Mrs. Murphy's Starfish: Starfish Gazette- September 15, 2017

Hello Starfish Families,

We made it through our first full week of first grade! Woo Hoo! I wonder how tired your first grader was by the end of the week. We continue to build our independence with classroom routines and are having fun diving into 1st grade curriculum! Below you will see many pictures from our week including information about the learning activities we accomplished.

Readers Build Good Habits

Reader's Workshop is up and running in the Starfish Classroom! Even within the first few weeks of school, the Starfish are already falling into place with the routines of daily reader's workshop. The kids are working on finding a just right reading spot, setting a reading plan, and building stamina to read independently. Over the next few weeks, the children will continue to develop good habits for before, during, and after reading. This week we have been working on taking a sneak peek at the cover of books to help make predictions of what might happen in the story. As we continue, the kids will learn how to check their predictions as they read, revisiting or confirming them.

Students are turning and talking about their books during a lesson

The kids have also been paired with a reading partner. Each day the kids will meet with their reading partner to share their books and strategies. This week we learned how to sit and share a book with a partner.

Partners can practice words together

Partners find comfy places to read

Partners share books together

Reading Partners can work as a team

Math Workshop

Mrs. Jolly teaching at a math center

Playing Penny Plate: A great game to practice counting on and building a strong foundation of number relationships

Some pennies are hiding under the plate. Can she guess how many are missing?

The Penny Spill Game- Practicing Collecting Data with Tallies

Over the last few weeks, we are learning the components of math workshop. We start each math workshop with a warm up. This may include a mental math component, skip counting, or working on our white boards to practice a specific skill. Following our warm up, we have a short mini-lesson to teach or review a first grade math concept. After our mini-lesson we typically break into small group math centers. Small group learning environments provide opportunities for differentiated learning and hands on practice.

During the month of September, the children are reviewing what they learned about numbers in kindergarten. Children practice rote counting, or reciting numbers in order by 1s, 5s, and 10s. Number stories are also introduced. Number story is another name for what is sometimes called a “story problem’ or a “word problem”. Throughout first grade, we provide exposure to number stories weekly to provide opportunities for children to use a variety of strategies to solve problems.

We have also introduced the children to math tool kits. In our classroom the students have a separate box similar to their book box. We continue to add new materials to our tool boxes and this provides a safe place for the students to get their materials independently.

Some math vocabulary introduced in the month of September includes: number grid, number line, number story, tally chart, tally marks, and toolkit. We have played a variety of games to support their understanding of these math concepts. I will be sending home a copy of a few games next week to play at home so be on the lookout in your child's blue folder!

The focus of this math center was practice numeral writing with Mrs. Saxton. This would be a great at-home activity to reinforce this skill as well!

Do Anytime Activities with your child:

Count orally by 5’s and 10’s while riding in the car. Occasionally count down, or back.

Count numbers of objects around the house and while shopping. Have your child keep track using tally marks. For example, count the number of doors in your house

What else is happening in the Starfish Classroom?

We have Social Detectives with Mrs. Curry and Mrs. Bick every Tuesday morning at 8:30. We learned about our social smarts this week.

Mrs. Lafrance read us the story The Girl Who Never Made a Mistake

Some of us chose to play card games during free choice Fridays

We had fun playing instruments during music class

We invited our new Vice Principal Mrs. Belanger into our classroom to read one of her favorite stories. We get to see Mrs. Belanger all the time since her office is right across from our room!