Tag Archives: first grade

Do You See Letters in Pretzels?

Thursday was an important day in our room.  It was Charlie’s 1/2-Birthday.  And yes, I am regretting now that I don’t have pictures of everyone’s birthdays that we’ve celebrated so far.  SORRY FRIENDS!  And honestly, the reason I have pictures of this celebration is because of what happened.

Long story short is that we were given YUMMY soft pretzels from a local shop near our school.  In true 1st grade fashion, letters started appearing everywhere.

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Look, an A!

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Mine’s an O!

Then kids started seeing all sorts of other amazing things, too!

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I’m pretty sure that Evan’s lifting weights here. 🙂

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Say cheese!

Makayla saw a candy cane!
So did Lauren!
Thomas found another one!
Then Charlie showed us that 7 1/2 really means he's an old man now, and he needed a cane to help him walk! Silly!

Then Charlie showed us that 7 1/2 really means he’s an old man now, and he needed a cane to help him walk! Silly!

What a fun afternoon!  This is another one of the millions of reasons why I LOVE spending my days with first graders!  You just never know what’s gonna happen. 🙂

Why I Blog

As I was rereading my copy of Classroom Blogging by David Warlick today in preparation for work this week with my class, I came across a suggestion I could not resist trying: write about why you blog.  I am have written many times (on this blog!) about why I write, as well as facts about me as a writer, and even what I write about in the summer, but I had never thought to share the reasons why I’ve spent so much time and energy (and I’d say a generous dash of love!) on keeping this blog for the last 3 1/2 years.  I think it’s a great idea and I’m excited to share my thinking!  Hope you enjoy reading it! 🙂

Reasons Why I Blog…

1) REFLECTION

Writing in general is a way to slow down, step back and reflect on how things are going.  For me, my blog allows me a venue to do that with what is going on in my classroom, just like I might do in my Writer’s Notebook about something in my personal life.  I find that as I am planning posts, and am thinking about how best to share my story, I figure out the parts that went right and the parts that could use some improvement.  And honestly, it’s the “not-so-right” parts that I value–it’s in these that I learn the most and grow for the next time.  Plus, as I share them in a public forum, I am hopefully sharing them so that someone else can learn from them, too!

2) INFORMATION

Originally I started my blog for myself, and maybe to share with a few others who could care (probably members of my family! LOL).   Very quickly, though, I began to see it as a tool to highlight the things going on in the little slice of heaven called Robinson School.  And since the families of my students don’t get to be there with us every day, the blog would (and did!) become a sneak peek into what we were learning–and also how we were learning it.  See, more than just the what, I strive to include the thinking behind the why of what we do.   I am hoping to share the methods to my madness and help parents (and other interested readers) understand why I make the educational choices I do.  I have heard from MANY a parent that these tidbits I share with them are priceless and useful conversation starters with their students.  Rather than just asking “What did you do at school today?”, the question can become, “Tell me about….” or “What did you learn when you were…?”  For 5th graders who chose not to share, and for 1st graders who sometimes have already forgotten what to share by the time they get home, the benefits are clear.

3) COLLABORATION and CONVERSATION

Aside from desiring to share information with families, I use my blog as a platform to share information and reflection with other teachers.  I strive to write in a way that is both interesting and inviting, and in a way that will spark a conversation.  It doesn’t always happen, but my hope is that a thoughtful conversation can be started in response to something I write, and that knew knowledge or understanding can be gained by those involved.  I am pretty active on Twitter, and have been throughout my blogging journey, as well.  Honestly, some of the greatest lessons I have learned as a teacher in the last 3 1/2 years have come through collaboration and conversations that stemmed from a connection made either on Twitter or through comments on this blog.  Reading others’ blogs inspires me to try new things or think about something in a new way, and I strive to be that same catalyst for change for others.  I am energized by working with and learning from others, and I especially love when I can add something to a conversation that might result in a new or improved learning experience for both a teacher and their students.

4) RELAXATION

Like I mentioned in the post about why I write (in general), writing is fun for me!  When I started my writing journey as a teacher in 2005, it was to be able to have a resource with which to teach my student writers (i.e. using my Writer’s Notebook entries as mentor texts during mini-lessons and conferences), and to better understand exactly what the act of writing entails from a learner.  What I found out along the way is that I really like it, and it is kind of my go-to stress reliever.  Everyone has that one thing they do when they are worried, stressed or uneasy–for me it’s writing.   And just like the words I put in my Writers’ Notebook, I enjoy writing the stories I tell here.   For some, the idea of spending countless hours outside of school writing about what they did while they are at school seems crazy.  I’ve had many teachers tell me they don’t even think they’d be able to find time to do it anyway.  For me it’s a necessity, and actually makes the work I do while I’m in my classroom a little better.  Well, and ok, I’ll admit that I’ve been called crazy before, so maybe there’s a little bit of that thrown in there, too. 🙂

Thanks to @dwarlick for the inspiration for this post, and for you for reading it!  Now I ask you–why do you blog?  And hey, if you don’t, why not?  I’ve love to hear from you and start a conversation! 🙂

 

 

 

First Grade Math Warm-Ups: Week of January 5-9, 2015

Welcome back to school!  I don’t know what the weather is like where you are (well unless you’re where I am!), but here it has hardly gotten out of the teens and my bones are chilled!  It was nice to be able to be warm and cozy in Rm. 202 with my first grade buddies this week!  Here’s what we studied:

Monday

Again, true story from my life used for our warm-ups.  It really makes them interested in solving the problem when they care about the context!

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Tuesday

This week we’ve been continuing to work on knowing if we should add or subtract.  When we discuss the problems, the question I ask them is not “What answer did you get?” but instead they turn to their partner to tell them what operation they used how they knew what to do.  I am listening for explanations related to the context and what is actually happening, rather than specific clue words.  Just knowing clue words (like “left,” “in all,” or “how much more”) doesn’t always work; depending on how they are used in a problem, they can sometimes mean addition or subtraction.  Or, you can add TO subtract (as in the strategy of counting up), so it becomes even more confusing.

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Wednesday

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Thursday

This problem is an addition problem, but also gets kiddos thinking about multiplication without really knowing it.  They have to really be thinking about the situation–I bought 2 bundles that each cost $20–or they will use the 2 and 20 and just add or subtract them.  It was great to see how many kiddos understood the way the problem worked.

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Friday

The focus with the numbers in this problem was to help mathematicians use known combinations to efficiently figure out unknowns.  Ideally they would see make 5s to make 10 or see a 6 and a 4 to also equal 10.  This idea of grouping connects to our future (well, really continuing) study of place value and addition numbers within 100.

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First GradeMath Warm-Ups: Week of 12-15 to 12-19

Monday

I participated in the St. Louis Hot Chocolate 5K with my family on Dec. 14 and of course I had to use it as a context for a problem of the day!  And yes, it is a true story.  I’m really slow. 😦

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Tuesday

We’ve been working on addition strategies, so the numbers in this one were chosen so that hopefully kids would see the 10 and use it: 6+4 =10 and then 10+7= 17.

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Wednesday

One thing I want my mathematicians to be able to do is think flexibly about numbers.  Sometimes I give the the answer and ask them why it reasonable (or not!).

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Thursday

I’m not sure why I wrote the word tonight on this problem (as it doesn’t make any sense since I wrote it the next morning!), but you get the idea. 🙂  The focus was both on adding a string of numbers, as well as determining whether to add or subtract.  We’re getting really good at knowing when to add and when to take away, by thinking about the context and picturing the situation.

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Friday didn’t have a math warm-up since we didn’t have math.  We had a delightful Winter Party instead!  Hope you had a great holiday break, math friends, and that you’re back into a positive January groove! 🙂

The Actual #10 Tooth

So I made a boo boo when I posted Charlie’s picture the other day, thinking I was more behind with tooth updates than I actually was. 🙂  He was indeed the owner of lost tooth #9 and yesterday Emily told me about the actual #10 tooth.  Not sure if it “counts,” because she lost it at home, but it’s a lost tooth nonetheless. 🙂  Congrats, Em!

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First Grade Math Warm-Ups: Week of 12-8 to 12-12

So excited how these are working out, and how they lead to such great conversations during our math time.  So easy to get math brains thinking early in the day and then letting it simmer all day.  By the time we come back to it at 2:00 it somehow makes even more sense.  LOVE!

Monday

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We’ve been working on doubles a lot lately, during conversations, in groups and by playing games.  The hope is that my mathematicians can then transfer that knowledge to solving problems.  This one let them give it a try.  And since you’re here, let me show you the doubles games we’ve been playing–I think we might have to make a new version of these for every season:

Continue reading →

Interactive Writing Explained

**Disclaimer–I am SO excited to share this post and have been thinking about the right way to write it for a LONG time!  My kiddos worked SO hard on the writing in this story and are rockstars in my book.  THANKS FOR READING!!**

If you have been here for a while then you know that this year is my first year in first grade in a LONG, LONG time!  I got my start there more than a decade ago, then moved on to work with “big” kids for a while and am back to my roots.  Much has changed, but I’m finding that many things have stayed the same–some things are just good teaching.  Best practice.  Good stuff for kids.  Interactive writing is one of those things.  I learned how to do it back then and am being reminded of it’s importance and power with kids today.  Let me explain. 🙂

First of all a definition: interactive writing is a writing experience (often whole group) where teacher and students “share the pen” to create meaningful text together.  The teacher, using what she knows about students and their current understandings about letters, sounds, words, etc., purposefully chooses kids to add certain parts to the composition, building on their knowledge and helping them make connections to new skills and concepts.  This is not done haphazardly, and is best done with planning ahead of time–although I have had some amazing experiences with IW that happens “on the fly.”  Ideally, the texts you compose together because touchstones for future learning; revising and revisiting are part of the process. Continue reading →

Happy Thanksgiving!

The week of Thanksgiving we had a great chance to get together with our Learning Buddies.  We love them!  This time we got to go to their classroom–which was a big deal.  We talked about Thanksgiving and what we’re thankful for, and then made turkeys together.  What a great morning!

I don’t have everyone’s turkey hanging up, but here are a few.  They’re all great–just some kids didn’t want me to take it because they were so excited about giving it to their families. 🙂

Check it out. 🙂

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Math Warm-Ups: First Grade Version–Week of 12-1 to 12-5

For years in 5th grade I posted about Math Warm-Ups and how we used them to get our brains ready for flexible math thinking every morning.  Last year I didn’t use them much–for one reason or another–and this year they didn’t make sense until just recently.  So here we go–join us to see how Math Warm-Ups work with young mathematicians and how we use them to stretch our brains!

Week of December 12-1 to 12-5

Monday

Wait–Monday we didn’t have a Math Warm-Up.  Partly because it was the first day after a really long weekend and also because we had some unexpected freezing rain during the morning rush and it took me 2 1/2 hours to get to school that day!  I did anything but rush to school.  Here’s a picture of how fast we were going at one point.  And believe me, I was being really safe while I took this pic:

 

See that? I think it says 2 miles an hour. On the highway. Seriously.

See that? I think it says 2 miles an hour. On the highway. Seriously.

Tuesday

This was the first day of Math Warm-Ups so I asked a question that I knew everyone could answer easily, as the point was to teach the purpose and procedure more than focus on a math concept.  Still, we were able to pull in many things we’d been working on in math during our conversation about this warm-up.

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Now that I look at that picture, I wish I would have taken one right after we put all the post-its on it, because it was much messier, and that’s actually part of the conversation we had about what we could do with the data we had collected: someone suggested that it needed to be more organized.  I also asked them what question we could answer with the information we had up on the easel.  There were several good ideas, one of which was “Do we have more 6YOs or 7YOs in our class?,” hence why we ended up with two columns of notes.

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It was great to watch and listen when we started to analyze the notes and figure out how many of each age there were: they used what we’ve been learning about grouping objects to count, and recognized that I put them into the same shape as the 10 frames we’ve been looking at lately.  They were similar to what our math racks look like, too, and they quickly and easily saw that there were 7 6YOs on this day and 10 7YOs.  We talked about other questions we could answer, and also talked briefly about how this data could change based on the day (we had 3 friends absent).

Wednesday

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Another one I knew most could answer easily, but a little harder than yesterday.  The focus today was on making sure we followed all the directions of the warm-up: answering the WHOLE question and putting our name on our post-it.  There were still some who did not, so we made sure to talk about that when we reviewed this question during math.  The words LESS and GREATER were also a focus, as was writing the number the way it should actually look–with digits in the right places AND going the right direction (which is still tricky for some friends at this point in 1st grade!).

Thursday

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We’ve been working on flexibility with combinations up to 20, as well as most recently practicing doubles and doubles +1.  This was interesting, then when most kids put 10+9 as their answer (which is probably the easiest combination to figure out).  I noticed many who wrote combos that DIDN’T equal 19, so the conversation was around accuracy as well as how they figured out their answer.  It also told me that as a whole, we need some more practice on this skill!

Friday

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This question was just one to see where we were with fractions, as we’re about to finish up that unit.  The benchmark is just that kids understand 1/2s and 1/4s, but the “extending” on our rubric is 1/3s and I was pretty sure most kids could tackle that as well.  And boy was I right!  Now…I am not entirely sure if kiddos answered these on their own (like they’re supposed to) or if they worked together, so there’s more work to be done, but for the most part you can see that most of those rectangles (which is also part of this unit) are divided into 3 equal pieces!  Even the way I worded the question gave me some information–info that I didn’t expect–when someone said, “I can’t just draw 1 line and make thirds.  Can I draw more than 1?”  Obviously that friend knew what was going on!  I hadn’t done that on purpose, and so made the change on the chart for the rest of the friends who completed it.

This is our first try with warm-ups this year and I am excited to see where they go!  Great job, Rm. 202 friends!  You did an AWESOME job!

Teachers–What kinds of math warm-ups have you done with your class?  Have you tried them with 1st graders?  How did it go? We’d love to hear about what’s going on in your class!  Parents–did you hear about Math Warm-Ups from your kiddo?  What were they saying? 🙂