

Last week, we read the book Some Things Are Scary by Florence Parry Heide, which gave us a bunch of ideas for scary things to write about, like grabbing someone's hand and realizing that it doesn't belong to your mom or dad or stepping on something squishy with your bare feet! Today, during Writer's Workshop we wrote our own stories in our notebooks about a time when we felt scared! I picked a few to publish on our class blog. :)

One time my mom asked my brother to feed my dog. He was not there! So we had to drive around the neighborhood and some boys had my dog. And the little boy said “Yay, we got a new dog!” We asked for him back nicely and they said yes. The END.
By Milo

One day I went on a walk with my dog. And Pasha stopped. I looked and I saw a snake! I ran as fast as I could.
By AJ

Once I was walking my grandma’s dog, Amigo. Then Amigo stopped at a field. I wondered what was in the field. It was a RABBIT BONE! I was so scared that I told him to drop the bone and he did, so we never saw that rabbit bone again.
By Emma

One time I got stuck up in a tree. And then I tried to get down. It was too scary. Then my dad helped me get down from the tree!
By Rohin

Thank you for reading! Leave a comment for our first grade authors! What did you think of their stories? Can you tell us about a time when you felt scared?

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!