Celebrations!

This week the first graders finished up their first unit of study in both Writers and Readers Workshop.

In Writers Workshop we established the routines and expectations of writing. The students practiced writing stories that have a clear beginning, middle and end and created a list of head and heart ideas to help them get ideas for writing. We have also participated in writing conferences and author's share where the students share and offer feedback to each other about their writing pieces. To celebrate the end of the first unit of study we were invited to Ms. Roger's classroom to partner with second graders and hear some of their writing while we enjoyed a special snack of three-layered "Beginning, Middle and End" cookies. It was a great time.

During September's unit of study in Readers Workshop we also worked hard to establish the expectations of what independent reading looks like and sounds like. Our mini-lessons focused on the habits of strong readers, how readers choose books, thinking and sharing about our books and using our schema to make connections while we read. The new reading vocabulary word that we learned in Reading this week was STAMINA. Just like how athletes need to practice and practice their sport to build up their strength, readers need to practice and practice to get stronger too. That is called build up stamina and the first graders are doing a fantastic job at this.

Next week we will begin new units of study in literacy and the students will be writing personal narratives and learning about just right books and moving into working in small reading groups.

We are also finishing up our first unit in Math. This unit focused on patterning, sorting and counting. We have also been learning about some of the habits of strong mathematicians. We are practicing justifying or "backing up" our thinking by using the word "because", and being respectful mathematicians by letting people have think time before giving answers and disagreeing respectfully. The first graders are doing an amazing job at this and are sounding like stronger mathematicians every day.

We have had a busy and hardworking month and I can't wait to see how much more we grow in October.

Happy Fall!