First of all, I want to remind everyone about our school-wide Math Open House, which is taking place next Tuesday at 7:45am-8:30am. Parents and family members are invited to visit their children's math classes to see math materials and math games used in our new math program Bridges. We are very excited about this opportunity to meet with all of you and hope you will stop by. At 8:30am, parents and family members are invited to an open "Questions and Answer" session at the ABS gym, where Caitlin Bianchi, our school math coordinator, will answer any questions you might have about your child's math program. I look forward to seeing you on Tuesday morning but please know that you are always invited to visit our classroom. Just email or call me. We are so fortunate to have so many involved and interested parents in our class and enjoy having you join our class. Thank you for all of your support and all you do to enhance your child's education at ABS.
Our author study on Jan Brett is coming to an end. Throughout this unit, the students have explored Jan Brett's breadth of artisitc talent as we have attempted to make connections between reading, writing and art. By reading her books, the students have carefully studied her illustrations to learn how they themselves, as authors, can extend their stories through detailed illustrations. For example, we learned that we can give hints, or foreshadow, what will happen by creating additional pictures in the margins. We also learned that her stories often include many different animals, always set in a specific setting. As a class, we finished our own interactive story, which we are now illustrating using the online application storyjumper. We have created many storyjumper books in the past, some of which I have shared with you in both hard-cover format but also as an online book format (please scroll down for older posts to see these books). I have set up a class account, which the students access in partnerships. When the book is finished, we will of course share it with you. We also hope to share it with Jan Brett herself. If your child wishes to use storyjumper at home, please let me know and I will help you set up an account. It is easy, but for now, please refrain from using our class account, in case your child remembers the log-in information. Thank you.
Here is a picture of some of the story-quilts we completed in class as we carefully looked at the characters, the setting, the problems and the solutions to Jan Brett's books.
This week, the students continued their study of non-fiction elements. We visited the library twice to learn more as Ms. Wentz shared some smartboard tools and interactive games. We had so much fun and many new features of non-fiction books. Ask your child to explain what a heading is. Also ask your child what a caption is, wny glossaries are important and how the index can halp us navigate these types of books.
In math, 1st graders continued their integrated unit of penguins. Students continued to learn about measurements and number sense, through our new games and work places. We hope to share some of these next week at the Math Open House.
Thank you all so much for contributing to our wonderful Valentine's Day party this week. The students had so much fun sharing treats and cards with each other. We also enjoyed special snacks with each other. What a terrific day we had. Thank you all for your generous contributions.
Have a great rest of the week and weekend.
Regards,
Maria
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