Addition, Retelling, Creating

We have been covering addition and will move to subtraction next week.  Keep your students counting forward and backward to help them with these concepts.  The skill we, the first grade teachers at our school, like to focus on is counting on.  We are also starting to work on memorizing math facts and beginning timed addition tests.  Be on the lookout for these tests coming home to see how your child is doing.  We will start out slowly, and then move on to more facts as the students become more proficient at addition and subtraction concepts.

Here is a little activity we did to create a math problem and solve it using addition:

For reading, we used the story of The Little Red Hen to review and practice sequencing, retelling, and summarizing.  First we looked at pictures, discussed what was happening, and agreed what order they should go in:

Next, we came up with a simple summary of the story:

Then, we came up with a play for the story, a format which tied in nicely with the play we read in our anthology, The Rope Tug:

Finally, we drew some scenery and made finger puppets to retell the story.  The kids noticed that the book characters and the puppets were different.  I explained that there are different variations of this story using different animals.  When we do a more in depth study of the setting of a story I am planning to create our own story patterned after The Little Red Hen set in the jungle or any habitat they are interested in.  I wonder what animals the children will choose.

We recently completed a class story using a simple sentence frame and some cards that have labeled pictures of items in the classroom.  After reading The Three Little Kittens by Lorianne Siomades

the students made this:

Click here to find the original book:
http://www.betterworldbooks.com/9781563978456-id-9781563978456.aspx

 A simple activity like this gets the children excited over their reading.  They begin to own it.  I loved seeing their smiles as we read through their pages.   Not only did they review vocabulary for classroom items but they also studied a simple story structure.

Note: All of these activities did not supplant the curriculum.  They supplemented it.

      

Favorites in the Classroom

Last week's parent conferences were great.  I very much enjoyed meeting with this class of parents, and I am excited about working together toward every student's success.

During that week I was given a chance to do some review and change up the pace a bit.  I read a few more of my favorite books.  One of the students pointed out that I have more than one favorite.  That is true.  I get excited about many of the stories I am able to share in class and only wish I had more time to do so.  Here are a couple of books that the students enjoyed as much as I did:

Harry and The Lady Next Door by Gene Zion:

 http://www.betterworldbooks.com/9780064440080-id-9780064440080.aspx


and

Olivia and the Missing Toy by Ian Falconer:

http://www.betterworldbooks.com/9780689852916-id-9780689852916.aspx

Both of these stories kept the students listening to hear what was going to happen next.  There was just the right balance between keeping the reader questioning, guessing, and laughing.  They are perfection between two pieces of pressed cardboard.  The illustrations and excellent writing are an unbeatable combination.  Just ask your child.

Parents, in your booklet from Back to School Night is a list of questioning strategies that would work very nicely with these stories.  I hope you get a chance to read them.