We Have Been Busy!!!!!!!

This post is all over the place but that sort of describes our days right now.  We started play practice on Monday during our special area time, which means I have had no planning time to post and catch you all up on what I was already behind on.  So here is a mess of pictures to get you all on board with what we have been learning!

We began discussing antonyms- the sneaky opposites on Monday and the kids loved completing a sort on Thursday.  I found a great antonym concentration type sort over the weekend that I want to get laminated and cut out for centers this week. We are moving on to synonyms this week but will continue to build on antonyms through out the year. 

We began our Unit on the Sun and Star.  We made a massive KWL to chart our learning.  The K stands for what we know, the W stands for what we want to know, and the L stands for what we learned. Check out the first questions they want to know.  It was too cute not to write and I wasn’t going to be the one to squash their sweet innocence.

Since learning about context clues we have transitioned from a story with five vocabulary words we directly instruct to using our context clues to determine the meaning of one word from each story we read.  So far the students have used context clues to teach their peers the meaning of every word we have chosen as our target word.  It has been such a neat experience to hand out those beloved context clues glasses and have their peers clap for them! Our next vocabulary standard that we will be teaching is shades of meaning with verbs, so you can see how some of those words lend to discussion on that topic, such as trudged is a form of walk, etc.

We have reviewed doubles this week and moved on to the doubles plus one facts.  Doubles plus one facts was actually introduced last chapter too but since they only had a day to learn what doubles facts were before I was suppose to teach this.  Now the students have sung their Doubles rap and most students have a strong foundation of their doubles, we were ready for the Doubles plus 1.  We used their rhyme to help them with the strategy. 

See the neighbor numbers up top.    They are neighbors on the number line.  That is the first step for the children.  If they see they are neighbor numbers they can take the smaller number and double it and then add one.  I am not saying this strategy is for everyone but it definitely works for some students.  I am here to teach them multiple ways to think but at the end of the day they are going to use the way it clicks in their head.

FIRST GRADE ROCKS!!!  Check out our matching shirts! Too cute, right!

Thanks for my prize!

We have been modeling, modeling, modeling our expectations for our fours squares and the students are striving to meet those expectations.  They have the best ideas to share in their writing!

 

Boot It is in full swing in our room.  Here is where we chart our data.  Each student who met the goal of 3 books and returned their record sheet by the due date got to put a sticker on October next to their name and got awarded a coupon for a free personal plan pizza from Pizza Hut!  Our class goal for this month is 95 books and 2 book reviews per each student. 

On Halloween we made “not-so-scary” scarecrows.  The students loved this activity and the next day they wrote about their scarecrows using a four square.

We also covered bats and birds during science the week of Halloween. One of our science standards the students need to understand is that an offspring will look like their mother and father.  We introduced this standard by reading Stellaluna.  The story is about a bat who is separated from her mother and is raised by a bird mother.  We incorporated past comprehension skills beginning, middle, and end, and our current comprehension skill compare and contrast (Venn Diagrams).

 

We have been continuing to add to our phonic dance chart. These chunks are to help the student identify unknown words when reading.  But some have taken it a step further and use it when they are writing now.  It just reminds me to never lower my expectations for student, because they will always strive meet them!

We have covered story elements (characters, setting, and  beginning, middle, end), and we have covered main idea 9what is this story mostly about?), and now we have been delving into comparing and contrasting.  How are characters alike and different? We have been Venn diagram experts around here.  The students want to compare and contrast everything.  I had a student come up to me last week and we compared his shirt button to my jacket button.  During Listening to reading I had a student make a Venn diagram comparing herself to the book character on the back of the graphic organizer. When introducing the Venn diagram and how were can compare and contrast items we used a book and a note book and then we moved to people by comparing me and Ms. Toledo, and then we moved to students, then to me and a book character, and now we are solely comparing book characters. 

Students paired up and compared and contrasted each other.  They enjoyed working together on their Venn!

 

We are still talking about Nick Noun, and his plural noun pups.  We added the bones to help the student remember the exception when adding es.  It is a great visual and the students are beginning to notice plural s in their reading too!

I am sure there is more but I have been lax on photos due to less time on instruction with play practice.