Community
Community in action
Having fun while helping others–who could ask for anything more?
Students in Room 123 celebrated the start of Thanksgiving Break by creating blankets for Project Linus. Then they enjoyed a snack of trail mix and fruit salad to which they had all contributed.
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Special thanks to Mrs. Beno for organizing this event, to all the families who contributed, and to second grade teacher Mrs. Defenbaugh for sharing information on Project Linus!
Lessons for life
How can I be a good friend? That’s the question students in Room 123 have been pondering.
They read and analyzed fiction texts looking for answers, inferring important lessons from the stories. Finally, they took their thinking to the deepest level: applying those lessons to their own lives.
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Lessons about friendship
How can I be a good friend? Students in Room 123 have begun reading stories to find answers to this question! At the same time, they are learning how readers make sense of fiction texts.
After enjoying a first reading of Kevin Henkes’ Chester’s Way, they reread and retold the story to make sure they understood and remembered important events. Then they took their thinking deeper by analyzing the characters, using evidence from the text to support their thinking.
They identified the problem and solution found in the story, again using evidence from the text to do so.
Finally, they gathered together to discuss the lessons from the story.
Using their earlier thinking, they identified several important lessons that help answer our big question.
Over the next few weeks, readers will continue reading fiction texts to explore this question. They will also begin moving toward greater independence by analyzing texts with partners or in small groups. Watch for updates!
Adding to the feast
Readers in Room 123 recently read and analyzed Stone Soup. During discussion, they identified several important lessons to be found in this folk tale.
Then readers extended their thinking by considering how to apply these lessons to their own lives. During discussion, students identified topics for which they have a great deal of schema. Whenever it is called for, they will contribute their expertise on these topics to our classroom learning!
Keeping our promise
In the first days of school, students in Room 123 wrote our Class Promise. Since then, they have been thinking about and discussing what it means to keep that promise.
This week, students performed short skits showing both how to and how not to follow our promise. They worked in small groups to plan and rehearse their skits and then performed them for each other. After each skit, the audience discussed how the actors did and did not keep the promise.
That students have truly begun to understand our Class Promise was evident throughout this project: they acted on our Class Promise as they worked together to act it out!
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Becoming a community of learners
Students are building a community of learners in Room 123! An important step in that process is writing our Class Promise.
Developing this important document took several days. Students first shared what they most want to learn about in first grade. Then we discussed how we all will need to act in order to achieve these learning goals. Using ideas from this discussion, we wrote our Class Promise. We all signed this document to demonstrate our commitment to learning and to each other. Take a look!
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Technical note: Smilebox users were advised that the latest update to Adobe Flashplayer resulted in a glitch that causes the photos to appear in black-and-white. If this is the case for you, please know that Smilebox is working on a fix.
Wavin’ Flag
First graders at Richards Elementary connected with the world through their performance of Somali rap artist K’naan’s Wavin’ Flag. This song was the 2010 FIFA World Cup anthem; many bilingual versions of this song became popular hits. Special thanks to Mr. Loebl, first grade music teacher!