Reading Strategies and Words, Words, Words!

We have been learning lots of Reading Strategies to help us decode words.  These are the strategies we have learned so far to determine unknown words:

1. Use the Picture Clues (Do the words you are saying, match the pictures?  Does it make sense?)
2. Reread (When you notice a miscue, go back to figure out that part.)
3. Get Your Mouth Ready (Say beginning sounds out loud...)
4. Skip and Read Through (Skip over the word, read the whole sentence through and think about what would make sense in the sentence.)
5. Look Through the Word for Sounds You Know (Look through the whole word for letters, and sounds you know.   Are there any little words in the big words? Cross check, being sure you are also using picture and context clues.)
6. Looking for Chunks in Words (Look for parts of words you know, like short or long vowel letter patterns.  at, ot, ip, ay, etc.  If you know the word cat, you can read bat...) 

Words

Dolch Words...

These are research based sight words that are commonly found in grade level texts.  Your child now has a copy of these words at school and home.  I will be quizzing the students about every week, to see if they are able to read the words in a "snap", without sounding them out.  Once your child passes a list, we will check it off at school, and they will move on to practicing the next list.  We are just focusing on reading the words, not spelling them.  The goal is to get through all 11 lists by the end of the year.  Practicing these words at home, will greatly help your child's reading fluency.  

These words will often be seen multiple times in our learning, as I frequently choose lots of these words as word wall words.  

Word Wall Words....

We practice 6 new sight words a week on five day weeks.  Your child writes these on the boxed sheet of paper.  This usually comes home on Mondays.  You may cut these apart into flash cards for your child to practice at home, and keep in a baggie.  Our word wall at school, is a good tool for students to use for spelling and learning words. (Many of the word wall words also come from our spelling/word study program, Fundations, and from our writing.)

Focus Words...

These 23 district approved first grade words, are the words your child should know how to read and write by the end of the year.  I will quiz the students quarterly to see how they are doing learning these.  Our first several weeks of word wall words have been these 23.  

Craft Moves in Writing

We have been sharing our learning about craft moves that authors use.  We have been continuing to study the author George McClements and his book Night of the Veggie Monster as a good example of narrative writing.  

We have also been finding other authors who are teaching us some exciting things about writing.  

Some authors write their words to show movement, like Kevin Henkes does in Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse.

Mo Willems uses lots of speech bubbles.

He also uses big and bold words, and shows movement in his pictures.

We are trying some of these craft moves from our mentor authors in our own writing to bring our stories to life!  

The Fire Prevention Assembly and Walk to School Day!

October is an exciting month at McDole.  

The Fire Prevention Assembly

We began at this station, where we learned the important numbers to dial in an emergency.  

The fire chief demonstrated what to do if your clothing catches on fire.

The students learned that they should STOP, DROP and ROLL to extinguish the flames. 

Next, we practiced how to stop, drop, and roll on the mats.  

Our next station, was a house that highlighted hazards found in houses and taught us about important safety reminders.  

The class enjoyed asking the firemen questions.  

Then, we toured the Safe House.  Inside, we learned what to do when we hear the smoke alarm and if there is smoke in the air.  

Students practiced crawling out of the house to reach their safety meeting point (the mailbox).

Our fourth stop was outside to see the fire engine.  

The class enjoyed learning about the different equipment/tools that firefighters use to keep us safe.  

Last, we learned about the clothing and gear that firemen use to keep themselves safe in fires.  

This fireman gave high-fives to all the first graders after a great hour of learning!  

Walk to School Day

Once the busses arrived, we began our walk.

Finding our friends in the crowd was fun.

We began making our way to the school.  

On our way!

It was quite a sight seeing the whole school walking down the street!

Ms. Williams led the First Grade Line.  

First Graders are ready!

What a great way to begin the morning!

We are ready to start our day of learning at McDole!  

Spirit Week!

This week we've been doing some serious learning while crazily dressed up showing our school spirit.  Go Knights!

Hat Day!

Looking smart in our hats.

Ready for the big PEP RALLY!

The high school marching band, cheerleaders, football, soccer, and volleyball players were among the many Kaneland friends that visited McDole this week!  

We learned new cheers to get us in the school spirt!

We got on our feet to join in the excitement and cheered on the Kaneland Knights!

Pajama Day!

Wearing our jammies did not make us one bit sleepy.  The excitement of learning kept us wired!  

More of our Reading Workshop Dailies...

We created this chart to remind us of our expectations during this Daily.

Hard at work during Work on Writing

During this Daily we listen to stories read aloud on Cd at our listening stations and on the iPads.  We practice our reading skills, including our fluency, as we read along with the story.  

We've been learning how to use QR codes to access stories online.

We are getting to be pros.

We also like to check out a website that has many of our favorite first grade stories.

Writing Workshop

Room 224 loves to write!  We are working hard on writing complete sentences, using both beginning capital letters and ending marks.  We are also telling our stories across the pages of our books, by telling our story in small steps.  

As we continue to write narratives (small moments stories) we are learning to bring our stories to life in many different ways.

We love to share our stories aloud.  This week we were showing how we added feelings throughout our stories as a way to bring our small moments stories alive.  

We are doing a nice job making our characters move and talk in our stories.  We discussed how the author Mo Willems uses speech bubbles as a way to show dialogue.  We have also tried using quotation marks ("talking marks") when we want to show that someone is saying something to someone else.  

Another way we like to share is by doing museum walks.

We can quietly check out each other's writing more closely.

Science Explorations

In our plant unit we have been engineers, creating a tower design out of materials like paper, popsicle sticks, modeling clay and pipe cleaners, to simulate a plant.  We had to figure out how to use these materials to create the parts of a plant that would help the plant stand up.  

Deciding on which materials to use was the first challenge.  

We learned that the plant needed some sound roots to keep it strong.  

Adding branches helped to balance the towers.  

Sharing our creations with the class was fun!

Each tower design was slightly different than the next.  

We were all successful in making a tower that stood up nice and tall!

How our lima bean plants began at school

Our Lima bean plants that came home on Friday, started as three beans that we carefully placed between a paper towel inside a wet baggie.  We watched and journaled about them for days.  It was exciting to see some roots appear and then a stem and some leaves. Now that they are planted in soil, we hope they thrive in the sun at home. 

Our next unit we are studying is about Animals and Their Body Parts.  

This week the class once again used their engineering minds to create a warm paw/wing, like that of a polar bear or penguin, which could withstand the icy cool water.   Miss Conley lead the students in this exciting endeavor.  

We first learned about our mission by hearing from a few animal experts.

What supplies should we use?

Each table group had to discuss their ideas and collaborate on a suggestion.

Volunteers came up to construct the "hand", first wrapping yarn around and around Miss Conley's hand, already encased in a plastic glove.  

Next up we tried adding cotton balls and feathers to act as fur!

Crisco stood in for blubber to seal in the warmth!

Now, for another layer of warmth....felt wrapped around the fingers and palm of the hand.

Then, tin foil taped down to seal in all the warmth.  Lastly, Miss Conley placed her hand inside a baggie, and we were ready for the big moment!

Success!  Miss Conley submerged her hand in the frigid water and it stayed warm and dry!  

Of course, we had to test out the icy water too, to see how cold it really was!

BRRR!

Definitely ice cold!

Some of us got to try out the animal paw to verify our results!  Yes, the paw we created was indeed warm.  What a fun experiment!