Rainy Day Recess

Nothing says fun like inviting the other first grade class into our room for an awesome inside recess on a rainy day!  This group may be boisterous but they sure do get along well and know how to have some fun!!

Guess My Secret Rule

First graders have been exploring different attributes of different shapes over the past week.  To use their new knowledge in this area, they played a game called "Guess My Secret Rule".  Partner A would decide on a secret rule to sort the set of shapes by, placing only 2-3 shape cards in the middle of the circle.  Partner B would use the clues from the 2 or 3 given shapes to continue sorting the set of shapes and eventually discover the secret rule. After playing multiple rounds, partners then chose their favorite secret rule and made a poster to show it. Look for these to be hanging in the hallway soon.  Can you guess our secret rules?!

Spider Web Greeting

Our fun greeting this week. 

Attributes of Shapes

In math today we played a whole group game called Guess My Secret Rule.  We played with a new set of shape blocks called Attribute Blocks. This collection of blocks have many different attributes like thickness, color, size, number of sides, and shape.  The game is a sorting game, as the blocks get sorted but the "secret rule" (one attribute).  For this first round, I thought up the secret rules, and the students had to figure out what it was based on the shapes that fit or didn't fit my rule.  

We also read a fun book called The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns and learned many new geometric terms for various sided shapes!  Ask your child why the triangle was considered greedy!!

Interesting Words

We are working on adding details to our writing including using interesting or juicy words.  This week we are noticing how different mentor authors do this in their writing.  We read How Big Could Your Pumpkin Grow? by Wendell Minor today and noticed all of the really interesting words he used instead of "big". His word choice made the book so much more interesting and fun to read!

Buy, Produce, Sell, Oh My!

A big focus of our Farms Make Vermont unit in first grade is to learn about the economic cycle of "buy, produce, sell."  During this past week first graders started learning about that cycle using an apple farm as our first example.  Through our discussion, and with the use of our knowledge as to how an apple farm works, students discovered that the farmer needs to buy many things in order to start up, or continue being, a prosperous apple farm; each farm needs to produce something, depending on what kind of farm it is; and the farmer needs to be able to sell some of his or her products to be able to then buy things for the farm to keep going on through another year.  Soon, we will also be learning about the differences between "wants" and "needs", which is an important consideration for the farmer when he or she gets the money from selling their products.  

Also, be on the lookout for information coming home soon regarding an upcoming field trip to a dairy farm!

Shapes Stations

During math on Friday students were able to rotate through three different stations.  Each station provided an activity for students to work with shapes in a different way.  One station was working with pattern block shapes on an iPad, one was continuing their work in their workbooks filling shape outlines in different ways, and one was building with pattern blocks following specific directions. So much great geometrical thinking going on in our classroom!!

Fire Safety Month

October is Fire Safety month and the first graders at RES were so lucky to get to learn all about fire safety forum our own Miss L.!  Miss L. works at RES during full time the day, but is also a volunteer firefighter for the town of Bolton when she is not working at school.  She shared her wealth of knowledge on this topic with the students, as well as dressed in all of her gear, explaining its usefulness as she put it on.  She also gave the students a great reminder to ask their families about an "escape and meet-up plan" in the event of a fire on their own homes.  Thank you Miss L.!!

Dental Health

We had our second lesson with Nurse B. this week and it focused on the importance of dental health.  Students learned all about how to take care of their teeth and keep their gums healthy, too.