Curriculum Highlights
Family traditions
First graders have been exploring family traditions as part of our Social Studies curriculum. First, we read Patricia Polacco’s The Keeping Quilt to learn more about traditions. Then, students discussed their family traditions. Finally, they illustrated their favorite family traditions and shared captions to describe them. Enjoy their thinking!
Travel back in time
Extend and enrich our study of the Colonial Era by visiting Plimoth Plantation with your child!
Polishing our personal narrative
Remember our personal narrative about creating our virtual tour of Richards School? Writers in Room 123 have been learning about adding details to make a personal narrative even better, and practiced doing so on our class narrative.
Writers first added details about who and when:
Writers also added details about their emotions, how they feel during the event:
Finally, writers added a title to catch the reader’s attention:
After this guided practice, first grade writers began adding these details to their own personal narratives!
Patterns everywhere!
First grade mathematicians have been learning about visual patterns, and they found many right in our classroom! Working in pairs, students found patterns, photographed them, and then used words to describe the patterns. Check out their learning below:
Writing in Room 123
First grade writers are learning about personal narratives. This week, Room 123 collaborated on a personal narrative about a classroom event: making our tour of Richards School. Students first worked in pairs to recall the event, making sure they remembered what happened at the beginning, the middle, and the end. Then, students wrote this draft together:
Of course, this is a first draft. Over the next few weeks, students will revise this piece as they learn more about makes a strong personal narrative. Keep watching for these revisions!
The Making of “Welcome to Richards!”
When we look at our class blog, one of the things students check out is the ClustrMap that shows where our visitors are from. Students noticed that most of our visitors are from nearby and probably have been to Richards. Some, however, are from farther away and may have never seen our school.
To help these visitors, students decided to use what they have learned about nonfiction text features to create a tour of Richards School. As a class, students identified the most important places in our school for visitors to see. Then, students worked in pairs to take photographs of these key locations and write captions that describe them. Room 123 would like to thank Mrs. Veihmeyer for helping us complete this project!
Enjoy the tour, which follows below!
Welcome to Richards School!
Richards School by Hunter and Ondine
This is our school. The second grades line up here.
Room 123 by Eric and Harry
This is Mrs. Mooney’s class. We learn here.
Our Lockers by Erin and Jaki
These are our lockers. We put stuff in them.
The Playground by Niko and Leyla
This is the playground. We go on this for recess. We can have fun!
The Cafeteria by Michael and Lauren H.
This is the lunchroom. We eat there.
The Art Room by Lauren M.
This is our Art room. We paint in here.
The Gym by Mike and Nate
This is our gym. We play games.
The Music Room by Ben S. and Emilie
This is our school. We took a picture of Mrs. Rottier’s Music Room.
The Library by Thomas and Hannah
This is the Library. You can learn to read and check out books.
The Clinic by Ava and Will
This is our clinic. We go there when we are sick.
The Office by Naomi and Paul
This is the school office. People go here to talk to other people.
New Construction by Ander and Ben G.
We took a picture of the new cafeteria being built.
Exploring nonfiction
Readers in Room 123 have been learning about nonfiction text features, such as photographs, diagrams, and maps. Working in small groups, students combed through old copies of the Weekly Reader to find examples of these features. Then, they created posters to display their findings. The process was a bit messy:
But the end results were fabulous–check them out below!