We’ve had a busy few days in first grade. Here’s a recap of some of the things we’ve been up to:
- Students conducted a water pollution experiment. First, we read aloud Poisoned Rivers and Lakes. This got us thinking about forms of pollution, and we generated a list of natural elements that could impact our water. Collecting those natural elements available to us, we added them to the water, made observations, and found out that we could not remove many of the pollutants from our water.
- Working with toothpicks and marshmallows, students constructed shapes. Simulating the shapeshifter from The Greedy Triangle, first graders started by creating a triangle. As they added sides, students recorded the name of the shape, the number of sides, the number of angles, and a real world example.
- Completing beginning blends last week, students are now working with beginning clusters, or three consonants in which you hear each letter sound. Spelling and word work activities this week are emphasizing the following s-clusters: scr-, spr, squ-, str-, and spl-. Students typed their words, found s-cluster words in books, and tried out a new multisensory activity, screen writing.
- Through a BrainPop Jr. video, first graders have been introduced to the reading comprehension strategy of sequencing. Applying this concept, students worked in pairs to sequence events occurring in our read aloud, The Boxcar Children. We will continue to practice this reading strategy in shared read alouds, individual reading, and writing. Students will be encouraged to look for and use transition words (first, last, next, then, finally, after that, etc.).
