Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from our first grade family to yours!

I am so blessed to have the opportunity to work with these smiling faces each day!

Questioning

Allow us to introduce you to Quincy the Questioner - a game show host that is constantly asking questions with his microphone!

First grade added a new comprehension strategy, QUESTIONING, to their repertoires before Thanksgiving break.  We now know that readers ask questions, before, during, and after reading.  We ask questions before reading to preview and predict by accessing our schema.  In first grade we know the expensive word schema as the little file in our brain where all of our prior experiences and knowledge is stored.  [Go ahead and try asking your first grader what the word schema is - I bet they surprise you!]  We continue to ask questions during our reading, to not just read, but dig deeper into our understanding.  And finally, we ask even more questions after we finish the text because we may (and almost always) still have some unanswered thoughts or wonderings. 

Take a look at our little questioners using their microphones to ask questions while reading a biography about Dr. Suess:

Ask your child who Quincy the Questioner is, and encourage them to ask questions while reading at home!  You can model this strategy by using who, what, where, when, why, and I wonder statements.

1st Grade Meteorologists

Our weather unit is up and running in first grade! Throughout this unit we will discuss the tools meteorologists use to measure, forecast, and report the weather. We will also conduct a variety of experiments for a hands-on approach. 

Wind speed was our focal point last week. We discussed that wind itself is invisible, so we must use our environment to determine the severity of the wind. Therefore, to informally measure the wind speed we utilized a numerical scale: 0-no wind, 1-some wind, and 2-strong wind. Our first graders created flags as tools to measure the wind speed, and we ventured outside to see the effects the wind had on our flags. 

On this particular day we came to a consensus that that the wind was at a level 1-some wind, with some level 2 gusts on occasion. We confirmed our observations by looking on weather.com to see the specific wind speed for Quakertown. 

Talk with your first grader about the varying experiments we will conduct over the next month and a half. Consider having your child look on weather.com, a comparable weather app, or the local news forecast each day to gain an understanding of how the temperature changes daily and the implications these temperatures have on our clothing choices. 

After Thanksgiving break we will create rain gauges and determine the best fabric to wear on a rainy day. 

Reading Resource

Raz-Kids is a wonderful reading resource to utilize at home with your 1st grader.  The children may listen to books, read books on their own, and then reflect on their understanding of the texts.  The texts presented are on your child's current personalized reading level.  Be sure to check out this resource by using the following link:

http://www.raz-kids.com/main/Login

o   Login

o   Teacher Username: kburrowsg

o   Have your child find his or her name

Don't forget - These books may also be used to log your child's reading each night! 

In addition, our class will be attending the book fair this coming Monday.  If you would like your child to purchase any books please send in their money in a labeled envelope.

Have a great weekend!

Descriptive Writing

We have been using our senses to make our writing more descriptive.  We built on our knowledge of senses from Kindergarten to revise our writing and add details about what we can see, touch, taste, smell, and hear.  Here is a glimpse of our descriptive partner writing about the weather:

"A Sunny Day"

 

We hear some birds.  Chirp!  Chirp!  We see the blue sky.  We smell the flowers.  We Feel the Trees.

 

"A Sunny Day"

 

The wind is cold.  We can see the sun.  We can hear the birds.  We can smell the fresh morning air. 

  

Over the past few weeks we have been learning about and using adjectives. Our first graders know that adjectives are describing words.  This week we brainstormed as many adjectives as we could think of to describe the inside and outside of the pumpkin. 

  

We especially loved feeling the inside of the pumpkin which allowed for some very creative adjectives!

 

 

Have a safe and fun Halloween!





We're on TV!

From time to time the high school broadcasting students visit our classroom and videotape what we are learning.  During our community helpers unit the high school students visited us twice, to document the firefighter and police officer visit.  These videos have been edited and are broadcast on the Quakertown cable channel.  They can also be viewed using the following links:

Firefighter Visit:

 

http://qcsd.pegcentral.com/player.php?video=4ba0a49306341be60f1573530d338e5c

 

Police Officer Visit:

 

http://qcsd.pegcentral.com/player.php?video=474766e7a763b17e5bd1cafb77746add

 

 

Enjoy!

Community Helpers

Community helpers was the topic of our Social Studies learning over the past week and a half. We discussed community helpers such as doctors, nurses, teachers, construction workers, firefighters, mail carriers, and police officers. We  discussed what these professions look like and the tools these community helpers utilize to perform their jobs. 

We were lucky enough to have an officer from the Quakertown Police Department visit our first grade to share about his daily duties and provide us with some important safety tips!  Some of our friends even earned official police badges by answering the officer's questions correctly. 

As we conclude our first Social Studies unit on communities, talk with your first grader about what he or she would like to be when they grow up. As our final project we will be finishing the sentence, "When I grow up I want to be ______ because . . . "

Look for the finished projects in the hallway by our classroom at the end of the week!