Chinese New Year and Groundhog Day!

Friday was Chinese New Year. We read a few books about the holiday to learn more about what the Chinese culture does to celebrate. We also made these colorful paper dragons.

At the end of the day on Friday, we also did a quick graph to predict whether or not Punxsutawney Phil will see his shadow this weekend. Watch the news first thing tomorrow morning to find if he does, which will bring us 6 more weeks of winter, or if he does not, which will mean spring is on the way! 

Fun Fact:

Phil has only been right 39% of the time. ;)

Literacy Night!

Here's some pictures from Literacy Night on Thursday. It was great night and a lot of fun! Many students got to meet Jerry Pallotta and even had him sign their books. It was awesome to see so many families there. :)

Literacy Night- I hope to see you there!

Literacy Night is this Thursday night at our school from 6:30-8:30. I would love to see my first grade families there! I will be doing a read aloud and some other teachers will be too. There will be some story telling for families to listen to and author Jerry Pallotta is going to be there too. I have many of his books in my classroom. I am very excited to meet him! If you can make it for all or some of the time, please just send in the form or write me a quick note. Hope to see you there!

Valentine's Day Update

Hi everyone!

I wanted to give a quick update about Valentine's Day this year. We will celebrate it on Friday February 14th, the day before vacation. Just a few things to keep in mind:

• The students are allowed to bring in valentines to pass out to our class only. Due to the school's food policies, please try to send in valentines that do not have candy attached. We also have several allergies this year too. Valentines with stickers, pencils, or erasers attached are a great alternative to candy!
• I will send home a class list at the end of the week with a list of names. Passing out valentines is optional, however I do ask that if your child chooses to bring in valentines, please make sure he/she brings one in for each person in the class.
• Please send your child's valentines in already labeled with names. All valentines should come to school in a sealed Ziploc bag. We will be making decorated valentine bags for everyone to bring their valentines home in. 

I would also like to run some craft workshops from 9:15-10:15 that Friday morning. If anyone is interested in coming up with a simple Valentine's Day craft and running a station, please email me and let me know!

Math Workshop Update

In Math Workshop, we have been working on relation symbols and using phrases like "greater than" and "less than" when we compare numbers. 

Today, the students practiced using relation symbols during their seat work and while playing the hands on game with a partner.

I also did some differentiated teaching with each group on the rug. We worked on using the symbols and reading our comparisons out loud using "greater than/less than/equal to".

How To Books

In writer's workshop the past two weeks, we have been working to finish our how-to books. We have been learning about how everyone can be an expert at something. Writers can put what they know into a book to teach others! After choosing a topic from our brainstorm sheet, we starting sketching and planning out our steps. This took a lot of thinking work as we sketched our steps carefully in order and revised them many times. 

The students met with their writing partners several times during the process. Partners read their writing while the other partner acted out steps to make sure they were clear enough! Here's some writing partners in action: 

Once our steps were set, it was time to start working on our books. Last week everyone worked to make their booklets and design a cover page. Some are finishing up this week. Then, we will share our finished books with each other!

Ask your child what they wrote their how-to book about! 

Martin Luther King Jr.

We have been reading and learning a lot about Martin Luther King Jr. this week. We studied several nonfiction/biography books about him. We did some great thinking work and compared how much has changed since the time MLK was living.

Today we made these adorable crafts and had a long talk about the quote attached as well as the meaning behind it. As one student this morning said it best: "I think MLK is teaching all of us to try to make small differences with our words each day- because if we do that, someone else might catch on and do it too." Talk about melting my heart!!