The Rooney Review
January 6th, 2017
ELA/Reading: ​Our anthology story this week was ​The Farmer In The Hat​. Stories
that accompanied the anthology this week included ​School: Then and
Now​, ​It is time to get in line,​ ​A Class​, ​At School​, and ​Sleuth:​ “A
Mentor for James. Each story focused on the question of “how is a
school a community?”. First graders wrote about differences in our
school and the schools we read about in the books.
Writing:
First grade writers continued with their chapter books this week. On
Tuesday, first graders chose one story (or began a new one), with the
focus on writing an exciting introduction. On Thursday, we focused on
the ending of the chapter book. We looked at examples of books and
discussed ways to introduce what the chapter book is about, and
found fun ways to ‘say goodbye’ in the book. Our next few sessions
with writing will include choosing a final story to publish, working on
editing it and doing a final revision.
Phonics:
We moved into BIG stuff in first grade phonics! Remember the
“silent e” from grade school? Well, your first graders worked with it
this week. One first grader called it “bossy e” because it tells the
first vowel to say its name. This week, we thought of long /a/, or a_e
words, wrote long /a/, a_e words and read them as well. We played a
game with a “magic E” wand that turned short /a/ vowel words into
long /a/ vowel words. First graders also learned the bossy e changed
the “g” sound of the letter g into the “j” sound (sag becomes sage).
This silent e, bossy e, a_e concept can be a challenging one
(particularly to those who have not yet mastered all the short vowel
sounds), and is one we will be working with for the remainder of the
school year.
Math:
We have shifted into geometry for the next month or so. We started
our geometry unit by looking at, identifying, and naming traits of plane
(flat) shapes. First graders should be able to identify and name
squares, rectangles, triangles, circles, ovals, trapezoids,
rhombus’ and hexagons.
When describing plane shapes, we talk about how many straight lines
and how many points are on the shape. In some cases the straight
lines are equal length, and some are shorter,longer. Working with
pattern blocks, first graders looked at how some shapes can be used
to make others. They created a design with a hexagon and a triangle,
and then found 5 other ways to create the same design using
different pattern blocks. Finally, students recorded the data about
making the differen designs on a chart. During independent work,
students walked around the room doing a “shape hunt” and recorded
the many different shapes they found.
Sing-A-Long​ We are continuing with our weekly sing-a-long with both first grade
classes. This week we sang “The Rattlin’ Bog”, “Aikendrum”, “Happy
and you know it”, and moved along while singing “Hi, my name is Joe”.
EI/Stem:
First graders are doing some fun winter stem activities for the next
few weeks. This week, first graders brainstormed ways to make a
sled go as far as it could go down a ramp. They could use a ruler,
cardstock, tape, and unifix cubes to create a ramp. The bottle cap
was the sled that went down the ramp. Each group created 3
different ramps, and measured the height of the ramp, and how far
the cap slid away.
Big Friends:​ First graders and Big Friends got together the week prior to vacation
to exchange some class-made gifts. This week we worked on
geometry challenges together.
Other News:
✐ Many thanks for all the Box Top support! Our class won an ice
cream party for the November/December box top collection!
✐ Scholastic book orders went home yesterday. If you would like to
order, please send back to school (or you can order online) by Friday,
January 13th.
-Mrs. Rooney :)