What have the 1M O.W.L.S Been Up To?

We have had a very busy past few weeks in Class 1M!The children are all doing such wonderful work!

We have been learning about different types of communities and community workers. We have been reading many different books about people that work in our communities and books about places in our communities. We learned that community workers provide us with goods and services. On Thursday we went on a class trip to the Warren Township Municipal Building. We got to meet some very important community workers up close. The trip was organized by Mr. Heiss. The children were able to go to the police station and learn about what police officers do, dispatchers, and even a SWAT team member. We were fingerprinted and even went to jail!

Then we met with Firefighter Burns and we learned all about fire safety. We learned to stay low and go, go, go.

We learned to Stop, Drop, Roll, and Smoosh.

We learned a lot from the firefighters. Ask your child to tell you all about it!

We also met the judge and he talked to us about his job. Everyone got to bang the gavel and say, "Order in the court!" We had such a fantastic time. Thanks so much to Ms. Tamm and Mrs. Payami for chaperoning on our trip.

Technology
This week we used the IPads to do a fun activity in Social Studies. We were learning about different places in our communities and we decided to make a map of the Lower School. First the children came up with a list of rooms/offices that first graders use in the Lower School. Then Each child picked a different classroom/office and went to that room and sketched the main things in that room. We went back to our room and then we used the Doodlebuddy Ap and created a picture of that room for our map of the LS. After everyone was finished we used the IPads and put them together in the correct order to make an IPad map of the LS! It was so much fun!

We also used the IPads to write number stories in Math and practice our addition and subtraction facts.

Reading

We have been working on the short i and o sounds and the different word families for each sound. We have also been working on using chunks to help us decode unfamiliar words. We worked on making predictions and sequencing stories. We learned that all stories have a beginning, middle, and end. We read Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and then together we drew/wrote what happened in the story and made a large retelling chart. Then we identified the beginning, middle, and end of the story and we saw that the middle is the longest part of the story! We worked on these skills in our reading groups and in our literacy centers. In our centers we worked on listening to a story and sequencing the events, stamp a short i and o word family, string a sight word,Roll a Word, and sequencing.

In Math, we have been working on addition and subtraction to 12. We learned the concepts of addition and subtraction. We learned how to use counters, draw pictures, and use a number line to add and subtract.We woked on horizontal and vertical addition and turn around facts. We also read and wrote our own number stories. We wrote Fall number stories and played Go Fish for sums of ten and we also played Domino Top It.

In Science we began our unit on Weather. we made a KWL chart about weather. We learned about what weather is and the different types of weather. We talked about how forcasters make predictions and we have started to graph the daily weather. This week we will learn about temperature and the sun and do some fun experiments!

Writing

We have been working on letter and number formation, using capitals and punctuation,and proper spacing.

After reading many different versions of There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly, the children wrote their own versions of the popular rhyme. First each child thought of a theme for their story. Then they made a list of six things that the old lady swallowed in size order. Then they had to think of a repeating pattern that rhymed(ex: I don't know why she swallowed a shell, Perhaps she'll tell!). Then they wrote their own version and created their very own old lady and props to retell their story. They did a spectacular job! On Friday we shared our stories and they were all wonderful! The stories and projects are hanging on the bulletin board in front of our classroom. Stop by and read the stories. They are adorable!