Sterling's Snippets: Fall Break and a Little Rest

The students are busy at art class with Mrs. Dronen so I am able to blog a bit about our last couple of weeks and some exciting upcoming adventures in 1st grade! I will apologize now, this is going to be a long one (lots of photos)! I hope you enjoy these extra couple of days off. We will be celebrating my son, Carson's 6th Birthday on Friday!

Last week brought a fun opportunity to do a few projects, science and social studies with Columbus Day. We began the day with an anchor chart to look at the students schema, or background about the holiday. Aside from "he was a boy" and "he had a ship" the learning that would occur was all going to be new! We read several books about Columbus, watched a couple of animated clips and explored using mini-books to learn about Columbus. The students then played a Columbus Day math game with their partner.

Tinah and Nico play Columbus Day Roll and Cover BUMP.

The highlights for the day were probably the snack and boat races. Check out some photos below to look at our fun!

Columbus Boats

Chace and his Columbus Boat Treat.

Aubrey preparing for her boat race.

When the day was through, we went back and added to our anchor chart (their schema is inside the bubble) and added. Look at that new knowledge!

We also celebrated Aiden's Birthday. Happy Birthday Aiden, we loved the Donuts!

This week we traveled by bus to MSUM to Fuego Tropical, a steel drum presentation. The presentation was packed with over 850 1st graders. The students sang and danced along to music from all around the world. As usual, the students were well behaved, responsible and attentive.

Check out that dancing!

A Peek at our Week:

Reading: We are busy in both whole group and small group reading. By now you are seeing lots of books coming home with your child. They are reading more fluently and beginning to monitor and self-correct when reading. I can't wait to share their progress at conferences. Students are learning about several parts of speech like proper nouns, verbs and adjectives. Today we practiced using commas in dates by acing as "Comma Cops." Next week we will read The Recess Queen, a darling story, and use it to identify the main idea and key details. We will also use adjectives to describe a character, Mean Jean.

Math: Addition and Subtraction is our focus in math currently. Students are using drawings, objects and equations to solve problems. If you were wondering if I planned to send home the Math Home Links, I had decided NOT to. I just feel there is enough homework coming home. Students are playing "games" to learn important skills and I am meeting with two small groups daily to boost addition and subtraction fluency.

Writing: Did you read your child's information book? All students presented an information book to their audience (our class) last week. They were fabulous for only 35 days of school! We are slowly moving towards writing opinions. A letter accompanying a bag will come home with your child today asking for a "collection" to be brought to school. Our first lessons in opinion writing will involve students judging their own personal collections. Please help your child find a collection of 5, similar items to bring to school on Monday.