These past few weeks, our first graders have been busy with their flight project products but this has not stopped us from continuing to practice our good habits as readers daily. Students continued to take sneak peeks, check their sneak peeks, do something after reading, read more and more, and set reading goals during reading workshop. Students wrote a number on a post it note as the number of books they plan to read that day. Then each time they read a book, they made a tally mark for each book. At the end of reading workshop, they were able to see if they reached their goal, came close to their goal, or exceeded their goal. They were able to include books they read online as well.
Students partnered up to read an article on the Wright Brothers. They practiced stretching out more challenging words together and highlighting the important parts. One fact from the article that they learned was that the Wright brothers started a toy selling business then sold bicycles. After reading the articles together, they wrote one thing they learned from the article and illustrated that part.
Students participated in a new short vowel game during Reading Workshop. They were given cards with 2 pictures that rhyme with a short vowel sound. They then had to tell their partner which short vowel sound they heard to move their game piece. Students also identified various flight words with short vowel sounds. They wrote it on a post it note and underlined the short vowel letter. We will be discussing long vowels next.
math
In Math, students continued their workshop choices. However, now students are working on 3 digit numbers while still reviewing 2 digit numbers. Students learned about the base ten block that represents 100, called a flat. Students used the flat models to build 3 digit numbers. During the math activity, they worked in pairs to roll 3 dice to make and say the number and then build it. Students also used the 120 chart to practice recalling the number that follows (is after a number). This helps them to remember the sequence of numbers and to begin thinking about addition and subtraction.
Students worked with 1 digit numbers to solve a flight story problem. Given a problem, we used unifix cubes as a math tool to represent the numbers in the story. Then students completed a number sentence that matches the story and illustrated the story. The problem type they worked on is called a join result unknown. We will continue to solve math problems in the context of a story for addition and subtraction.
Students continued to measure the wingspan of birds using different math tools. They were able to see that the peregrine falcon's wingspan was much shorter than an albatross' wingspan. And they were quickly able to see how much shorter the hummingbird's wingspan was compared to all 4 different bird wingspans. The students worked really hard and accurately to estimate first and then measure. We also started talking about the units on a ruler: centimeter (cm) and inch (in). Students used a ruler to begin measuring length using the inches side first. They noticed that centimeters could be used to measure smaller items like a base ten block unit, pencil, or eraser and inches could be used to measure chairs, books, and doors.
writing
Students had so much fun practicing cursive! They used a whiteboard to practice writing some letters in cursive as they saw a model of the letters. They were challenged to look and see if they can find the shape of the print letter within each cursive letter and they were able to see most of them. There were a few challenging letters that looked very different in cursive. Students practiced cursive writing the title of the project: First Flight. Once they felt confident enough, they wrote this title in cursive on their exhibition writing paper. We are excited to share the cursive writing titles with families during our exhibitions!
Students continued to fly their friendly letter airplanes to their classmates. They are so excited to unfold and open their letters at the end of the day. We look forward to more written letters!