Vision and Hearing Screening

We had our vision and hearing screening today. This is what it looked like:

Homework
No homework over the weekend. Enjoy some great books with your child.

IA
Our IA next week is Music.

Collaborative ShowMes

Today we worked on ShowMes about patriotic symbols with a partner. We had to collaborate on what facts were shared, what pictures were shared, who spoke which words, who drew any pictures and more. This is what it looked like in our room while we were doing this.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 6.5 Fact Routine Practice

Antonyms and Synonyms

While we may not know the actual words antonym and synonym, we are beginning to learn what they are. We use the working definitions of opposite and the same for these but the basic concept is the same. Some of us will remember the correct terminology for this kind of word but most of us will remember same and opposite and that is just fine. Below are a few examples of words we have been talking about.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 6.4 Fact Triangles

Library
We have library tomorrow. Please help your child remember his or her books so that he or she can check out new ones.

Research

This week we began researching our favorite animals looking for interesting facts and information in our nonfiction books. We each chose the animal that we are researching and we are so excited about this. Next week we will begin writing an "All About" book about our chosen animal to put all of our research to work. In addition to learning so many cool facts about animals we are learning how to read nonfiction text, find needed information, and synthesize our research into a well organized product.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 6.3 Fact Families

Math Exchanges

One of the math activities that we frequently do is called a math exchange. We call it this because we are exchanging our ideas around a mathematical topic or concept. The activity begins with a problem that we read together as a crew to make sure that we all understand what the problem is saying. Then we all try and work to solve it on our own. After we have had a chance to think about this problem on our own, we collaborate with a partner to see if their ideas will influence our ideas and vice versa. Finally we end with a whole crew debrief session where we share our ideas and the methods we each used to solve the problem. So much great sharing and learning happens during these sessions. Below are some pictures of our session from last Friday.

 The Problem

Pam has 29 goldfish crackers for snack. Doug has 17 goldfish crackers for snack. How many more goldfish crackers does Pam have than Doug?

 Working Independently

 

Working Together

Work Samples

Group Debrief or Sharing

 

Next Problem

 

I have a bunch of red and blue crayons in our crayon tubs. I want to give everyone in our crew five crayons, but I want to know all the different ways that I could give them five red and blue crayons. How many ways can I do that?

Work in Progress

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 6.2 Name Collection Boxes - There is a letter to families on the back of today's Home Link.

Important Dates
2/13 No School - Professional Development Day for Teachers
2/16 No School - President's Day
2/26 Winter Voyage ~ Day 1 - not an overnight trip (Day 2 will be in April - also not an overnight trip)
3/18 Student-Led Conferences for First Grade
3/23 - 4/3 Spring Break

Contractions

This week we have been learning about contractions and how they work. The contractions we studied included is, will, have, are, not, have and had contractions with words like I'll, you're, he's, we've, they'd, can't and so on.

Homework
No homework for the weekend. Enjoy some great books with your child.

IA
Our IA next week is Art.

Nonfiction Study

This week we started a nonfiction unit of study. We are reading lots of nonfiction books and noticing the features that make them different from fiction books. Next week we will begin writing our own nonfiction books about our favorite animal. A few of the resources that we will be using are in the picture below.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 6.1 Finding Addition Sums

Kidblog

Last Thursday, some of us took some time to write blog posts on our Kidblog page. Below are a few samples but I would recommend that you visit our Kidblog page to see these posts and more including some new ShowMes. Click on the pictures below to see larger versions. Here is the link to our Kidblog page:
http://kidblog.org/MsJillsCrew14-15/

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 5.14 Unit 6 Family Letter

Library
We have library tomorrow. Please help your child remember to return his or her books. They don't like to be "lookers" who can only look but not check out.