The Question of the Day was: Do you like blueberries? We had a busy morning ahead of us so Morning Work was simply a quick activity about letters in our names. The morning meeting led into a writing session. We discussed the beginning, middle, and end of the story A House for Hermit Crab. The students then made their first attempts at writing a short story with a beginning, middle, and end. The students found spots in the room where they could concentrate. They did their best not to let any pesky difficult-to-spell words completely stop their ideas from getting on the paper!
The first graders received copies of the book Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey. Ask your child to tell you the beginning, middle, and end of the story! After reading the story, the students were shown three amazing display/experience boxes from the Field Museum. One exhibit case shows wild and cultivated blueberries. Another holds a taxidermy crow on her nest. The final box holds information and specimens related to black bears. Students were impressed by the bear claw, skull, pelt, paw print, and poop. The latter was especially exciting!
We used our D’Nealian Handwriting books for the first time today. The focus today was on prewriting skills such as proper sitting posture, pencil grip, and paper position. The standards of letter size, slant, and spacing were presented. Now that we have started formal handwriting instruction, I will expect the students to give greater attention to how they write.
Today’s math lesson continued our focus on data collection and analysis. The students made bar graphs to represent data and then answered questions using the graphs. They shared how they solved problems with each other. Being able to explain one’s thinking is an important skill!
Following Quiet Time, we checked on our ladybugs. A few more pupae had become adult beetles and were moved to a different habitat. I then showed the boys and girls the new items in the class that they will be able to explore as we study plants. We also looked at the brassica cups. Tiny sprouts could be seen in a handful of cups. We wrote the first brassica plant observations together. Tomorrow, the first graders will write part of their plant observations independently.
The plan for the rest of science was to have the boys and girls prepare their research logs to hold information, observations, and results of science investigations. However, a fire drill took place in the middle of class. The first graders were good examples of fire drill behavior for the kindergarten classes. Most took the process seriously.
The social studies lesson of the day focused on learning about our place in the bigger world. We read the book Me On the Map. We examined the world map, the globe, and even our classroom rug. The boys and girls also looked at a model that showed the relationship between home/school, city, state, country, continent, and planet. Ask your child to tell you about this.
The boys and girls will share their name stories with each other tomorrow.
The first graders received copies of the book Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey. Ask your child to tell you the beginning, middle, and end of the story! After reading the story, the students were shown three amazing display/experience boxes from the Field Museum. One exhibit case shows wild and cultivated blueberries. Another holds a taxidermy crow on her nest. The final box holds information and specimens related to black bears. Students were impressed by the bear claw, skull, pelt, paw print, and poop. The latter was especially exciting!
We used our D’Nealian Handwriting books for the first time today. The focus today was on prewriting skills such as proper sitting posture, pencil grip, and paper position. The standards of letter size, slant, and spacing were presented. Now that we have started formal handwriting instruction, I will expect the students to give greater attention to how they write.
Today’s math lesson continued our focus on data collection and analysis. The students made bar graphs to represent data and then answered questions using the graphs. They shared how they solved problems with each other. Being able to explain one’s thinking is an important skill!
Following Quiet Time, we checked on our ladybugs. A few more pupae had become adult beetles and were moved to a different habitat. I then showed the boys and girls the new items in the class that they will be able to explore as we study plants. We also looked at the brassica cups. Tiny sprouts could be seen in a handful of cups. We wrote the first brassica plant observations together. Tomorrow, the first graders will write part of their plant observations independently.
The plan for the rest of science was to have the boys and girls prepare their research logs to hold information, observations, and results of science investigations. However, a fire drill took place in the middle of class. The first graders were good examples of fire drill behavior for the kindergarten classes. Most took the process seriously.
The social studies lesson of the day focused on learning about our place in the bigger world. We read the book Me On the Map. We examined the world map, the globe, and even our classroom rug. The boys and girls also looked at a model that showed the relationship between home/school, city, state, country, continent, and planet. Ask your child to tell you about this.
The boys and girls will share their name stories with each other tomorrow.