We had a fun first grade assembly last week. On Monday, a bunch of rainforest animals come to visit. The students' favorites were the pygmy hedgehog and the sugar glider.
Otherwise, here's what we've been working on in the classroom:
Reading : We continued working on our inferring skills last week. At the beginning of the week, we were inferring the meaning of various poems, but by the end of the week we were practicing using our inferring skills in books. Authors don't often tell us exactly how a character is feeling. Usually, we have to infer how a character is feeling through the author's descriptions of his/her actions and behaviors. That's what we were practicing at the end of the week.
Writing : The students are doing a fabulous job with this poetry unit. I can't wait for you to hear some of the students' pieces at the first grade poetry reading at the beginning of June. Last week the students worked on using poetic language to describe various objects and people. Since we've been working on inferring in reading, the students have brought that into their writing and are working on using strong language so that the readers of their poems can infer what they mean. It's fun!
Math : We started our last major math unit of the year last week! This unit is all about deepening the students' knowledge about place value and fractions. Last week, we focused a lot on the number grid - finding patterns, doing number grid puzzles, and using it to add/subtracts with 10s and 1s.
Computers : The students continued working on their ocean animal research projects in computers. Last week, they started to put the research that they gathered into slide show presentations. It will take a few more weeks to complete, but I'm impressed with their work so far!
Here are a few pictures of 1-Bu in action last week :