Morning Meeting, Guidance, and a special visit!

Morning Meeting

We always begin our day with Morning Meeting. Each day we greet each other, have sharing time, do an activity, and read our morning message. On Thursday, students revisited an activity that is a familiar favorite: Coseeki! In this activity, one student goes to the hall and we choose a "secret leader" in our circle. They guesser then comes back into the classroom and tries to figure out who is leading the class in the motions we are doing. The leader has to be careful not to change the motion while the guesser is looking! We are getting very good at this activity--the guessers are using their power of observation and the leaders are being strategic about when to change the motion to the guesser doesn't see! 

Guidance

Mrs. McCleary, our school counselor, comes in for Guidance lessons weekly. Currently, the class is working on knowing the difference between tattling and reporting. They played a game on Friday to help distinguish the two. Ask a first grader to explain the difference! Be sure to check out Mrs. McCleary's blog to see the latest news in Guidance and for many great family resources.

Community Helpers

As mentioned in an earlier post, our latest social studies unit is about Community Helpers. We were fortunate to have Officer Jeff Fontaine and Chief Jennifer Morrison visit our classroom on Friday afternoon. Mrs. Hughes' class joined us as well. We had prepared questions for the officers, and our students displayed excellent audience behavior. I wonder how many first graders want to be a police officer when they grow up?

Terrific Tuesday!

Our day started with a terrific Morning Meeting activity led by Miss Dube called "A Cool Wind Blows." Ask your child to describe the activity to you. It is a bit like musical chairs, but we get to find out a little bit more about one another. I was proud of how well students maintained self control while also having fun with this movement- and listening-based activity. Hooray, first graders!

The student in the center is saying, "A cool wind blows for anyone ________" and then finishing the sentence. It could be, "The cool wind blows for anyone" who likes pizza, has a brother, likes fishing, is wearing pink, etc.

Students go to the center if they fit that category, and then try to find a new chair to sit. There is one fewer chair than the number of students. So, the person left standing determines the next category. 

Can you find an open spot? Hurry, hurry!

We began a new component of our Reading Workshop today: Read with Someone time. Students were assigned partners today, and each and every partnership worked beautifully! Tomorrow students will choose a partner and they will do this for the rest of the week until next week when everyone will choose a partner to read with for several weeks. Ask your child what EEKK means (hint: it has to do with the way we sit during Read with Someone time). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The photo below is just for fun. One of our math stations is the "Hands On" math station, and it has already included many different materials. Students have choices of what to do during this, as well as other, math stations. The crystal connectors have been a popular choice. Such creative thinkers we have in first grade!

 

Fluency practice, wonderful writing, and math at Morning Meeting...

Fluency Practice:

This week, we added another choice to our literacy station schedule--fluency practice using an app called Audioboo on the iPad. It's a pretty basic recording app, but WOW--student motivation to read independently SOARED last week! I have never seen so many students choose "Read to Self" as their literacy station as they did last week. Hearing themselves read was a huge motivation. Students practiced their reading and recorded it until they thought it sounded fluent. They could then save their fluent recording to share with me/others. If you have a recorder of some sort at home, I'd recommend inviting your child to use it to record their reading. They loved hearing themselves and I heard some pretty amazingly fluent reading! 

Here are a few photos of students using the Audioboo app:

 

 

Wonderful Writing:

These two girls worked collaboratively to write a book about chicks last week. They were excited to share it with our class, and the class was a very appreciative audience!

Math at Morning Meeting:

Math happens a lot more than just during math time! For example, one of our morning greetings last week was the dice roll addition greeting. Students touch the dice on the interactive whiteboard, add the total, and count that many people around the circle. They greet the person they end up facing. For example, if the roll was 3+4+2, they student would count 9 people around the circle and greet the ninth person. Then that person would take a turn rolling and adding until everyone has been greeted. We discussed how it's best to start with the largest number, try to find a fact you know "in a snap" (for example, 4+3=7 and then add the last number, so 7+2=9. I am trying to break the habit of counting all the dots on the dice to determine the total. Counting on is more efficient and having fact power (knowing the sum automatically or with very little thought) is even better.

 

A favorite Morning Meeting Activity...

It was a busy video day in Room 6 today! I have been experimenting with taking videos on the iPad and using various programs to edit/upload them so I can (soon) teach students to use these functions/apps. (Although, I have to say that they might know more than me about some of this!) One of our favorite Morning Meeting activities is "Double This, Double That." Have fun watching the video to learn more!