Week of February 19th

What a busy week! We celebrated Presidents' Day by reading biographies about Abraham Lincoln
and George Washington. The class was really into learning about our Presidents--we learned a lot of
facts in the book I grew up to be President! Did you know Thomas Jefferson introduced ice cream
to the USA? Students practiced their math facts with an Abraham Lincoln craft! They are the
cutest Abe Lincoln's I've ever seen!

I'm happy to say that Math Scroll frenzy is still going strong. Students still use much of their
free time to work on their scrolls. Here are a couple of our master scroll mathematicians!

Half the class went to visit their Kindergarten teachers and read their book reviews to current
Kindergarten friends! All students practiced reading their book reviews with expression and
fluency. The rest of the class will read theirs after break!

Week of February 12th

We had quite the week in first grade! So many things to celebrate!

On Monday we celebrated the 100th day of school! That’s 100 days of hard-work, learning, growing,
and having fun! We spent all day doing 100th day math, writing, 100th day challenges, and more!

We also had a Four Winds visit and learned all about skulls!

On Wednesday we filled the day with love and kindness to celebrate Valentine’s Day! We gave out
compliments; we made “Love Monsters” and talked about how we can spread love to others; we
made valentines to people we love--we filled the day with all things Valentine’s Day!

On Friday afternoon we learned about the Chinese New Year. We also learned about the Chinese
Zodiac--2018 is the year of the dog! We learned about the many ways to celebrate the New Year
and we made our own dragons and lanterns.

Week of January 29th

This week we traveled to Tiananmen square--the world’s largest square to do some kite flying! We walked parts of the Great Wall of China and students tried to make their own but they ran out of time before they made it to 13,00 miles. They did make it all the way across the classroom! We also took a trip down the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers. Students made their own sampan and junk boats to sail down the rivers!

I love how engaged students are in math! On Wednesday, they worked to create shapes on geoboards, explored true and false number statements, and practiced their doubles facts.

Students have been working hard finishing up their book reviews. They practiced reading their reviews in order to convince their audience. Students practiced on each other before they share their reviews with others.

Week of January 22nd

Ni Hao!

This week we boarded the plane to China and have started to learn explore Beijing. We boarded the plane with our passports, suitcases, and tickets in hand! We took off from Burlington on a once-in-a-lifetime direct flight to Beijing! We started with a trip to the Forbidden City to see where the emperors used to live! We compared the Imperial Place to the White House and the National Mall. The Forbidden City has a moat, 90 palaces, and 8,707 rooms! We also talked about how much older China is compared to the USA.

Has your child been abuzz with talk of a number scroll? Many students have been using every spare moment to work on their number scrolls! They are budding mathematicians using their place value knowledge to build numbers in the hundreds and even thousands! I can’t wait to see how far each student goes!

Week of January 15th

Students have been writing all about their opinions! This week they wrote about their favorite lunch! They worked so hard to go from planning draft! We’ve made class books for all of our opinion writing and the kids love to read them together on the rug!

We learned about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this week and did some writing on what his dream was and what our dreams are for the world.

In math students have been working hard comparing numbers using the greater than, equal to, and less than

symbols. Here they are practicing to a goNoodle video! They’re up moving AND learning!

Week of January 8th

We’re back at it in first grade! After winter break, a two-day week, and a snow day students were ready to get back into the groove!

This week students practiced writing a complete sentence! We learned a song, corrected sentences, and made sentence buddies! (picture coming soon…)

Students are working hard in math to practice their place value understanding. They played a new
game and exchanged ten pennies for a dime from the “bank.”

Students learned the difference between a fact and opinion last week. These week they practiced
stating their opinion and supporting it with a reason! We played Would You Rather...by dancing
around the room and stopping to talk to the nearest partner when the music stopped! I read a
question and they shared their opinion and supported it with a “because…” statement.

“Would you rather swim in a pool filled with spiders or a pool filled with snakes?”

“A pool of spiders because they can’t swim!” (just one great opinion of the day!)

Week of December 18th

A belated post from before Winter Break. I didn’t realize I had so many amazing pictures of first
graders hard at work!

Students worked hard to solve different number puzzles! Students were hard at work becoming
math puzzle masters!

Students also made “math mittens” and practiced their addition facts!

Gingerbread day was a hit in first grade! Students spent the day engaged in gingerbread math,
gingerbread writing, and gingerbread science!

Week of December 11th

Water travels in a cycle, yes it does!

Students put on their (metaphorical) lab coats and goggles and became expert scientists! Students continued to explore the water cycle this week! Students learned about the three parts of the water cycle: evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. We spent our afternoons making observations, doing experiments, and of course singing about the water cycle!

All week long your little scientists have been recording their observations about a cup of water sitting by the window to learn about evaporation. We’ve worked on adding scientific details to our observations.

Using ice cubes, cups, and warm water students predicted what might happen inside the cup. Students observed the cup fogging up and little water drops appearing! Condensation at work!

Last but not least, shaving cream clouds helped us visualize precipitation at work. All the snow outside helped too!

Have your student sing our water cycle song! We’ve been singing it all week!

Students also did a fun Snowman at Night craft and had chips and salsa as part of our All-School Celebration!

Week of December 4th

We had another great week in first grade!

This week in math students learned how to represent and interpret data using a bar graph. They also practiced doubles facts and combinations to tens. They shared strategies to solve these facts and discussed how they are all still working to get better (and faster!) at solving these equations!

We also spent a lot of time coding this week! This week students participated in the Hour of Code as part of the Computer Science Education Week!Students explored Scratch Jr. independently and with partners. Students had to problem solve and complete tasks.

This week students practiced identifying nouns and verbs! We learned two chants to help us remember the difference. Have your student teach you our chants!

We’ve had another science filled week! We focused on clouds. We read books, sang a song, and made our own clouds. The students were so busy at work making cotton ball clouds. They did a great job making each cloud look different and like the right type of cloud! I may have forgotten to get the camera out as we were having so much fun but check out a few examples! Next week we’ll use what we know about clouds to learn about the water cycle!

Weeks of November 13th and 27th

We’re back to work after Thanksgiving! We started our new science unit. We are learning about weather! We learned about temperature, wind, and how we measure weather this week. Ask your student what an “anemometer” is! We are keeping track of our scientist observations and learnings in our science journals! We created our own wind--huffing and puffing to push objects across a table!

We practiced our sight words and our handwriting while getting up and moving around the room! We also practiced our short e sounds this way too! The kids are always focused and ready to learn during a write-the-room activity! Just look at those teacher letters (what we call neat handwriting)!

This student found a connection to math in our reading. The book said the glasses were in "rows" but he noticed that they were actually in columns!

Look at this reading stamina and focus!

Here's a belated peek at our week before Thanksgiving Break! We did a lot of fun Thanksgiving activities and read books about Thanksgiving. We did turkey math and made Thanksgiving bracelets. I hope you read your student’s Thanksgiving book! We had a four winds lessons about beavers, too! We tried to be beavers by chomping down carrot trees and eating pretzel bark! We all had a blast!

Week of November 6th

Hello Families!

The kids worked so hard this week! It was a big week as we close out the assessment window--a lot of great reading and writing being done in first grade! We balanced it out with some fun and some free writing! So many creative stories!

We finished up our unit on Solids and Liquids. We learned about the properties of liquids and how about the changing states of matter. We even did an experiment and watched as a solid (baking soda) and a liquid (vinegar) make a gas. I hope your child told you about our science experiment excitement! Have them explain the science behind what happened! If only we had caught it on video.

We even squeezed in a quick lesson on kindness. We read the book The Recess Queen and talked about how we can be kindness queens and kings! We made kindness crowns that were so cute!