Patriotic Symbols

This week we are starting a study of patriotic symbols and famous Americans. It will help us understand a little bit more about what it means to be a good citizen of our country. This will be a fairly short (3 weeks) but exciting study. First graders are always fascinated by the symbols of our country so I am sure that you will hear all about it at the dinner table for the next few weeks. Below are just a few of the books that we will have in our classroom to read and to use as resources for our research - more are on the way.

Why study this? 
We study patriotic symbols and famous Americans as way to begin to learn about how to be an active, responsible citizen of our country. The official outcomes/standards for this study are below:

Evaluate the roles, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship

Symbols, songs, holidays, traditions, places, and people help to provide identity for the community and nation. 

Citizens exercise the rights and obligations of citizenship at the local or wider community level by showing interest and being involved. 
 

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 5.11 Adding 0 and 1

Building and Creating

As you may recall, you all (the parents) gave our crew a great gift at our Winter Party. You gave us a set of Keva Planks. I was so excited and now the crew is, too. (If you get this post by email, you will need to go directly to the blog to view the short video clip below.)

Keva Planks are great for all ages - Dads love them, too.

While we do use them everday during Exploration Stations in small groups, the crew began asking me if we could try to build something as a whole crew. So last Friday, we tried it. I dumped out all of the planks and then got out of the way so that they could plan, discuss and build.

A group leader emerged right away. He even used our attention getting signal of clapping to get everyone's attention.

Then another leader stepped up.

Now we had co-leaders. Ms. Wendy and I still stayed out of the discussion. It got tense a few times but they worked through all of their issues and made good decisions as a whole group. It was a great team building experience for the crew. A few children did opt out because they didn't like being in such a large group which was fine. I can completely understand their point of view.

Finally the building began.

We even had a blueprint to work off of.

And an updated blueprint.

The crew worked and worked but ran out of time to complete their castle (we had to go to Art). I promised them that we would have another group building session soon so at snack time a group sat together to plan out what they would do next time. They can't wait.

Thank you so much for this wonderful gift. As you can see, it is not only fun but it is a great educational tool as well teaching communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 5.10 Turn Around Facts

Important Dates
1/16 No School - Professional Development Day for Teachers
1/19 No School - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
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)
3/23 - 4/3 Spring Break

Visitors from Australia

Regina and her dad, Mr. Kevin came to visit our crew today. They came all the way from Australia! They have been touring the United States on their summer break. Regina was in Mrs. Price's class last year and Skyped with my class. She is in a new class this year but has Skyped with our crew this year, too. We were so excited to see her in person. We got to talk to her and ask her lots of questions. It was so nice to meet Regina and Mr. Kevin today.

Ashlee and her buddy, Regina

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

IA
Our IA next week is Music.

Difference Game

A game we learned recently in math is the Difference Game. The directions are below if you would like to play it at home. You can easily modify the game to make it easier or more challenging by changing the number cards that you use.

Difference Game
1. Partners create a bank of 40 pennies.
2. Shuffle a deck of number cards - 4 cards of each number 1-10 - and put the cards number-side down in a deck in the middle of the playing area. (A regular deck of cards with the face cards removed will work for this game.)
3. In each round, each player takes 1 card from the top of the deck and takes the same number of pennies from the bank as the number shown on the card.
4. Both players then find out how many more pennies one player has than the other.
5. The player with more pennies keeps the extra pennies. The rest go back in the bank.
6. The game is over when there are not enough pennies left in the bank to play another round.
7. The player with more pennies wins the game.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 5.9 Comparing Sums

Roscoe Riley

Our current read aloud is Roscoe Riley Rules #1: Never Glue Your Friends to a Chair by Katherine Applegate.   The books in this series are all tales of how Roscoe ended up in the timeout chair - nothing outlandish, just his mishaps and mistakes that will feel familiar to most first graders. In this book, Roscoe is trying hard to help his teacher, a first year teacher, manage the behaviors in his class. His plans don't always work the way that he hopes that they will often with very funny results. Ask your child to tell you about this book.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 5.8 Number Stories

Library 
We have library tomorrow. Please help your child remember to return his or her books so that he or she can get new books.

The Power of Yet

I love the ideas in the video below. It talks about how we all need to know that we can learn and grow and that we aren't stuck with the skills that we currently have. It is something that I try hard to teach our crew everyday. (If you get this post by email, you will need to go directly to the crew blog to view the video.)


Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 5.7 Comparing Amounts of Money

Things to Look Forward to After Winter Break

Dear Crew,

I hope that you have had an exciting winter break, have read lots of great books and are ready to come back to school on Tuesday. I know I am ready. I can't wait to see you. I have really missed you.

Here are a few things that we have to look forward to after break:

Our Keva Planks should arrive soon. I can't wait to see what you build with them. Here are some pictures of things other people have built with them that I found on the Keva website, here.

Our Winter Voyage - Day 1 will be on February 26th. Here is a sneak peek with pictures from last year.

We will also be finishing up our study of Families in China and then before moving on to our final Expedition (which is still top secret but will be based on Science topics) we will take a little while to learn about some patriotic symbols of our country like our flag, the bald eagle, the Statue of Liberty and more.

Picture from Pics4Learning.com

In math we will learn about fact triangles, functions, geometry and more.

In February in writing we will write our own non-fiction books about an animal of our choice.

For some fun reading, I have gathered a large collection of books from the public library for us to take a look at - some of these are graphic novel/comic type books. They are the next step after the Elephant and Piggie books that we love so much. Also this is the time of year when teachers and librarians make lists of great books from the year before. I have gone through these lists and gathered many new books for us to read and enjoy. I know you will love them. Some pictures (okay, a lot of pictures) are below.

Our Next Read Aloud

Yes, I know that we have already read Sam and Dave Dig a Hole but we need to take a closer look at the ending of this book.

That is a lot to look forward to and I know that I can't wait. See you on Tuesday morning!

Love,
Ms. Jill

Important Dates
1/6 First day back after Winter Break
1/16 No School - Professional Development Day for Teachers
1/19 No School - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
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)
3/23 - 4/3 Spring Break