Monday, November 23, 2020

So Much to Be Thankful For!

 We spent time thinking about all of the things in our lives that we are thankful for.  We started the process by reading Todd Parr's great book, The Thankful Book.  It was really special to see all of the wonderful things that our first graders came up with.  What a thankful bunch of "turkeys"!!  

















A Writing Celebration

We had our first Writing Celebration out in the forest while enjoying some hot chocolate to make it extra special!  These first graders worked very hard over the past few months learning how to write Small Moments (aka personal narratives).  We ended the unit by publishing a piece of their choice and just had to celebrate their accomplishments!!  












 

Friday, November 13, 2020

Strengths, Struggles and the Power of YET!

 This week we spent time learning and thinking about our individual strengths as well as the things that we each struggle with.  We realized that we all have different strengths and we all have different struggles.  We learned the importance of using our strengths to help others in our community - our classroom community, our school community, and every other community that we are a part of.  

We also learned about the power of YET!  When we have a struggle with something, something that we can't do, we should always try to have a growth mindset and see it as something that we can't do YET.  That little word has so much power and can remind us that just because we can't do something right not, doesn't mean that we won't ever be able to do it.  With patience, practice, and PERSEVERANCE we will get there!  And perhaps a little help from others who have a strength in that area!
































Creating Mental Images

 First graders are learning about creating mental images while they are reading or listening to books.  Paying attention to the mental images or the pictures and movies in our mind while we are reading is an important part of comprehension.  This week we read and listened to some poems and stories and then illustrated our most vivid mental images.  We shared them with each other and realized that our mental images are never exactly like someone else's - even if they are both about the same thing!  



We read some poems and chose to illustrate the one that gave us the most vivid or strong mental image. 













We took our Reading Workshop out to our outdoor learning space.  We listened to a story called The Salamander Room by Anne Mazer. Then we drew a picture of the strongest mental image that we had while listening to the book.











Evidence of some great comprehension!!