Response to Literature

In first grade, one way that students respond to a story is by retelling the main events. It is helpful for them begin by reenacting a story or by drawing the events sequentially to create a mural. Last week the students had a good time working in groups and reenacting familiar stories. Today they drew pictures that went with another story that we have read in class. We then created a mural placing the pictures either at the beginning, middle or end.

This Week in Room 3....

March 22-26
Spelling words: house, down, found, out, clown, shout, towel, crown, ground, crowded
HF words: always, arms, body, eight, ready, seven, warm
In skills block we will also practice deleting and substituting phonemes in oral activities; work with the/ou/ sound spelled ou and ow as in cow and house; present tense verbs; inflected endings -s, -ed, and -ing; and, practice dividing words into syllables.

In Reader's Workshop our targeted skill is identifying the topic, main idea, details and summarizing a story. We also will begin an Author's Study on Ezra Jack Keats. The author's study will continue into our Writer's Workshop where we will begin a new genre, Response to Literature. In the response to literature genre of writing the students will respond to a story by retelling the main events. We will look at the story structure and use graphic organizers to help us retell the story. The students will also write evaluative statements about a story and give reasons for their opinions. They also will be expected to write about connections that they have to a story and write about comparisons between two books by the same author.

In Math Workshop we will continue exploring numbers and number combinations The students will use their growing understanding of number to solve a variety of addition and subtraction story problems, while they learn to recognize and interpret addition and subtraction situations, choose and carry out strategies for solving the problems, and record their solution strategies clearly.

Math Workshop

Recording our combinations of 13 in different ways....

Color Spectrums in Art

This Week in Room 3....

March 15-19
Spelling words: frogs, homes, tracks, drums, stripes, crabs, beans, games, coats, and balloons.
High Frequency words: about, because, draw, happy, part, teacher and tiny.
In literacy skills block we will be working on adding -s to naming words and adding inflected endings -s , -ed, and -ing to base words. We will practice deleting and substituting sounds in words , identifying and reading action words, and reviewing compound words. Our Guiding Question for Reader's Workshop this week is: How does categorizing and classifying help me to become a better reader? We will practice using this skill during guided reading and read aloud time.
Beginning this week the students will also have a nightly fluency assignment for homework. Information will be sent home tomorrow.

In Writers' Workshop we will continue on our animal reports by adding graphics such as diagrams and maps. We also will add an introduction to our reports.

In Math Skills Block we will continue practicing telling time to the hour and half hour. We also are discussing elapsed time. In Math Workshop we will continue solving story problems. The students are learning different ways to record their work. They will also work on deciding which operation to use to solve a story problem.

In Science we are observing our plants in the classroom to answer our question on what plants need to live. We will also be learning about the needs of animals.

Field Trip

Our first stop on our field trip was to the Animal Care and Protective Services. I wished I could adopt all of the adorable dogs and cats that we saw there....the last picture shows one lucky pup that did find a new home with one of our students!!

Field Trip

We enjoyed our entertaining storytime at the Downtown Public Library.

This Week in Room 3....

March 8-12
In our literacy skills block we will practice reading and writing words that make the /oo/ sound as in too. Our spelling words are: too, soon, pool, cool, stool, bloom. scoop, choose, smooth and tooth. Remember, these words, along with all of our prior spelling words can be practiced on the Spelling City website. We will also look at the spelling patterns -ew, -ue, -ou, and u_e as in the words new, glue, soup and mule. Also, in skills block we will work with the pronouns he, she, it and they.
Our high frequency words for the week are: build, shoe, very, old, start, wear, piece and under.
Our story this week is If You Give a Pig a Pancake, by Laura Numeroff. Our reading skill this week is Realism and Fantasy. We will looking at which parts of a story could really happen in real life and which parts could not happen. The students will also be browsing other Laura Numeroff book during their Readers' Workshop worktime. Click here to visit a fun site for activities that go along with our story this week.
In Writers' Workshop the students will begin rewriting their animal reports from the notes that they took. They will need to turn their notes into complete sentences. We will then add an introduction and graphics to our reports.

In Math we are continuing with clock time in our skills block. In Math Workshop we will continue playing number games working with combinations for numbers. We also will be solving story problems and learning how to record our work through words, pictures and numbers.

In Science we are exploring what plants need to live. The students will be observing four different plants in the classroom and recording their observations. The observations will continue for the next four weeks. The pictures below show our plants on the first day that we began our exploration.







Remember to bring a bagged lunch/drink , labeled with your name for the field trip on Tuesday!

Math Games Make Learning Fun

On and Off


Total of 10

The students record their combinations of 10 that they made using the number cards.

Readers' Share Chair

After marking their pages with sticky notes during independent reading time the students share their thoughts relating to our guiding question.

This Week in Room 3....

March 1-5
This week in skills block we are working with the -oo sound as in book. Our spelling words are: could, would, should, crook, brook, shook, good, cookbook, stood, and foot. We will also be studying compound words and multiple meaning words. Our high frequency words for this week are: any, idea, bear, follow, please, were, tall, water, afraid and most. In Readers' Workshop our guiding question is..How does sequencing events help me to become a better reader?
We are finished gathering our information for our animal reports and today we came up with a topic sentence for each of our chapters of our report. Next the students will begin writing their final drafts and add diagrams and pictures.
In Math we are playing several games that help the students to deepen their understanding of number and number relationships. This week we are focusing on combinations of 10 ( 7 + 3 ; 2 + 2 + 6 ; etc). In Math Skills Block we will be practicing telling time to the hour and half hour.
In Science we will be exploring the question, What do animals and plants need to survive?.

Remember, our field trip to the library is next Tuesday, March 9th. Permission slips and money must be turned in by this Friday!