Theme

Our work we have done all year has been paying off! Our read alouds are purposeful, engaging books that are chosen so that we can use them as a reader AND a writer.

We have used all of our read alouds this year to help teach theme.

We studied theme for two days and encouraged students to continue to explore other books to see if the books they read would fall under the same theme.

We separated our books by thinking about what our books were about and what they want to teach children. Mentor texts were grouped accordingly to a specific theme topic -fairness, friendship, growing up, family, and other. At a first grade level, giving the theme choices helped students understand what theme was really about. The conversations while sorting the books allowed students to use text evidence to support what theme would best fit that book.

Check out the work we have done! 

Students then decided the theme of the book they were reading.

Friendship

Family

Growing up

Fairness

Other

Recess time!

We spent our last faculty meeting discussing the benefits of recess.

In the article "New Study: Does Better Recess Equal a Better School Day?", it listed the benefits of having recess part of your school day. One thing that stood out to me the most was that having recess "reduced bullying, enhanced feelings of safety at school, increased vigorous physical activity during recess, and provided more time for classroom teaching. The research raises the possibility that what happens at recess can affect a school's learning environment in important ways, and that improving recess and play may enable schools to address a number of pressing issues at the same time."

During the winter months, I am a strong supporter of GoNoodle. We get out our wiggles through dancing!

Today, we got to enjoy our recess outside on the playground! We had a blast!

Character Selfies

Students created character selfies-- thanks to The Pinspired Teacher for the freebie!

Students all chose a character in their book and wrote how their character was feeling and why they were feeling like that. Students LOVED it! Take a look!

Earth Day

Last month for Read Across America we read The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. Students also wrote how they can help the Lorax. This was a perfect read aloud to read last month as we dive into more lessons geared Earth Day.

Here are a couple of things we have done so far for Earth Day...

We can help the Earth with our own two hands! Students colored the Earth and then we used their handprint to symbolize how they can make a difference to help keep Earth clean.

One of the many read alouds planned for Earth Day.

List-Group-Label

We have been closely studying our characters and describing the kind of person that they are in the books that we are reading. Throughout this unit we have brainstormed A LOT of character traits. We talked about how character traits describe who we are and what kind of person we are on the inside.

Looking at this huge list that we created, we decided to talk about how we can group words together. I started the discussion by grouping mean and rude together and I gave a reason to why I thought that they belonged together.

Students continued to lead the discussion by grouping character traits together. Students agreed and disagreed with each other for some character traits. For example, one student wanted curious to go over with smart and problem solver since this kind of person would always be interested in finding out more about something. Another student disagreed with this by saying that a curious person could be caught doing something that wasn't good and get in trouble.

After students agreed on the grouping, they decided to label each group. This is what we came up with!

The strategy that we used was LIST-GROUP-LABEL

• We created a list of character traits (across a few weeks in our read aloud time)
• We grouped the words together while providing support to why we were making that choice
• We labeled each group

For more information, visit...
http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/list_group_label

This strategy is really fun to use within a Science or Social Studies unit! It helps build content knowledge and vocabulary.

Plickers

Want a fun way to assess your students and get instant results? Use PLICKERS!

https://plickers.com/

Plickers is a FREE tool that allows you to collect assessment.

How to get started!

• Visit plickers.com and sign up
• Print a set of plicker cards. They are in the upper right hand corner of your screen under "cards". I printed the large font cards and put them onto colored paper. I then laminated them so that they can last from year to year. Tip: Make sure that you leave enough room around the image on the card so that students can hold them. 
• Once you sign up, then add a new class under the classes tab. Make sure you register all of your students. I only use first names when I register my students. The number order that you put them in would be the number card they would have to use. 
• Create new questions under the library tab and then assign the questions you want your class to answer. All questions you develop should be multiple choice or true/false.
• Download the app on your phone. Your phone is used to scan the plickers card when you are assessing your students. 

How to use Plickers!

• After you have questions assigned to your class, then you are ready! Log into your Plickers account on your computer and distribute your cards to your students. I have students leave their card laying with the image side down. 
• On your phone, go to your plickers app. Select your class and then the question you want them to answer. On your computer, go to "live view" at the top of the page. Now what is on your phone will display on your computer. SO COOL! I have my computer linked to my projector so students can see. 
• Have students read the question and answers or you can read it to them, depending on what you plan to assess. Give them a count down and then have them flash you their card. Everyone will place their card under their chin so that the correct letter choice they want to choose is at the very top of their card. 
• Use the little camera button on your phone to scan the room. It is as easy as that! You will watch as students input their results because each child will light up on the computer and on your phone. 
• Examine your results, reteach, or move to a new question. You'll be able to go back to look at your data on your phone and on the computer. On your computer it is under "reports". They also just created a scoresheet which will incorporate all of your data into an excel spreadsheet so that you can easily look for trends. 

Students love using PLICKERS!

The view on your phone as it quickly identifies each child!

Character Traits

We have been currently working in a fiction unit by closely studying characters in the books that we are reading. Our current reading unit goes hand in hand with our writing unit as students have developed a character and will write series of stories that include their character getting into trouble and out of trouble.

While using read alouds as our mentor texts, we kept track of character traits from the characters we were reading about in our books.

We then decided that characters in our books are very similar to us! Therefore, we have character traits too! Students brainstormed five character traits that best describe who they are as a person. They shared their ideas with their learning partner and gave reasons to why they believe they are that type of person. This will be an ongoing study for the remainder of the year.





How do students come up with character traits?
They watch their characters closely in their book for...

• how they act
• things they say
• what they are thinking

Why do students do this?

• to understand and get to know their character
• to predict what their character will do and how they will react to situations in their books

Investigating Word Problems

The past week and a half our class has been investigating word problems. Our goal was to visualize and make sense of word problems by using strategies and different mathematical models to help us solve them. Every group was given a word problem and the group manager would read the problem to the group. Every child would try solving the word problem in their journal. Once each group member had attempted the problem, then students would confer with each other. Students then created posters to show their thinking. 

Today we finally celebrated our hard work! Each child had to decide what word problem they were going to become an expert at. They then got the opportunity to teach a small group of friends. The student that was teaching would be guided by their group. 

Members in the group would lead the discussion by stating...

• Read the word problem.
• What do you know?
• What do you need to find out?
• How did you solve it?

Students engaged in rich mathematical conversations while being exposed to different ways word problems are written and the many ways that they can be solved!