Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Crew News May 8, 2012
Critical Thinking Skills in Math
I am a big believer in developing critical thinking skills in math. The crew knows that as we discuss math problems, I will almost always ask them one of these questions at they solve a problem:
1. How do you know?
2. How did you figure that out?
3. Is there another way that you could have figured that out?
At first, they had trouble answering this type of question but as they have had more and more practice, they have really grown in their ability to come up with a good answer. I do still have those students who want to say "I just know" or "The answer just popped into my head". At those times, I always ask them how they could explain how to solve the problem to someone else. My goal is to have them really be able to think deeply about a problem. This will help them in their adult daily life and there are far more jobs in our world today for people who can think and puzzle things out. I really want students to focus on that thinking so that they can transfer those types of skills to other problems as they come up.
Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 9.6 Fractional Parts
I am a big believer in developing critical thinking skills in math. The crew knows that as we discuss math problems, I will almost always ask them one of these questions at they solve a problem:
1. How do you know?
2. How did you figure that out?
3. Is there another way that you could have figured that out?
At first, they had trouble answering this type of question but as they have had more and more practice, they have really grown in their ability to come up with a good answer. I do still have those students who want to say "I just know" or "The answer just popped into my head". At those times, I always ask them how they could explain how to solve the problem to someone else. My goal is to have them really be able to think deeply about a problem. This will help them in their adult daily life and there are far more jobs in our world today for people who can think and puzzle things out. I really want students to focus on that thinking so that they can transfer those types of skills to other problems as they come up.
Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 9.6 Fractional Parts
Monday, May 7, 2012
Crew News May 7, 2012
Benefits of Reading Aloud
The benefits of reading aloud have really been showing up in our crew lately. There are so many good reasons to read aloud to your child but below are a couple of things that I have seen just in the last few weeks.
1. Reading aloud creates community and gives students things to bond over. For example, we all can share a laugh as we remember something funny in a book we read. On our recent Voyage, the bus driver was going over the bus safety rules with the students. She couldn't see the students when they were sitting down in those big bus seats so she had them stand up so that they could make eye contact with her. After she was done with her short speech she said something about how now they could put their bottoms on the seat. This caused the kids who were sitting around me to think about a Roscoe Riley book that we had read together. In this book, Roscoe thought he would help his teacher manage his class by gluing them to their chairs with super strong glue called Super Mega Gonzo Glue. On the bus, our crew all got the giggles thinking about this and said that they should use some Super Mega Gonzo Glue to glue themselves to the bus seats. Because this was a book we had read aloud, everyone was able to be in on the joke and the fun.
2. Reading aloud gives us in-depth knowledge about books and characters we love. We are currently participating in a game of Poetry Tag with K-3 classes around the country. (You may have read about this in an earlier blog post.) Anyway, when it was our turn to add a poem, we noticed that the theme was mostly about dogs and the quirky things they do. We were able to write and add our own poem about Mudge from the Henry and Mudge series by Cynthia Rylant. The crew knew Mudge well and could really describe his quirks. My favorite line that they came up with was that he is a "cracker eating dog".
3. Reading aloud exposes kids to lots of books and helps them make judgements about books that they like and want to read. The students in our crew can talk about authors like Cynthia Rylant or Mo Willems. They can talk about different book series like Elephant and Piggie, The Fly Guy, Henry and Mudge, Fluffy, Ready Freddy and many more. They are aware of books and know what books they want to check out when they go to the library.
4. Read aloud is fun and can create these same experiences in families. I know that earlier in the year I linked to this article about a dad who read aloud to his daughter every day of her life from when she was in fourth grade until she started college. I highly recommend that you take a look at this again if you don't remember it. What a great way to bond with your child and to create so many fun memories, connections and experiences with reading. We still read aloud to our middle school aged daughter every night and I have to admit that I still love being read aloud to also. It is so relaxing for me.
Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 9.5 Symmetry
The benefits of reading aloud have really been showing up in our crew lately. There are so many good reasons to read aloud to your child but below are a couple of things that I have seen just in the last few weeks.
1. Reading aloud creates community and gives students things to bond over. For example, we all can share a laugh as we remember something funny in a book we read. On our recent Voyage, the bus driver was going over the bus safety rules with the students. She couldn't see the students when they were sitting down in those big bus seats so she had them stand up so that they could make eye contact with her. After she was done with her short speech she said something about how now they could put their bottoms on the seat. This caused the kids who were sitting around me to think about a Roscoe Riley book that we had read together. In this book, Roscoe thought he would help his teacher manage his class by gluing them to their chairs with super strong glue called Super Mega Gonzo Glue. On the bus, our crew all got the giggles thinking about this and said that they should use some Super Mega Gonzo Glue to glue themselves to the bus seats. Because this was a book we had read aloud, everyone was able to be in on the joke and the fun.
2. Reading aloud gives us in-depth knowledge about books and characters we love. We are currently participating in a game of Poetry Tag with K-3 classes around the country. (You may have read about this in an earlier blog post.) Anyway, when it was our turn to add a poem, we noticed that the theme was mostly about dogs and the quirky things they do. We were able to write and add our own poem about Mudge from the Henry and Mudge series by Cynthia Rylant. The crew knew Mudge well and could really describe his quirks. My favorite line that they came up with was that he is a "cracker eating dog".
 |
| The haiku poem about Mudge that our crew wrote and Keanan H. illustrated. |
3. Reading aloud exposes kids to lots of books and helps them make judgements about books that they like and want to read. The students in our crew can talk about authors like Cynthia Rylant or Mo Willems. They can talk about different book series like Elephant and Piggie, The Fly Guy, Henry and Mudge, Fluffy, Ready Freddy and many more. They are aware of books and know what books they want to check out when they go to the library.
4. Read aloud is fun and can create these same experiences in families. I know that earlier in the year I linked to this article about a dad who read aloud to his daughter every day of her life from when she was in fourth grade until she started college. I highly recommend that you take a look at this again if you don't remember it. What a great way to bond with your child and to create so many fun memories, connections and experiences with reading. We still read aloud to our middle school aged daughter every night and I have to admit that I still love being read aloud to also. It is so relaxing for me.
Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 9.5 Symmetry
Friday, May 4, 2012
Crew News May 4, 2012
Bees
Today we took a close look at bees for our Expedition. We are still looking at how plants and animals are dependent on each other so today we began to look at how bees and flowers depend on each other. We will still be looking at worms and soil as we move forward, too. Below are some photos of us gluing some dried bees to a craft stick to make them easier to pick up and look at closely.
Writing
Our new study in Writer's Workshop is books about environmental issues or environamental appreciation. We have been reading some very beautiful books in this study. You can see some of the books we will read on my Pinterest page called Environmental Issues. (Below is a snippet of that page.) We launched this study on Earth Day with our clean up of the playground. We have all really enjoyed the books that we have been looking at and many of us have already been inspired to write similar books of our own.
Homework
No home for the weekend. Enjoy some good books with your child.
IA
Our IA next week is Music.
Today we took a close look at bees for our Expedition. We are still looking at how plants and animals are dependent on each other so today we began to look at how bees and flowers depend on each other. We will still be looking at worms and soil as we move forward, too. Below are some photos of us gluing some dried bees to a craft stick to make them easier to pick up and look at closely.
Writing
Our new study in Writer's Workshop is books about environmental issues or environamental appreciation. We have been reading some very beautiful books in this study. You can see some of the books we will read on my Pinterest page called Environmental Issues. (Below is a snippet of that page.) We launched this study on Earth Day with our clean up of the playground. We have all really enjoyed the books that we have been looking at and many of us have already been inspired to write similar books of our own.
Homework
No home for the weekend. Enjoy some good books with your child.
IA
Our IA next week is Music.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Crew News May 3, 2012
Worms
We released our worms into the school garden today. It was quite thrilling to dig through the worm farm to see what the worms look like now. Our worm farm had started growing mold on the top so we didn't have the crew dig in - just to be safe. It was still very exciting to see how big they were and that they were all still alive. They were very, very active and gave us quite a show. Tomorrow we will work on a sign to put up out by the garden to tell others about our worms and how they help the garden. This will be our service learning project for this year.
Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 9.4 Solving Problems Two Ways
We released our worms into the school garden today. It was quite thrilling to dig through the worm farm to see what the worms look like now. Our worm farm had started growing mold on the top so we didn't have the crew dig in - just to be safe. It was still very exciting to see how big they were and that they were all still alive. They were very, very active and gave us quite a show. Tomorrow we will work on a sign to put up out by the garden to tell others about our worms and how they help the garden. This will be our service learning project for this year.
Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 9.4 Solving Problems Two Ways
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Crew News May 2, 2012
Pinterest
I thought I would share with you the link to my Pinterest page. I use my Pinterest account to keep track of the books that I use in various ways in class. I thought you might like to have access to some of these lists of books, particularly the lists of "Book Series for 1st Grade" and "Longer Read Alouds for 1st Grade". These might come in handy as you and your child are looking for books this summer at the library either for your child to read or for you to read aloud to your child. If you are unfamiliar with Pinterest, you simply click on the page you are interested in in order to see the whole page. Then you can click on particular books to see more detailed information. I have linked most books to the public library site to make it quick and easy for me to put the books we use on hold - often a second click is required to get to the library site. You can do this, too. Then the books will be pulled and ready for you to pick up on your next trip to the library. I love to do this to save time. To go to my Pinterest pages, you may either click on the picture above or click here. (Note: I did start using Pinterest for the typical reasons so you will also see other non-school related pages here of things I am interested in or love - like the color orange.)
Sight Words
Our new sight words for next week are: went, mother, just, too, when
Previous words include: as, if, my, be, all, like, she, has, how, put, don't, I'm, one, out, him, look, her, back, had, come, came, make, of, was, now, have, are, said, away, little, very, been, from, here, our, saw, what, your, who, after, with, there, they, because, where, could, before, two
These are great words to point out to your child when they are reading or to have them practice spelling at home, too.
Ask your child to explain how we practice these words at school using the Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check method.
Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Practice basic addition and subtraction facts.
I thought I would share with you the link to my Pinterest page. I use my Pinterest account to keep track of the books that I use in various ways in class. I thought you might like to have access to some of these lists of books, particularly the lists of "Book Series for 1st Grade" and "Longer Read Alouds for 1st Grade". These might come in handy as you and your child are looking for books this summer at the library either for your child to read or for you to read aloud to your child. If you are unfamiliar with Pinterest, you simply click on the page you are interested in in order to see the whole page. Then you can click on particular books to see more detailed information. I have linked most books to the public library site to make it quick and easy for me to put the books we use on hold - often a second click is required to get to the library site. You can do this, too. Then the books will be pulled and ready for you to pick up on your next trip to the library. I love to do this to save time. To go to my Pinterest pages, you may either click on the picture above or click here. (Note: I did start using Pinterest for the typical reasons so you will also see other non-school related pages here of things I am interested in or love - like the color orange.)
Sight Words
Our new sight words for next week are: went, mother, just, too, when
Previous words include: as, if, my, be, all, like, she, has, how, put, don't, I'm, one, out, him, look, her, back, had, come, came, make, of, was, now, have, are, said, away, little, very, been, from, here, our, saw, what, your, who, after, with, there, they, because, where, could, before, two
These are great words to point out to your child when they are reading or to have them practice spelling at home, too.
Ask your child to explain how we practice these words at school using the Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check method.
Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Practice basic addition and subtraction facts.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Crew News May 1, 2012
Poetry Tag
We are playing Poetry Tag with some classes from around the country. Mrs. Frazier's class from Ohio started the game. This is the class that we Skyped earlier in the year. They chose a poem and put it in a Voice Thread and invited others to comment. They then "tagged" the next class and they added a poem. Today was our turn to add a poem. You can view the Voice Thread below to see our comments and our poem - it is the third poem. (If you get this by email, you will need to go directly to the blog to view the Voice Thread.)
Feedback for Me
Thanks so much for all of the responses to my survey asking for feedback for me. It truly helps me to know what it is that you value and what you think has been valuable for your child. I will use this feedback as I plan the rest of this year and begin to plan for next year. I will leave the survey open so if you still would like to add your input or if you think of something else to add you can do that. Thanks again.
Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 9.3 Number-Grid Puzzles
We are playing Poetry Tag with some classes from around the country. Mrs. Frazier's class from Ohio started the game. This is the class that we Skyped earlier in the year. They chose a poem and put it in a Voice Thread and invited others to comment. They then "tagged" the next class and they added a poem. Today was our turn to add a poem. You can view the Voice Thread below to see our comments and our poem - it is the third poem. (If you get this by email, you will need to go directly to the blog to view the Voice Thread.)
Feedback for Me
Thanks so much for all of the responses to my survey asking for feedback for me. It truly helps me to know what it is that you value and what you think has been valuable for your child. I will use this feedback as I plan the rest of this year and begin to plan for next year. I will leave the survey open so if you still would like to add your input or if you think of something else to add you can do that. Thanks again.
Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 9.3 Number-Grid Puzzles
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