One Hundredth Day of School

Not all days are created equal. "This is the best day ever!" remarked a student. Exactly what I wanted to hear. We worked hard to get here. Thanks to the parents who shared a special treat.

We started the day spelling words with embedded /er/ spellings which led later to alphabetizing to the fourth letter in some cases, no problem for some kids. We worked with time-order words and then combined time-order words with a Flow Map of a story of our own choice.

We then tally counted to 100 to make our 100th day headbands. The rest of our afternoon was consumed by 100th day activities endings with treat time. "This is the best day ever!"

Our homework is a review of related facts.

Ninety-Seventh Day

Today we began our second selection, Jafta, which led us to discuss an author choice to use vivid verbs to help create pictures in their reader's minds. We also learned that some games don't necessarily have rules but that most games do in order to make them more fun and to regulate behavior. We described a best imagination game in our journals.

We are all abuzz with 100th day anticipation!

We continued today with related facts in math. I have to say I've never had such a high number of students pass so many math tests before. On the Topic 14 math test, of the 23 students taking the test, 21 students passed with a score of 15 or better. Three students scored perfectly, 6 students scored 20, 2 students scored 19, and 3 students scored 18. Way to go!

The neighborhood maps I've received so far look good. The printouts were sized perfectly. One note: if you can, try not to mark your house on the printout or indicate your address. It would be best if you do not use the home-value style maps which tend to give too much information.

Please keep in mind that first graders should be going to bed no later than 8:00 p.m. on school nights no matter what happens to be on television.

Please remember that this Tuesday's dismissal is the regular 2:04 time.

Ninety-Fifth Day

We accomplished a lot today. We reviewed long-u and long-oo spellings. We read the first selection of our games unit entitled Piggle by Bonsall. We learned that not all games, while still fun, necessarily have a winner. Someone offered tag and jump rope as other examples of games without clear winners. We devised a list of rules for the game Piggle. Each table had the chance to play the game and then share out their results which were then posted on the concept/question board. We then made our first Brace Map, our fifth type of thinking map. While Tree Maps are used to classify various nouns, objects, words, etc. into categories, a Brace Map is used to break up one particular noun into its various parts.

In math we worked on two step problems which closes our current unit. We will take the test for this unit tomorrow.

For social studies we worked on neighborhood maps. At this point in the year I like to suggest that parents direct students to a mapping program on the Internet and locate your home's satellite photograph. Magnify the view to approximately 100ft/inch. Size to show their block and a portion of surrounding blocks. Have your child make a simple map with legend (key) under your direction but in their hand. On your child's map, buildings could be shown as simple rectangles. Print a view of the satellite picture and attach to the hand-drawn map and send with your child to class.

We will be breaking many years of tradition this year by changing our 100th day celebration activities. Hopefully we will still be able to make a memorable impact and we will still share treats in the afternoon.

Nintieth Day

The 100th day is fast approaching. The One-hundredth day has traditionally been celebrated as a special milestone for first grade. In lieu of celebrating individual birthdays throughout the year, we take this opportunity to mark our accomplishments and emphasize the idea of a 'hundreds' place in math.To end this day on a high note we ask parents to contribute treats that may be shared in the afternoon.

Today we blended with /r/ spelled 'wr'. We added N. America, S. America, and Antarctica to our world maps.

We worked with doubles plus two for class and homework. I've never used this "strategy" with first graders before. I'm not quite sure it will become a go-to strategy for a first grade mind. I tend to stress more the making a ten strategy which we will cover tomorrow.