Writing as a First Grader

Over the course of this school year, we have been encouraging writing through the use of free write journals and small mini lessons in our classroom.  Our writing this year has focused around the philosophy of 6 + 1 Traits for Writing.  Through a lot of discussion and modeling, we have elaborated on the traits that you would find in pieces of good writing.  We have slowly covered one trait of writing at a time, so students can use the information received and then practice this trait with their story writing.

The following trait areas we are focusing on with our first graders are listed below:

Ideas (the meaning and development of the message)
Organization (the structure of the piece)
Voice (the tone of the piece-the personal stamp the writer leaves)
Word Choice (the vocabulary a writer chooses to use to make the piece interesting)
Sentence Fluency (how words and phrases flow together)
Conventions (the correct usage of grammar)
Presentation (the overall appearance of the work)

Next week we will be publishing a piece of penguin writing!  We will let you know when these pieces are posted on the blog!

Balls & Ramps

For about the past month, our first grade scientists have been exploring how different balls move when they are rolled, bounced, and thrown. They have had opportunities to put their new understanding of balls to the test while creating their own balls. This past week, we challenged students to create their own ramps and pathways to further explore the movement of balls. 

Here is a fun and easy activity you can do at home to help support your child's learning in the classroom!

Go on a tour of your neighborhood and try to find different ramps in the area. Ask your child how these ramps help different people. If you are able to capture a photo of any ramps, we would love to share these during science! Happy hunting!

Day 100

Well, we are officially 100 days smarter in first grade!  We had a blast celebrating this day with everything the 100 way yesterday!  We made sure we were fashionably dressed on this day, constructing headbands, badges, and glasses to wear.  Putting our counting skills to the test, we worked in small groups to count to 100 by 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's.  We then challenged ourselves to have some fun with movement activities to 100 and putting together a necklace of 100 Froot Loops.  We also enjoyed a 100 snack and received our certificates of achievement for our hard work in first grade so far to date!

Live Healthy Iowa Initatitive

This next week, our school district will be kicking off our start to the Live Healthy Iowa Initiative.  Our district is excited to help promote healthy living along with learning.  This initiative will kick off Mon., Jan. 28th and will end on April 5th.  With this program, we are asked to monitor our physical activity and eating, so that we may further our healthy habits.  Within our classrooms, we will be taking a few minutes each day to 'move' our bodies for a little extra exercise.  As we will be making more of an effort to 'get moving', we will be holding 'Movin' Mondays'.  Students are asked to come to school in their comfy gear and we will participate together in a fun movement activity!  With this program, we are also asked to keep track of our student's moving minutes and healthy eating.  In the first grade rooms, we will be recording the students' physical minutes such as recess, p.e., and any other movement activities in our day.  There will be a sheet sent home with each child for the next week.  If your child eats a fruit with breakfast/dinner, please mark how many fruits were eaten.  We also ask that you mark how many minutes your child was active such as outside playing, 'moving to the Wii', or participating in an outside sport.  We understand that this daily piece of paper may be hard to remember as we work through this program.  We thank you in advance for helping us with this and we move towards healthier living!

Friendship Groups

We had a great time seeing our friends this afternoon.  In celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, our Friendship Group time focused around how each one of us is special to the world.  Students enjoyed discussing and sharing how our individual qualities help to make the world a better place.  Pictured below is the craft each student completed in his/her group.  The students were able to color and then write on this craft how he/she is special to the world.

Day 100 Fun!

Today marked our 93rd day of First Grade! Time has flown and our students are making great strides in their learning. We have begun preparations for our 100th day celebration in our classrooms. This week students created dalmations sporting 100 spots to help us decorate for this special occasion. We have also begun to work our way through our Day 100 packets. We began writing 100 words and some of our students have moved into practicing their 100 numbers. We have many fun learning activities planned for the 100th day of school!  Barring any snow days, we will be celebrating this special day on Wed., Jan. 30th.  If you already haven't been filled in by your first grader about our special friend, Zero the Hero, please check with your child about this zero counting hero!  Each '0' day of school, Zero the Hero has dropped in with a special note and zero treat to share with the first graders!  He will make his last appearance in 7 days when we hit 100!

Guidance

This week brought a friendly and familiar face into the first grade classrooms! For the next ten weeks, Nora Kehoe, our guidance counselor will be leading half hour guidance lessons in the first grade classrooms. Topics covered will include: feelings, friendship, problem solving, and safety. Mrs. Kehoe also brought along her pal, Carmen the Cat, who is pictured above with Mrs. Kehoe. Guidance is a great opportunity for students to learn new strategies for solving problems peacefully and making healthy choices.   

Jan Brett Author Study

As we get back into the swing of things after our nice break, we have been enjoying many of the books of the famous author, Jan Brett. Students were intrigued by a video featuring Jan Brett and how she illustrates one of her famous book characters, the Gingerbread Baby. As a first grade group, students then brainstormed a list of questions they wanted to find out about Jan Brett. Working together in partners, the students used a custom search engine on our blog to help them seek the answers to their questions.

The following questions were researched:
 How many books did she make?
 Why is she an author and illustrator? 
 How did she learn to paint?
 What other characters is she good at painting?
 How does she think of a story?

Ask your child if they discovered an answer to their question! We also enjoyed watercolor painting a pair of mittens. These mittens will be used to help us retell the story of Jan Brett's book, The Mitten, along with cutout animals from the story.

Please use the search engine below to find your Jan Brett information.

Field Trip Fun

We truly enjoyed ourselves Tuesday afternoon after we had the opportunity to tour through beautifully decorated Christmas trees that centered around a 'Cowboy Christmas' at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Museum.  We also enjoyed a story about a cowboy gingerbread and decorated a snowman in his cowboy gear!  Hopefully your child shared about his/her favorite part from the trip!

Herber Hoover Museum Field Trip

On Tues., Dec. 14th, both first grade classes will be visiting the Herber Hoover Museum in West Branch, Iowa.  During this special visit, students will have the opportunity to see beautifully decorated Christmas trees themed around a  'Cowboy Christmas'.  Your child does not need to bring anything for this special trip.  We will be leaving school at noon (after lunch) and returning around 2:45 p.m.

Social Studies Learning!

In first grade, Mrs. Hunter teaches the Soc. Studies to the first graders at separate times three times a week.  Some of the Big Ideas we have focused on are:
*We can be safe and responsible (bus, home, school).
*We are all part of a community and celebrate different customs (schools and neighborhoods).
*We have wants and needs.

This past quarter, we have been keeping busy focusing some of our work on the current happenings in the world.  We focused a lot of our learning time around the topic of citizenship and how people in our country practice their civic right of voting.  We learned about the role of the president and why an individual may run for this position. Students had their own idea of why they would be president as well.  Here are some of their ideas:

If I Were President....

*I would go to lots of meetings.
*I would fix the world.
*I would live in a big house.
*I would help people.
*I would make gas prices lower.
*I would make lots of animals.

(Love these statements from the mouths of 1st graders!)

Over the month of December our big idea will be 'Holidays Around the World' and focusing on  how the countries of Holland, Sweden and Germany celebrate 'Christmas'. We will also learn about the holiday of Hanukkah.

Scientists at Work!

Greetings from our first grade scientists!

Following are a few important bits of information for families regarding our science learning, directly from the mouths of first graders;) 

"Scientists are important because they find out things."
"In science we learn experiments."
"The best part of science is always thinking."
"The best part of science is finding new stuff."
"The best part of science is when we have Pam over."

In first grade, Mrs. Droll leads science for both 1A and 1B at separate times, three times weekly. So far this year we have explored the following Big Ideas:

• Trees have many important parts.
• There are parts of soil.

This week we wrapped up a health and wellness unit focusing on germs and proper handwashing. We are looking forward to starting a new unit, Balls and Ramps next week! For this unit, we will be collecting a few items from home. If you have any of the following items lying around the house we would love to take them off your hands!

• empty wrapping paper tubes
• aluminum foil
• rubber bands
• newspapers