Homework?

No, we won't have any official homework in first grade. Years ago, when I was completing my Master's Degree in Educating Diverse Learners, I wrote my thesis on the value of homework. The research all agrees that there is no real benefit to homework in elementary school and only some value in middle school and high school. (For more on this topic check out articles/books by Alfie Kohn or Harris Cooper.) The research does say that children still should do lots and lots of learning at home but in a more natural way as they go through their life - reading with family members, counting out silverware, measuring ingredients for a recipe, learning what time they should leave for school and on and on.

So I am only going to recommend that you do three things with your child on a regular (but not necessarily daily - just almost daily) basis:

1. Talk, talk, talk about anything and everything. Not only does this help them learn about the world and how things work in it, it will also help them develop their vocabulary. Need help with topics? Check out Wonderopolis or The Kid Should See This for cool stories and videos on a wide variety of topics.
2. Read, read, read. Read to them, have them read to you and read together. Find great books that you will love and enjoy. Your child will be bringing home a book of their choice every day Monday through Thursday. We don't want this to be a chore - ever!
3. Check out Bedtime Math - in a variety of forms: website, app and books. This site gives you an interesting story to read to your child and then gives you problems to solve at 3 different levels - wee ones, little kids and big kids. There is a new story each night and lots of research that shows that this site really helps.

For those of you who want more ideas, check out the Resources page of our crew blog for lots of online ways to practice academic skills. We use these sites in class during our Exploration Station time and they can all be accessed from home, too. Your children love some of these sites and would enjoy having more time on them. A few sites are subscription services that the district has purchased for us but you can still access them from home using your library card number from the Douglas County Public Library but most do not require this.

You can also visit the Parent Resources page for even more ideas. There you will find links to articles, books and videos that will help you teach your child at home. If you are looking for more structured activities, check out the Sunshine Math for printable math problems that you can give your child. These are in the Math section of the Parent Resources page.

Again, none of this is required at all. The items in my top three list above are highly recommended but still not required. These sites are also great for sick days, breaks from school, rainy, snowy or hot days when your child is looking for something fun to do. We never want any of this to take away too much from time spent playing - indoors or out. Play is the best way for kids this age to learn. Enjoy exploring all of the resources and let me know which ones you and your child like the best.

Fall Voyage

Our Fall Voyage was wonderful! We had perfect weather up there. The Marsh Pops and the Purple Ninjas had a great time, challenged themselves and learned so much. Of course, while they loved all of the activities, they also loved riding the bus and sleeping in the cabins.

Here is a link to our crew photo album which has lots of photos from our Voyage - chaperones will be adding their photos soon -  and then below the link are descriptions of the activities that we did during our Voyage:

Ms. Jill's Crew Fall Voyage Photo Album

Highlights for the Crew

• Riding the big yellow school bus
• Sleeping on bunk beds in the cabins
• Skits at the campfire - yes, two actors did spit lots and lots of water on each other
• Obstacle Course

Highlights for the Teachers

• There was only one incident each of: not making it to the bathroom on time, vomiting, crying in the night.
• Watching the Marsh Pops continue to revise their group chant to be more and more inclusive of the whole group.
• Watching the kids help each other out so often and being so kind to each other.
• Seeing how much the crew enjoyed being with each other.
• Watching the crew respond to our suggestions and directions about how to make the experience better when we had to be flexible with some changes and some very "green" instructors.

Why do we have a Fall Voyage?

We have a Fall Voyage for many reasons.

• We take voyages to push students just a little bit out of their comfort zone. Real learning occurs when you are pushed out of your comfort zone and are challenged to try things you have not done before. For some first graders the biggest challenge is simply being away from home for a night and learning that they can trust other adults and themselves. For others the challenge is being responsible for themselves and their gear instead of counting on mom or dad to keep track of everything. Most are challenged in some way by the activities of the voyage. They must learn to work together, show perseverance when trying to find solutions to challenging problems, push themselves physically, and start to show independence in an age-appropriate manner.
• I love the voyages because I get to see the students in a completely different environment and see other strengths that they have that might not show up in a classroom.
• The voyages are also a great place for the students to practice the social skills that we have been working so hard to learn in class. Students also bring back some of the confidence and new skills that they learned on the trip and are able to apply them to academic learning.
• We also all form tight bonds as a crew and are able to work very well together for the rest of the school year.

What did we do at Camp Elim?

In addition to eating, sleeping, packing, unpacking and taking care of ourselves, we also had time for some learning and some fun. Listed below are the activities we did along with a very short description.


Initiatives (Problem Solving Challenges)

Web of Life - During this activity, we learned a little bit about how plants and animals depend on each other and their environment.

Camouflage Hide and Seek - A unique version of hide and seek that can be played in a wooded area. We learned about predators and prey in this fun game.

Nature Hunt at the Lake - This was a beautiful walk around a lake. We watched some ducks having dinner. We had to be flexible at this activity because our instructors weren't used to talking to first graders and had to learn to adapt to first graders.

Recreational Activities

Alphabet Hike - At the beginning of this hike, we were each given a card with a letter of the alphabet on it. During the hike we had to look for things that started with that letter of the alphabet.

Obstacle Course – There were several physical challenges at this station. This activity was a huge hit with the crew.

Solo Hike – The hike was very short and we stopped in a nice area filled with space and trees. The kids chose spots within a set boundary and they sat by themselves just thinking, reflecting, writing or drawing about the Voyage and what they had learned.

Thank You Chaperones!
We had a fantastic group of chaperones this year and we so appreciate their time and help on this Voyage. We couldn't have done it without them! Thanks to:

Ms. Amanda - Nola's mom
Ms. Amy - Sadie's mom
Ms. Cate - our Ms. Cate but she is also mom to Griffin and Sam who attend Renaissance in 2nd and 5th grades
Ms. Elisha - Brayden's mom and our school Literacy Specialist
Mr. Chris - Gabriella's mom
Mr. Josh - Jax's dad
Mr. Justin - Luke's dad
Mr. Sam  - Henry and Oliver's dad

Mathematical Thinking

We are learning to share our ways of looking at mathematical situations and ways of solving mathematical problems with each other. We are noticing that most of the time there is more than one way to solve a problem or look at a situation. When we listen to each other explain how we figured something out we learn new ways to think about things. This helps us to be mathematically flexible which helps us not "get stuck" when working on math problems. Below are some photos of one way that we look at a mathematical situation - seeing dots on dot cards - in different ways.

We do a short (5 minute) daily activity that involves looking at dot cards. I flash a dot card picture (as seen below) to the crew for a few seconds. After I cover the picture, I ask the crew what they saw. They then tell me how many dots they saw and how they saw it. We have several students share how they saw the dots. Here are a few examples:

One student saw this as the same configuration of dots on a domino. She knew that this was 8 because this is how 8 appears on a domino.

Another student saw this as a row of 3, a row of 2 and another row of 3. He said that 3 + 3 + 2 = 8.

Another student saw the 6 dots on the sides like they are arranged on a 6 domino. She then added the two dots in the middle to get 8.

The next student saw the 3 + 2 + 3 =8 pattern but she saw it in columns instead of rows.

Another student remembered that we had previously seen a 9 dot arrangement on a previous day and noticed that this was the 9 dot pattern with one dot missing in the middle so it had to be 8.

Why do we do this? I explained to the crew that it is similar to reading - we can "sound out" every word we read but that would not be efficient. We need to have a bank of words that we just know so reading can move along quickly. This is true in math, too. We need to have strategies to deal with numbers so we don't have to count every dot to know how many dots there are in a pattern. We become more efficient using numbers.


This activity also helps us be able to break numbers apart into chunks that are easier to work with in our head. This makes us more flexible when adding and subtracting numbers. We will eventually begin to move on from dot cards and to visualizing numbers and basic addition and subtraction facts. Having the dot patterns in our minds can help us make that transition.

One other reason to do this short, daily activity is that it stimulates our creativity. We begin to look at things in more than one way. This helps us be open to finding more than one solution to our problems.

Important Dates
8/28-8/29 First Grade Fall Voyage - Tomorrow!
8/30 Day of Rest for First Grade
9/3 No School - Labor Day
9/21 No School - Professional Development Day for Teachers
10/8-10/19 Fall Break
10/22 No School - Teacher Work Day
11/6 No School - Professional Development Day for Teachers
11/21-11/23 No School - Thanksgiving Break
12/24-1/7 Winter Break

Don't Blink

Well, we did it! We moved my daughter into her dorm room today. I was so worried about how we all would handle it but we all did a great job. Phew... We still have more orientation sessions tomorrow and Saturday but I am even beginning to think that leaving her won't be as awful as I have been worried about. She is ready. (She needs sleep after her backpacking trip but she is ready.)

Did you know that her first grade classroom was the same classroom that our crew is in now? It makes me smile to think about that and it makes me want to remind you that even though it is a cliche, they do grow up so fast. So don't blink and enjoy every minute of it - even those exasperating moments because when you look back some of those moments will make you smile.

My little girl is now a freshman in college and the milestones are racing past - middle school, high school, learning to drive, first jobs, first boyfriend, first trips without us and on and on. 

So remember, parenting, like teaching, is hard but like the sign on our classroom wall says, we can do hard things. 

I think that this email will be our crew blog post for today. Ms. Cate said that the crew had a very good day and sent me some photos of them to prove it. :)

 

 

Reading

Today I am going to share with you the wide range of books that students in our crew can read. Again this is all "within normal limits" and will change in growth spurts - just like their bodies have growth spurts. We will just work to help each child grow and learn every day.

Writing

I remember when my daughter was very little and my husband and I were very new parents. We would keep a list of questions to ask the pediatrician at our next visit. Invariably the pediatrician would respond with something along the lines of "this is within normal limits". We began to tell ourselves that this was "within normal limits" when we were worrying about some aspect of our daughter's development. It seemed like everything was "within normal limits" and that we should not worry.

 I imagine that many of you have felt this way yourselves and have probably felt this way when talking to your child's teacher. You should know that most of the students in our crew are "within normal limits" in all areas of their social and academic development. You should also know that the "normal limits" band is very wide. Below I have posted some photos of writing in our crew - taken last Friday. It is all "within normal limits". What Ms. Cate and I will do now is take a close look at each writing sample and each writer and move them on along the writing continuum. Sometimes we will all need a lesson so we will teach that to the whole group. Sometimes only a small group will need a lesson so we will teach that lesson to the small group. Sometimes we will work with students one on one. The goal is to help students move and grow and become better writers everyday. Check your email for copies of the rubrics and checklists we use in first grade.