First Grade Superstars: March 16

On Tuesday we had a webchat with Samantha Sands from the Museum of the Earth to ask some follow-up questions we had after our field trip. We learned about where the first dinosaur museum was, as described in the picture book The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins that we have in our classroom. We also learned that local fossils we find in New York state are actually older than the dinosaurs! Samantha said that families are welcome to bring local fossils to the Museum for help identifying what kinds of sea creatures they may include.

This week in math we continued to study the value of a quarter and how to make the equivalent of a quarter using pennies, nickels and dimes. We also reviewed measuring length in centimeters, counting seconds on a clock, and various ways to make a number using addition, subtraction, tally marks, and number words. We played some math games in partners that reviewed skills like ordinal number (first, second, third...), telling time to the quarter hour, counting by 2s up to 100, and place value (32 = 3 tens and 2 ones). Next week we will play more place value games to help students master the concept of the hundreds, tens, and ones place in a 3 digit number.

In reading we studied word endings to help improve our accuracy and to further expand our vocabulary. We looked for words in the books we were reading that can change depending on the ending (e.g. work, works, worked, working, worker...). We also practiced developing our fluency by picking a sentence to reread until we could say it to the class as smoothly as we would if we were just talking. Thanks to everyone who has been staying on top of the book envelopes that come home and making time in your schedule to listen to your child read these books. An important way to improve your child's reading is to allow time for them to read everyday (both on their own and with/to others).

This week we also had a visit from children's book author Brad Herzog. He shared how be became a writer (by reading lots of books) and where he has gotten ideas for books (everyday experiences like having the hiccups and going to the zoo). He also shared a picture book he had written with his sons that he had made into a hardback book using illustory. Special thanks to our librarian, Ms. Groff, for arranging his visit, sharing some of his books with our students during library time, and scheduling his day so each grade level could meet with him in a small group setting.

Finally, we introduced three new games for choice time: Boggle, Farkle, and Mancala. In addition to developing sportsmanship, communication and cooperation, these games can help develop spelling/vocabulary and counting/strategy skills.

I recently began to introduce the new word wall words on Wednesdays in order to to maximize students' retention of these words over the weekend. So the list you'll see come home each Friday includes the current words. For those of you looking to get ahead, next Wednesday we will begin to study: end, far, from, soon, their.

Enjoy these pictures of students spelling out our current words with their bodies. Photos are in this order: ask, once, many, new, wrong. (Note: wrong = two photos because the w was so wide!)