First Grade Fun!

This week....

READING

This week in reading we have been working on some new vocabulary words. The words for this week are rainfall, outdoors, and drop. The phonics skill for the week is digraph sh and th. Students needs to recognize that when these two letters are put together, they make a new sound. They have been doing excellent with this skill. They have created words, sorted words, and highlighted words in the weekly poem. We also watched a brainpop video on sh and th sounds. Students seem to have no trouble with this skill.

We started the week with an inferencing investigation. To start the activity I read the students a story about a snow day. In the story, we find out that Tim and grandma Sue spent the snow day together BUT when Tim's Mom returns home that day, they were NO WHERE TO BE FOUND?!?! Tim's mom collected clues from around the house to help determine where Tim and grandma Sue could be and THIS is where my inference investigators came in. Each group of students were given a "Snow Day Case File". Inside each case file were clues from the day that Tim's mom collected. Some clues were ketchup packets from McDonald's, muffin recipe, chore list with some marked off, note about sledding, movie ticket, McDonald's fry and hamburger wrapper, a chapter book, a magazine, a glove, crayons, hot chocolate, etc. There were a total of 5 groups of inference investigators on the job!! Each bag had different clues but they were somehow connected. Students filled out an inferencing organizers to keep their clues and inferences in check. When we came back to meet as a group we discussed all the clues and inferences. Once groups heard some clues from other groups, their inferences were changed. It was a very fun activity and I think all the students loved it!!!

Inference investigators!!

We are continuing to work on NOUNS this week. We reviewed common and proper nouns with interactive online games, sorting activities, and a noun scavenger hunt around the school. (I forgot my camera for this activity.) We made a "NOUN TOWN" in the hallway for students to display the nouns they found around the school. Students drew and labeled different nouns to place in the town. They were SO excited about this activity and some even wanted to take extra paper home to make more things! I love the enthusiasm : )

NOUN TOWN

Home of common, proper, and possessive nouns!

We will continue to work on nouns through next week.

We also started work with characters, setting, and plot this week. We started a new book called The Bell in the Well. This book is a fairytale. Students seem to have a firm grasp of what makes a fairytale. We have charted the characters and had some fun coming up with describing words for each character. We plan to focus more on setting and plot in the coming week.

Andrew's character traits of Nasty Nell (from The Bell in the Well)

If you look closely this one says "vicious". Excellent word choice!!!

We are working still with ideas in writing but we are working more on adding details and describing words. This week we worked on a poem called The Important Thing About....

They were great!! I think I might use them for something to put in the hallway :)

Students are continuing to excel during Daily 5 and we are getting more and more comfortable with our groups!!