1D Superstars

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Talk Like a Pirate Day Mystery Reader

We knew we were going to have a guest come to our classroom, but we did not know who it would be. Imagine our surprise when a Pirate showed up at our classroom door! Mrs. Connick read Pirates Don't Change Diapers.

Wearing our eye patches. Arghh matey!

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Peter H. Reynolds

Peter H. Reynolds Website

Sunday, September 4, 2016

First Week in 1D

We had a busy first week in 1D! We are learning names, getting to know our classmates, thinking about hopes and goals for the year, brainstorming ideas during writing workshop, reading independently during reading workshop, and thinking like mathematicians during math workshop. We are adjusting to having lunch in the BIG dining hall and we are enjoying the new spaces available to us during recess. Next week we will choose our class name and we will add more components to each workshop time. Here are a few photos from the week:

Brainstorming IDEAS during Writing Workshop. Writers write about what they know.

Fidget Friday - working with Wikki Sticks

More Wikki Sticks - Notice some names, some words and even a hockey rink made of Wikki Sticks!

Our First Math Challenge - Make a smaller rectangle from the piece of paper. The second challenge was to make a triangle from the paper. The final challenge took some real thinking and perseverance: Fold the paper to make a circle. Kids first said "impossible". Then..."I'll try" and "Sure...we can figure it out!" Love this - an early example of growth mindset during our math lesson.

Mrs. Mason read The Principal From the Black Lagoon to the first graders. She talked to us about her job as Head of Lower School and she told us that she used to be a teacher in the very classroom where she read to us (Mrs. Schreiber's current first grade classroom).

Mrs. Mason - Head of Lower School

Fourth Grade Buddies

First graders have fourth grade Buddies and we were lucky to meet our buddies the very first week of school. The 1D Kids are buddies with Mrs. Bring's 4th graders. During the first buddy meeting, the children learned a bit about their partner's favorites and they explored the first grade classroom together. We plan to meet with buddies about once a month.

Read to Self

We spend lots of time at the beginning of the year building our routines and getting ready for the learning ahead. During the first week of school we started Read to Self - part of our Daily 5 Literacy block - a part of Reading Workshop in the 1D classroom. During Read to Self each student finds his/her very own book nook (personal reading space). The goal is to allow readers to have uninterrupted reading time. Right now we are working to build reading stamina - with a focus on reading quietly while staying in the book nook space. We want to add more minutes of reading stamina every day. You can see there are many options for comfortable reading spaces in our classroom!

Math Workshop

For our first few math workshops of the year we are using some lessons from Jo Boaler - a mathematician at Stanford University. We watched a video called Brains Grow and Change. We learned that there is no such thing as being born with a "math mind". We know that we can have a math mindset and we plan to have fun, use lots of strategies to solve problems, and keep on trying even if we have trouble the first or second or third time.