Community Helpers

Stop by our hallway and check out our beautiful mural of Richmond complete with a variety of hand-crafted community helpers!  The back-drop art work was done by our own Ms Hartley, but the community helpers are works of art by our amazingly talented first graders!!  Students each chose their own community helper to create.  They had to write about that helper's role in the community and why they are important. 

Nonfiction Features

First graders have been working hard learning all about different features of nonfiction, or informational, texts.  They have leaned about labels, captions, table of contents, the glossary and even more!  More importantly, they are learning how these features are helpful to the reader. 

Community Journals

Today our class read On the Town, by Judith Casely.  The boy in the story is also studying his community and is asked to explore his community, keeping track of the places he visits, who works there, and how it is helpful to the people of his community.  Your child brought home a note that explains this assignment, and a blank journal.  When you are out in the town, consider bringing your child (journal in hand) so s/he can fill it out.  Below are samples of what other students have done in the past.  Thank you for your support!

Power Polygons

In math today, students worked with one of our math tools, Power Polygons.  Our focus was on triangles so the students were challenged to sort out all of the triangles from the rest of the shapes.  Through exploration and discussion, the students came to the realization that there are a few different types of triangles, that they don't all have to look exactly the same to be a triangle. The final step was to sort the triangles into groups, depending on the length of their sides.  So much sorting!  So much learning!

Sorting Shapes

First graders have been sorting lots of geometric shapes this week.  They worked with partners to sort their sets of shapes in many different ways: by number of sides, number of "corners", straight or curvy sides, etc.  they also played a game called "Guess My Secret Rule" and made posters to show their favorite way to sort.