Busy 1st graders!

Oh my, have we been busy learning! The last couple weeks have been jam packed and flew by. Take a look at what we've been up to:

Reading- We are READERS!

We've been reading SO many books! As all of you know, last week we learned how to pick Just Right Books. Our video tutorial is famous! I shared it with other teachers, it was posted on the Kaneland Facebook page and on Twitter. Mrs. Bright's class used it to learn how to pick just right books! Way to go 1st graders! Picking just right books is something we will continue to practice all year. Please keep practicing at home too! And remember, sometimes reading the pictures or having someone read a book to you is great too!

We now know three dailies! Read to Self, Read to Buddy and Work on Writing. Students have been doing a fabulous job with these dailies! We have 2 more to learn and add into our day.

Writing- We are WRITERS!

We have immersed ourselves in writing personal narratives, specifically small moments. Students write about something they did or something that happened to them. We've been working hard on zooming in a picking that small seed story and not just writing about a big watermelon topic.

Math-We are MATHEMATICIANS!

I have some great math thinkers! We have worked so hard on ten frames and counting. Keep practicing at home!

Mrs. Carlson, our McDole math coach, came to teach us more about ten frames.

We also met two new math friends: Gus the Plus and Linus the Minus. Can you guess what they help us with? You're right! Gus helps us add and Linus helps us subtract. Students read Gus and Linus poems, created human number models and played a Gus and Linus sorting game.

Here is our human number model! 4+3=7

1st graders have also been working hard on word problems. We learned that we have to look for very specific things in our word problems to help us solve them.

Here we are solving a word problem in small groups and sharing our strategies for solving it in a ScreenChomp. Students practiced working together and using the ScreenChomp app. Way to go!

We've also been exploring the number grid and number line. These are two very important math tools that help us count, add and subtract. We brainstormed things that we noticed about each. 

We played a number line hop game. We rolled the dice to find out how many hops we will make. 

Don't forget! Monday is International Dot Day! Don't forget to wear dots and be ready to make your mark! Here is the song we listened to on Friday. 



                  
The Bouncing Dot Official Music Video for The Dot Song from FableVision Learning on Vimeo.

Please follow us on Twitter (@MissGMcDole100) so you can make your mark too! Tweet us pictures of dots you find. Use #DotDay and #Kaneland302 so we can share our AWESOME!