We've had a great full week back after February Break! Students came back ready to learn and we hit the ground running--we've started new units in math, reading, writing, and social studies!
The past two weeks we've been celebrating Kindness Week at PPS! Last week we sorted kind and unkind behaviors; we sorted kind and unkind words; and we discussed how we have the power to change the world with kindness! This week we talked about how to be kind to our family, friends, and community; why its important to "stick with kindness"; and we spread kindness through the school by writing and delivering letters. We've done many kindness crafts, read many books about being kind, and gave kind compliments to each other! This class is such a kind and caring class!
We've started Unit 7 in math. We've been focusing on subtraction strategies and have begun to learn about shape attributes.Students learned how to play Salute! a great game for subtraction fact fluency! They also learned how to play Attribute Train and had fun making a long train by changing one attribute at a time.
In Reader's Workshop, students have started to learn about different text features in non-fiction writing. So far we've found: labels, captions, close ups, and photographs/illustrations. We will continue to add to our Non-Fiction Text Feature Notebooks!
We had another wonderful week in first grade! I can't believe that February Break is here and that when we're back it will be March! We spent this week wrapping up our learning and celebrating our hard work!
We have had a great time learning about China but it was time to fly home! We learned about the Lantern Festival, made lanterns, finished up our panda painting, wrote postcards, and flew home this week! We also watched Mulan on Friday afternoon!
We read more biographies and learned about important text features. Students learned about captions, quotes, text boxes, and timelines that give us more information while reading a biography. In writing we practiced using complete sentences.
Early this week students solved place value riddles and applied their place value understanding to money (pennies, dimes, and dollars). Students also took the Unit 6 Assessment and did a President Abraham Lincoln math craft in honor of Presidents' Day!
We also had a great Four Winds Lesson about how animals prepare for winter. Students did an experiment to test what is the best way to keep warm and insulated during a cold winter.
So much to love about first grade--our Valentine's day was so much fun! Students wrote about all the things they love and created their own Love Monsters! We also gave compliments on our "compli-mats", made a card for someone we love, made bags for our valentines, exchanged valentines, and more! We had a great Valentine's Day
Students have also been hard at work learning about biographies and finishing up their writing about what pet is best! In math we learned the making-10 strategy and learned about equivalency using name-collection boxes!
This week we celebrated a milestone--the 100th day of school! I am continually impressed and amazed by the hard work done every day! To celebrate the 100th day we made crowns, read 100 books, made necklaces, rolled dice, flipped coins, wrote about "when I am 100..." and so much more! We had a fantastic day celebrating!
Pictures from last week's adventures! Comparing two non-fiction texts and a lot of new adventures in China! We visited the Great Wall of China, flew kites in Tiananmen Square, made boats to float down the Yangtze River, climbed the Himalayas, trekked the Gobi Desert, and uncovered the Terracotta Warriors in Xian.
We had a short but busy week! Students came back from the three-day weekend (plus the delayed start) ready and excited to learn.
We were a buzz all week with excitement for our flight to China! We did some research on China before we left, we read articles, compared the land size of the USA and China, learned about the flag, and we compared the populations. We pack our suitcases, grabbed our passports, got our itinerary ready, and took off to China! We landed in Beijing and learned about the Forbidden City.
We finished up our Sound and Light Unit! We finished up with an engineering challenge to get light around a book and send a signal to someone on the other side. Students rose to the challenge and impressed with their teamwork and engineering skills! Every group ended up creating a successful system!
Students used tools (number lines, hundreds charts, place value blocks, and more!) to solve number stories in math. We spent time discussing what a good response needs and how to use our tools effectively and successfully.
Another wonderful week in first grade! Students are working so hard and are making great progress.
This week in math students continued to practice their place value understanding and using comparison symbols. Students played Base-10 exchange and exchanged ten ones for one ten! Students began working on number scrolls--practicing number writing and patterns on the hundreds chart and beyond.
Students used mirrors to investigate what we can see by using a mirror. We learned that we can use mirrors to see behind us and to see our reflections. Students also spent some time drawing a reflection of their eye. We then investigated what can we see without any light using boxes. Students discovered that we need light to see!
In literacy we've been reading a lot of narrative non-fiction (books that tell and story and teach you about a topic) and students have become experts at identifying the different genres: fiction, non-fiction, and narrative non-fiction! In writing, students finished up their book reviews. Students also used all that we've learned about opinion writing to write about their favorite season. Students helped brainstorm ideas for what a good opinion piece needs and used that list to write their opinion pieces. I was very impressed with their independence and how they took ownership of their opinion pieces!
Students are off to a great start in 2019! Students came back to school excited and ready to learn! In writing, we spent some time last week setting some resolutions for ourselves at school and are finishing up our opinion unit.
We finished up our learning about sound before break and started investigating light! Students investigated making shadows; learned about transparent, translucent, and opaque materials, and used mirrors to redirect light. Students have been super serious scientists and have done a fantastic job investigating light!
We had an awesome week before December break! The students were focused and engaged even with all of the excitement--Sing-Along, Gingerbread Day, the Holiday Party, and the impending break! I was so impressed with them all week! The sing-along was a great success and I hope you were able to watch it online! Thanks to everyone who joined us for the Holiday Party and donated food or goody bags! I hope everyone had a great time!
Gingerbread Day was a great success! We spent the whole day doing gingerbread math, science, and literacy activities. We've been reading different versions of the story to compare and contrast. It was a wonderful day!
We also spent time learning about commas, doing math puzzles, and more. Here are a few more snapshots from the week.
This week students engineered string-cup telephones, wrote about what they would do if they were snowmen at night, had a hot cocoa celebration and more! Here are some pictures from our week!
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Welcome!Read all about our days in Ms. Carilo's first grade class at Porters Point School! Archives
November 2019
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