October 16, 2015 Here is an update on what is happening in Room 103 Reading Our Literacy Stations are up and running! Students rotate through seven different stations throughout the week. At the Work on Writing Station students have been working on Mouse Books (more information below). This station will grow with the students throughout the year to incorporate different types of writing. Our latest addition was the Ipad Station where the students are currently using an app in which the students trace words, letters, and numbers to practice making their letters correctly. The students enjoy the balance of cooperative and independent work as well as the variety of skills practiced. Right now the favorites seem to be Ipad and Read to Someone! During stations I spend time reading with small groups of students to provide more guided practice. As we wrap up our introduction to Reader’s Workshop, our class discussed the importance of reading different genres and compared this to having a balanced diet. It is important to read fiction, non-fiction, and poetry because we gain different things from each genre. First up is fiction! We will discuss the story elements present in fiction texts such as characters, setting, problem, and solution. We will also examine the beginning middle and end structure of a story and determine what important parts of the story happen in each of these. Math We are continuing to practice the count up strategy when adding two numbers. We have also learned the term “turnaround fact” which explains that the order of two numbers being added together does not matter because the total does not change. For example. 13+2=15 and 2+13=15. We are also working with different non-standard units of measurement more closely. Some important tips being reinforced when we measure with different objects such as unifex cubes are no gaps between cubes, no overlap of cubes, make a straight line, and measure end to end. We have also spent a great deal of time working with the number 10! We are looking at all the different ways to make 10 such as 7 and 3, 8 and 2, 5 and 5, etc. We call these “partner pairs” of ten. The term partner pairs is one you will hear often in first grade! Knowing the different number combinations that make up the number 10 can help children when trying to solve more difficult problems. Writing Earlier in the year we read the story The Library Mouse by Daniel Kirk. In this story, a mouse lives in the library and writes mini books for the students to read. These books inspire the students to become authors themselves! We discussed the different topics that we could write about and started writing our very own Mouse Books! While writing these books we reviewed the writing process. We wrote our books and went back in to add more detail, check our capitals and periods, we even read the stories to a friend to get their feedback! The students have worked incredibly hard and are proud of their books! Students are continuing to create books on different topics while at the Work on Writing Station. Science Thank you for taking the time to create the rock collections with your child, the students were thrilled to show off their rocks! To kick off our rock unit, we completed a “Rock Walk” in which the students displayed their rocks for everyone in our class to walk around and check out. After reading from our science book, we made a list of different properties we could use to describe our rocks such as the texture, the color, the presence of air holes or fossils, the list goes on! The students drew detailed pictures of their favorite rocks and wrote different properties about the rocks. We were also lucky enough to examine a piece of granite and determine the minerals that were used to create it! In the coming weeks we will be discussing how people use rocks in our world and why they are so important to us. QR Codes Our class used the Ipads to scan QR Codes for the first time this week and it was a huge success! Placed around the room were books of different genres with a QR Code taped to the front cover. Students worked with a partner to determine the genre of each book by looking for key features we discussed as a class. Each pair of students had an Ipad and used their QR Code Scanner to scan the QR Code and see if they were correct! This is a tool we will be using frequently throughout the year. Important October Dates October 16th ~ Book Orders Due October 16th / 17th ~ Freaky Friday/Spooky Saturday October 22nd ~ Early Release October 23rd ~ Box Tops Collection October 30th ~ October Reading Calendar Due October 30th ~ Halloween Party (More information to come later)