The Week of April 17th

 

Readers' Workshop

In reading, the first and second graders have been studying characters! Students meet in small character study groups throughout the week to notice attributes and discuss their books and characters. We have learned to describe how a character looks, how they act and infer character traits. We are learning to retell and summarize chapters/texts. When we return from vacation, students will create a Favorite Character Poster! 

Here are some of our favorite characters from our Character Study Groups.

Writers' Workshop 

In writing, we have begun our final project: opinion writing!  Students spent the last week reading amazing mentor texts that share opinions. In this unit we are focusing on how to write our opinion in a friendly letter format. Students planned out different ideas around the theme Social Activism. Students thought and planned opinion pieces based on things they would like to change at home, in school, and in our world around us. 

States of Matter Science Unit 

Students have really enjoyed learning about matter! This week, we visited a foundry on a virtual field trip! Students watched workers as they melted metal and shaped it into various items. Later in the week, we learned that all things are made of molecules- tiny pieces of matter that make up bigger things. Here students worked with tiles, and created flowers with tiny pieces of colored paper.  Some tiny pieces can be broken and put back together, while others can not. 

First Grade Math

In first grade math, we a wrapping up our unit on different types of word problems. Student learned to identify key words in different word problems such as: all together, in all, how many were left, and how many more. 

We explored joining problems, separating problems and compare problems. Students wrote their own story problems about their favorite equation (adding numbers up to 20).  First grade families, I have emailed you a link to watch your student's video! 

Math Menu 

Students are also brushing up on their addition and subtraction strategies from 0-10. Ms. Russin and I worked with small groups to build a strong connection between addition and subtraction equations and the part/part/whole model. It has been really cool seeing students move from counting strategies to thinking strategies! 

Here are some of the posters we made to show the connections between adding and subtracting.

Spelling and Fundations 

Our spelling groups are working hard and making some great progress! It is always really cool to see how much students have grown over our year together:)

Ms. Russin's Group

This group of students is working on reading and spelling r controlled vowels and words with vowel teams.  Students work on word sorts, dictations, power word writing and other activities that build reading and writing fluency. 

Mrs. Marcelino's Group 

Our focus has been on new digraph blends ( shr, nch), and reviewing consonant blends and digraphs. Students are working with word sorts, word chains, connected texts and other fun games that help us build reading and writing fluency. 

Students are now working on a review of syllable types and are learning to identify open and closed syllables.  We are also learning to read and write words with the hard and soft c sound.