Nonfiction and How-To Books

This week during Reading Workshop, the children have been immersed in nonfiction books.  Every day this week, we learned about different features of nonfiction texts.  The children learned that nonfiction books are books that teach real information and often have:

• real photographs, but sometimes they have realistic illustrations instead.
• a Table of Contents.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• bold words.
• a Glossary.
• pictures with labels and captions.
  

This week we also learned a new poem, Animal Talk, to help us learn the word "said."

Next week we will continue our nonfiction reading unit with focus on comprehension.

During Writing Workshop, the children have been writing How-To books.  They learned to think of something they know how to do and teach someone else how to do it through their writing.  They learned to:

• use a teaching voice rather than a storytelling voice.
• use sequencing words to help keep our steps in order.
• use clear, specific words so that the reader knows exactly what to do.
• act out the steps to help us remember all the details.
• draw pictures with labels.
  

This week during Math we:

• learned about the nickel.
• played a coin exchange game with pennies and nickels.  Children learned that five pennies are equivalent to one nickel.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• used counting as a way to measure and compare time.  The children worked with a partner to establish a beat and then cross the room in various ways.  One child counted to the beat while the other child crossed the room.
• practiced solving comparison number stories.
• learned about spheres, rectangular prisms, cubes, cylinders, and cones.  We compared these 3-dimensional objects to 2-dimensional shapes.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

In celebration of Dr. Seuss's birthday on Monday, we will have a school community meeting.  We will enjoy many Dr. Seuss read alouds throughout next week.

Have a lovely weekend.
Katie

Let there be light!

This week, we had a guest science teacher, Mrs. Landry, visit us to teach us about light as a form of energy.  We shined flashlights through a prism to show that when white light passes through a prism it bends to generate a rainbow.  We then went back to our classroom and listed all the sources of light we discovered within our classroom.

With this week's snow day, delayed start, and science lesson, we were left with only two days of Reading Workshop lessons.  We learned:

• the word "like" and added it to our word wall.
• to pay attention to when stories take place.  We reviewed that when a story happens, along with where it happens, are the two parts that make up the setting in a story.

This week during Writing Workshop, we spent time editing and revising our small moment stories.  We used correcting pens (which were a huge hit with the children!) to check for correct spelling of word wall words.  We edited for capital letters and punctuation.  We also spent time thinking of ways to add more details to our stories, using everything we've learned about beginnings, inside details, transitions, itty-bitty details, and endings, to make our stories even better.  On Friday, we shared our stories with one another.

This week during Math we:

• practiced solving number stories.
• played The Dice Throw game to practice addition facts.
• learned about the Commutative Property (when adding, it doesn't matter what order the addends are in).
• played 2 Digit Number Top-It to practice reading and comparing 2 digit numbers.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Next week will be a busy, exciting week as it is the week before vacation, Valentine's Day, and the 100th Day of School!

Best,
Katie  

Snow, Snow, and More Snow!

Last week's abundance of snow made for some fun times on the playground!  I'm sure today's snowfall will add to the playground excitement.

During Reading Workshop, we have been practicing the Chunky Monkey strategy (looking for chunks we know inside words) by studying different word families.  We have learned the -and, -at, and -all word families.   On Friday, we got together with our first grade reading buddies.

During Writing Workshop, we have been working on our small moment unit.  We learned about ending a small moment story in the moment.  I read aloud several different books from our classroom library, and we focused on how the authors ended each story.  On Friday, we chose one of our small moment stories to edit and publish.  We will work on that story throughout this week and will share our published stories with one another on Friday.

Last week during Math, we practiced exchanging by playing The Exchange Game.  We also spent time learning more about the number grid.  We practiced skip-counting in different ways while circling the numbers we said.  We were then able to talk about the patterns we noticed.  Children observed that when counting by tens, you move straight down a column on the number grid.  On Friday, we used this information to help us play a number grid game.

Let's hope this is the last big snowstorm for a while!

Katie