Mrs. Dagley's First Grade Classroom: January 2020

Saturday, January 25, 2020

The Magic of Books

Organizing our arctic animals

Imagination is a wonderful thing, and there is nothing like a good book to captivate our thoughts and dreams. Changing our class library book theme always results in inspiration for new writing ideas, imaginative play activities, and motivation to read new theme related books. Vocabulary, background knowledge, and awareness of other places and time periods in the world are all benefits as well. Learning about the arctic lands and animals and reading related texts has been so much fun!

Let's set them up this way!

Matching and vocabulary

Most of us have completed our Alaska book - a fun way to merge our social studies map focus on our states and our globe orientation for arctic lands. Learning about how animals adapt to harsh weather conditions in the arctic support science topics on living and non living things and on animal structures necessary to survive. We also completed a seal shaped booklet of arctic animals, and this coming week we may make our igloos! (Just need a few more cream cheese size containers if you have any.)

Writing personal narratives - stories about ourselves and our experiences, has also been a favorite activity. They love hearing their story read aloud to friends and have been putting lots of thought and effort into building up the middle of their stories with details.

examples of detailed 'middles'

A focus on introductions

An inspiring story to kick off writing

Two examples of zooming in on an experience

Phonics lessons have been centered on words ending in Silent E. We enjoy taking turns each morning to spot 'Silent E/King Ed' racing around the room to get to the board and change a word from its short vowel word to its long vowel word!

Here comes Silent E!

Thanks King Ed!

You've made a new word!

Her magic has done it again!

Some popular read-alouds this week included Lars the Little Polar Bear - we have read two in the series so far, and Hide Away Husky. It's been fun comparing three books (fiction and non fiction) that have featured Husky dogs. The kids would love to go on a dog sled ride, I think!

We are also enjoying new books, longer books, and book series. What better way to motivate than practicing to read to our friends?!

Hot Wheels series

Elephant and Piggy

Flat Stanley

Reading a home made personal book

In math we have begun a new unit. Unit 6 involves finding unknown numbers in an equation, relating addition to subtraction, and solving story problems with the Three Reads protocol.
We are wrapping up our Living/Non-Living science focus and moving on to plants next.

Next week T.E.S. kicks off Kindness Week, a chance to raise awareness on how kindness begins with ourselves and a chance to put into practice responses to others that are especially kind. Check our Important Dates tab to see the related clothing theme for each day.
At the end of the week, the boy's basketball team at the high school is coming to read to our class and do a follow-up activity. Looking forward to it!

Have a wonderful weekend,
Mrs. Dagley

Saturday, January 18, 2020

Brrr! There's a chill in the air!

The Northern Lights painting

Last weekend's sixty degree weather seems like a dream compared to today's ten degrees, but we are heading to even colder places in school - the Arctic! We've enjoyed videos of the Northern Lights, arctic animals, and arctic landscapes, and had a couple of chances to paint both. Orienting our location on maps and globes compared to that of the arctic has also brought to our attention that we have a state within the arctic circle- Alaska!

Our painted arctic scene

Fun painting together!

I'm starting with the ocean!

Painting is relaxing!

Let's paint the walrus

Have you painted the orca whale?

Best effort!

Look- a Narwhal!

Captivating true story!

Our Arctic scene!

Everyone loved hearing the true story of Balto, the Alaskan sled dog who saved the town of Nome, Alaska in 1929 from a terrible sickness, by getting medication to them by dog sled team. We saw a photo of the statue of Balto in Central Park NY, and we saw a video of Dog Mushing (dog sleds). We will learn a bit more about Alaska next week.

Remember road maps that people used to have to store in the car before GPS and Waze? Had to dig around to find a few, but the kids loved pouring over the routes and spreading them out in all their glory! They carried over the map excitement by spending recess putting together a USA map too!

Map builders!

A National Park map

You looked at these in a car?!!

Our readers love that they can read such a variety of books at this point in the year. We especially like reading to the class!

A favorite book!

Thanks for reading to us!

I read a Snowy Owl flies at 50 mph!

Listen to this story!

A read-aloud we all connected to was Night of the Pufflings, a true story about children in Iceland who stay out at night when baby Puffins take their first flight to sea. Many confuse the lights of the town with moonlight reflected on the ocean, and they crash land in the town instead. Kids to the rescue! They search at night and take the pufflings back home until the next day when they launch them into the air and out to sea!

Love the Puffins!

Silent E or King Ed make a daily appearance- here are some friends transforming words with the power of King Ed!

tap to tape

glob to globe

In language Arts centers we also work with silent e words as well

sit to site

as other phonics activities such as ABC order (of arctic animals of course), suffix s, digraphs of th, sh, ch, and more.

Silent e work

More silent e work!

ABC order

Silent e vs. no silent e

Nice math matching too!

We worked in math groups this week to match analog clocks to digital times and to words describing the time such as one thirty, half past, and o'clock.

Nice teamwork!

Determining the match

We did it!

Nice organization!

Anyone need a repair? I had a good helper when a screw came loose in one of our stools! We also had some good builders at recess!

Future engineers!

We switched out the screw driver for an Allen wrench!

Finally we ended our week reading about a famous American leader - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We read several texts describing his life from childhood to adult, his work for equality for all people, his influence on changing unfair laws, and his passion to lead with peace and justice. We also watched the video of Kid President telling about him. Next week we will read about Ruby Bridges, the little first grader who was first to go to an all white school. We made Doves to symbolize peace and discussed ways we could follow Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream that all people are created equal and valued.

Honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.

No school on Monday for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
If anyone has cream cheese type containers we could use them for an upcoming igloo project (I have been saving for a while but need a few more).
Try and stay warm this weekend!
Mrs. Dagley

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Happy New Year!

Snowglobe writing

We are beginning 2020 with lots of new units, themes, and skills! In a nod to winter, we read all about snow and were impressed that even though all snowflakes have 6 sides or points, each one is different from the other. We have learned and written about how snow helps plants, animals, and rivers, and of course the many ways to have fun in it too. Everyone loved reading the fiction tale, The Snow Globe Family, which then inspired us to make a paper snow globe and write an accompanying story.

Cutting out snowflakes never loses its appeal- the exclamations when the folded up papers are opened to reveal the snowflake are worth the millions of paper bits on the floor! We used a snowflake to make a snowman to hang in the class:

Nice job!

Completing the snowman

Keeping to the snow theme and integrating maps, weather, and animal adaptations to cold climates, we are beginning a unit on the arctic. Our library now features loads of fiction and non fiction books about polar animals and the arctic region. Some books we have read so far are pictured below.

Arctic library

New book themes!

Lots of new units are beginning- in social studies we have begun a unit on maps and globes, science will focus on Living/Non-Living and then move into plants and animals, math finds us measuring and comparing as well as telling time to the half hour, and writing will introduce the personal narrative genre.

Sharing a map puzzle from home!

In phonics we have introduced long vowel words with 'King Ed' as a visual. Sometimes referred to as 'silent e' or 'magic e', words ending with a silent e change the vowel from its short sound to its long sound. To generate excitement, everyone wore King Ed sparkly capes as we worked on a booklet of short vowel words being changed into long vowel words with the help of King Ed (kit to kite).

Sparkly capes

Changing hop to hope!

Here comes King Ed

Phonics fun!

Pin to pine

The power to change the vowel!

Here we are measuring in math- what is taller or shorter than a string, cubes, or ourselves? Comparing heights with friends was fun, and ordering objects from shortest to tallest or shortest to longest was also a hands-on activity.

Math center addition game

Recording measurements

Measuring butterfly wing spans

Using string as an indirect measurement tool

Building and comparing heights

Comparing heights

What can I measure next?

Reading is such an important part of our day whether it's reading with a friend, reading independently, or reading in a reading group. Reading to the class remains popular too!