Monday, February 29, 2016

Thank you to our Mystery Readers!



Mrs. McKenna and J.J.




Mr. Vale and Lucas




Mrs. Denton and Thomas



Ms. Brooks and Lucas


Judging from the smiles on these faces, it's safe to say that Mystery Reader is a very popular part of the first grade experience.  Thanks for taking time out of your busy days to spend time with us.  :)







Weather


Essential Question:
How does the weather affect living things?

We joined Mrs. Gouzie's students for a science lesson with Mr. Prazar!  The focus of the lesson was on how local plants and animals are affected by the warmer weather.



 Mr. Prazar challenged our students to work together to create the “warmest” water bottle! Each group got to design an outfit for their water bottle using various materials- only 2 materials could be used! After, we put our water bottles in a cooler to see if the temperature would stay the same or drop depending on what we wrapped our water bottles in. :-) Ask your first grader what their group dressed their water bottle in!ll





We also had a fun time playing a game that taught us whether or not snow is useful for animals while hunting! Some students were mice trying to get away from the blindfolded animal. The animal was blindfolded because when there is a heavy snowfall, the animal has trouble seeing or hunting for the mice because they burrow under the snow! They have to rely on their other senses to hunt, which can make hunting very tricky. Which animal do you think found the snow useful- the mice…or the blindfolded fox!?



We returned to the classroom to check on the water bottles.  Check with your child to see whether the water temperature stayed the same, got warmer, or became colder.


We are really looking forward to our next lesson with Mr. Prazar!

Until then, have your child view some of the National Geographic Kids videos on weather:























Sunday, February 28, 2016

Opinion Writing

As part of the Common Core Standards for Writing, first graders should be able to: "Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or name the book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some
sense of closure."

I have been teaching the children to remember the important elements of an opinion piece with the acronym OREO,
to which they can all relate!!

Here is a graphic organizer used in the classroom to help the children organize their thinking before they start writing.  See if your child can explain to you how OREO relates to opinion writing.



After reading the book Duck! Rabbit!, I asked the children to write about their opinion.  Did they think the creature in the book was a duck or a rabbit? The children organized their opinion piece like an OREO:

O:  State your opinion
R:  Give a reason
E:  Explain your reason
O:  Restate your opinion

The children know to include at least two reasons in order to make the piece stronger.
We also discussed several appropriate sentence starters...


I made this activity that much more meaningful by connecting it to our math chapter which focused on picture and bar graphing.
After writing about our opinions, the children made both picture and bar graphs to organize the data.



Ask your child what his/her opinion was and why.  Be sure they give you at least two reasons.  :)


The following are mentor texts we've used during our Opinion Writing unit.  Click the link below each book to hear it being read.

Red is Best