Counting Project

Every September my first grade class does a counting project where we explore counting collections of different things in different ways. We spend several days with kids counting different collections with partners then recording the way they counted. I always love to see how their methods of counting, keeping track, and recording morph and become more efficient over the course of several days as they think up and try out different strategies with their partner. When we begin counting larger collections the kids begin to realize that they need more efficient ways to count and keep track than their original counting by 1 strategy and they start to develop more effective strategies such as grouping and counting by 5s and 10s.

After counting, exploring, discussing, thinking up new ideas, and repeating the process for several days we take on the whole class project of counting all of the unifix cubes in our math area. I always start by telling the class that there are over 1,000 cubes in the bin and we plan out how we could use our grouping strategies to help us count to such a high number. We decided that everyone in our class is good a counting by 10s and 100s so we could use those numbers to help us. The students started by sorting all of the cubes into ziploc bags in groups of 10 (leaving out the few extras that didn't fit into a group). The next day they worked together to create bags of 100 by putting 10 bags of 10 into gallon sized ziploc bags. The kids discovered that they were able to count above 1,000 once we were counting by 100! Once we had the cubes organized into bags of 100 plus the extra 10s and 1s left over we were able to have one of our first place value discussions and learn that we have 1, 769 unifix cubes total!

This is always a great project because it gets kids thinking about efficient ways to count and record their work through exploration with partners. It also gets them thinking about creating a strategy, trying it, modifying it, trying it again, and working toward more efficient strategies. It is one of the ways I like to get the class working on number sense and problem solving early in the school year and the class always loves doing it. Below are photos taken throughout our process (which took place on and off over the course of the last three weeks).

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Class Photos

I always like to get a photo of our class at the beginning of the school year for the kids to look back on at the end of the year. Here they are (a "serious" photo and a "silly photo")!

Apple Project

We have been reviewing tally marks as part of our first math unit in first grade. We have been creating different tally charts to help us practice and our next one will go with an art project we did this afternoon. Each student made a collage apple in either red, green, or yellow, and on Monday we will count up how many of each color were made and then create a tally chart to record the results. These were a lot of fun and will all be hung up for families to see at Open House on October 6! Below are a few photos of kids working on the project today.

Posting Comments to this Blog

At Curriculum Night last week there were some questions about how to post comments to this blog. I checked it out and it seems that the difficulty might be posting comments from certain devices or possibly when selecting an account under the "Comment as:" section. I checked into this and it seems that commenting from a computer or iPad both work well, though I received feedback that commenting from a Kindle Fire did not work.

As a second recommendation (if you had trouble commenting) you may need to try changing the selection in the "Comment as:" box before submitting your comment. You can easily submit a comment when commenting as a anonymous person or typing a name into the box but, if you select "google account," "live journal," "aim," or other choices from the drop down menu, you will be asked to enter a username and password to an account first. If you have been having a hard time commenting so far, please try these two suggestions. They worked for me when I tried them out and the students and I would love to see comments from family members on the blog!

Constitution Day

Yesterday, September 17, was Constitution Day and we had our first whole school assembly to learn about it! At the beginning of the school year we always talk about expectations and rules at school so our annual Constitution Day assembly fits right into this (we discuss how the constitution is like a set of rules for our whole country!). Below are a few photos from the assembly where one of the second grade classes lead us in learning a little bit about what the constitution is. 

 

Hopes and Dreams

Overt the past two weeks our class has spent lots of time talking about our hopes and dreams, or goals, for first grade. We started by reading some wonderful books to get our ideas flowing. First we read The Big Orange Splot, which is a funny story about a man who goes against the grain to follow his dreams and ends up getting his friends to do the same. Next we read The OK Book, which is a wonderful book where the character tells us many things he is "ok" at doing but will get better at with practice. The third is titled Ish, and is one of my favorites because the main character learns that he doesn't have to do everything perfectly and should keep working at the things he loves anyway. He draws a picture of a flower vase that looks "vase-ish," he writes poems that sound "poem-ish," etc. He realizes that practice is great, it's ok not to do everything perfectly, and that "ish" is a pretty good place to start! What a wonderful lesson for all of us, especially as we plan our goals for the year.

After reading books about personal hopes/dreams/goals we made a list of ideas for ourselves and each student picked a hope and dream that they want to focus on in first grade. The slideshow below shows what each student's hope and dream is and, though they may seem to be lofty goals, we will get to all of them this year! I felt so excited watching this slideshow and can't wait to help the students start reaching toward their hopes and dreams for the year!

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The Portraits Are Finished!

We have finished our self portraits and they are ready to hang up on the wall! These always turn out so wonderfully and I love seeing them on the wall adding color and personality to our classroom throughout the year! They always make me smile. Below are photos of the finished products. You will be able to see them on the wall at Curriculum Night this Thursday or at Open House in a few weeks!

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Self Portraits

First graders have been working on a self portrait project as part of our "All About Me" theme where we are learning about ourselves, our friends, and what makes us alike, different, and special. Last week students painted backgrounds, painted skin colored paper, and cut out heads, necks, ears, and noses for their portraits. Today everyone added eyes and mouths and next week we will finish with eyebrows, hair, and details. These always come out beautifully and will hang on the wall in our classroom all year. Below are some photos of our process so far.

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Readers' Workshop

First Graders have been practicing what Readers' Workshop will look like in class this year. We started with exploring what books we have in the classroom followed by practicing skills such as how to take care of the books, how to take them out and put them back, and how to read quietly focusing on your own book. Today readers got their own book bins and book bags for the year. Book bins are plastic tubs that students will use to house the books they choose for themselves during the week and book bags are where they will keep the books I have picked out for them or books we are working on in reading groups (books at their good fit reading level). They will keep the bag in their book bin so that they have access to good fit books and free choice books each time they read in class! Below are some photos of them using these today.

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Sharing schedule

Our class has finished our "Brown Bag Shares" and we are getting ready to start a sharing routine where each child will have one day a week to share something as part of morning meeting (this year we have the first integrated arts special of the day so we do morning meeting, then go to special, then will come back to the room and share while having snack). Today a copy of the sharing schedule hung up in our room will be coming home so that you can see which day your child will share each week. This way your child knows their share day ahead of time so that if he/she wants to practice what they are going to say ahead of time they are able to do so. In first grade we want to avoid having this time focus on things (i.e. toys or games).  Instead, our purpose is to help students strengthen both their speaking and listening skills so we ask the children to tell about an experience as opposed to a thing brought in from home.  Sometimes, children feel that they don’t have anything ‘important enough’ to share.  This is not true!  Shares can be very simple (i.e. receiving a phone call from a family member, getting a card in the mail, learning how to hula hoop) and the possibilities are endless! Please let me know if you have any questions.  

Author Visit

Yesterday first and second grade classes gathered for a special assembly where we got to meet the author Loren Long (author of the Otis the Tractor books). He read one of the books to us with the help of some UMS actors (Mr. Antonicci, Mrs. Flanagan, and some students), told us about how authors come up with ideas and create their books, and showed us how he draws Otis for his illustrations! Below are some photos from his visit.

Day 7

Today was a very hot day which we decided to finish off with popsicles and a bit of time outside! Earlier in the day we practiced playing math partner games in stations, which is how our math time will be set up in first grade. We took time to explore and practice with the rest of our classroom library and we read a great book titled The OK Book and took time to discuss our hopes and dreams, or goals, for first grade! This morning we did a guided discovery of the school bus with Mrs. McCleary, the school guidance counselor, to practice how to ride on and walk near a school bus safely. We also had a special, extra library class where the kids got to hear one of the Otis the Tractor books written by Loren Long because next week, on Wednesday, first and second graders are going to get to meet Loren Long at school! Our class will get to hear more Otis books during library class on Monday as well. If you have any at home, take them out for a re-read before Wednesday's author visit! Below are some photos from today. Please look for weekly blog posts (sometimes more frequently when we have special events or projects to share about) from here on out and keep checking the blog for upcoming events and much more!

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Day 6

Today our class continued the all important practice of routines, taking care of materials, and what it means to be a first grader! To work on our "All About Me" theme we continued working on our self portrait project. Today kids chose a skin colored paint (from our Crayola multi-cultural paint set) that they thought best matched their skin color and painted a paper with it. Tomorrow, when it is dry, we will use those papers to cut out the shapes of heads, necks, and noses to begin putting our portraits together (see yesterday's photos for examples of finished portraits from last year)!
Today we also gave a lot of focus to our classroom library practicing choosing books, reading them, putting them away in the correct spots and taking out new ones. We have many books to choose from in our class and I love seeing the kids find ones they are excited about reading! Today we started talking about "red words," which are the sight words we practice during first grade and kids created little books incorporating our first two review words, "I," and "can." During math time we learned a new math game using pennies and we learned about our new first grade math journals!

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Day 5

One week ago today we started first grade! How the time has flown. Today on our fifth day of school we worked more on our routines, expectations, and daily schedule, fitting in time for reading, writing, and math, as well as our first theme of the year. In first grade we have several thematic units including life cycles, solids and liquids, mapping, weather, etc. Before we kick off our official theme units of study we always focus on the theme "All About Me" where we learn about ourselves, each other, and becoming a community in our first grade classroom. Today we started this unit with a scavenger hunt focused on learning about classmates. In the photos below you will see students mingling to answer questions on their scavenger hunt such as, "find someone who can count to 100," "find someone who speaks another language," or "find someone who has the same color hair that you do." We also started our self portrait project, which is my favorite art project of the year and goes beautifully with our "All About Me" unit. In the photos below you will see students painting the backgrounds for their portraits and you will see two examples of portraits from last year (my portrait and one done by a former student). I am enjoying taking and posting photos from class each day (and I hope you are enjoying them too) but after this week I will plan to blog about once a week rather than daily. Please keep checking in with the blog for new posts, photos, upcoming dates, important information, and much more!

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Our Fourth Day of School

It is already the end of our fourth day in first grade and we are doing such a great job learning our routines, practicing using materials, helping each other, and learning to do reading, writing, and math work! Today we read a book called, The Best Place to Read then students wrote pages for a class book, this one titled, "Our Favorite Places to Read" (last week we wrote pages for a class book called "My Summer Vacation." We also did writing related to our word study "mystery name of the day" game. It is wonderful to see how the first graders are remembering to stretch out the words they want to spell then writing down the sounds they hear. That is a very important step in learning to write and I am so proud to see everyone in our class working hard at it! Today we did more practice using and caring for the books our classroom library and students are quickly learning where to find their favorite authors and titles in the room! At the end of the day, during math, we have been working on number sense as we discuss the number of the day (today's number is 4 since it is the 4th day of school) and we will add more to this process as we learn more and more about numbers. So far we are representing the number of the day with tallies, place value, coins, written out in word form, and we are identifying one more and one less than the number. As the year goes on we will add in determining if the number is odd or even, recording the numbers that are 10 more and 10 less, writing equations to represent the number, and writing numbers greater than and less than our number. We work on "Number of the Day" as our warm up for math each day and this is one way that we work on building "number sense," or a more complete understanding of numbers in first grade. Below are some photos from today!

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