Opinion Writing: Reviews

Throughout the marking period 1st grade has been working on opinion writing. You may recall your child bringing in a variety of items they collect in order to choose one item from their collection to award with the 'blue ribbon.' We have since moved into writing reviews.  The children chose a restaurant, movie, toy, etc. to review and have published their best piece.  All of the reviews are currently displayed outside the 1st grade classrooms.  

In order to give the children a clear audience and show them the purpose for writing reviews by illustrating how people read reviews to make informed decisions, we have displayed the reviews outside the 1st grade classrooms.  Teachers and students have been invited to read through the reviews and place a thumb underneath any review(s) they found helpful.  The children are LOVING that their writing is being constantly read and look forward to seeing who found their review helpful and any feedback that was left.  

The next time you read a review on Amazon or sift through reviews trying to find a new book or restaurant show your child to allow them to see that the writing they're doing in school has real world applications!  Also, when you are in the building or picking up your child from school have them bring you to the back hallway where the 1st grade classrooms are located to read you their review!  

Geometry and AMAZING Animals

Geometry

This week we began our unit on geometry.  We spent the week discussing plane shapes (circle, triangle, square, rectangle, trapezoid, rhombus, and hexagon) and their attributes.  We made designs with our shapes and graphed how many of each shape we made, used pattern block templates to trace shapes, and played 'Make my Design' and 'Secret Shapes.'

You can play the 'Secret Shape' game with your child at home.  One player thinks of a secret shape and describes the characteristics of the shape to their partner.  The partner uses their knowledge of shapes to guess the secret shape.  Then players rotate.  Encourage your child to be specific in their clues and differentiate between the many 4-sided shapes by using amount of sides, corners, curved lines, straight lines, diagonal lines, equal sides, etc.  

Next week we will begin our study of polygons and 3D shapes.  The following 3D shapes will be taught: sphere, cylinder, cube, cone, pyramid, and rectangular prism.  I guarantee your child will come home singing THIS song at some point next week!

AMAZING Animals

Over the past two weeks we have focused on an informational text entitled Amazing Animals.  The book was brimming with facts about animals and focused on the special adaptations animals have to survive and grow in their environment.  For example, dolphins have tail flukes to allow them to swim faster.  And did you know a polar bear's fur is actually clear and only looks white due to the reflection of the sun?  Our 1st graders chose one animal that they felt had the most amazing adaptation to give an award to and support their opinion with facts.  

Consider going to the library and taking out a few nonfiction animal texts to discover more animal adaptations!