A Day of Mem Fox

On Friday we had our Mem Fox Celebration Day. What a day full of fun and excitement centered around Mem Fox and her work. The kids began with a Reader's Theatre of Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge. Each student was able to perform in a group. The kids loved it and so did all our guests. Next we went back to our room and did fun activities. We made possum bag puppets - just like Hush from Possum Magic, made our aboriginie art, painted our clay boomerang pins, played vocabulary bingo with words from the unit, and pirate hats just like Tough Boris. It was so busy we barely made it through all our fun activities. Hopefully the kids loved celebrating Mem Fox and her home of Australia. I know they learned so much about her as a writer and enjoyed reading her stories over the last couple weeks. Now we are all better writer's too!

Our Own Todd's Odd Day

What is scruffy?

This week one of our vocabulary words was "scruffy". In the story Tough Boris, Boris Von de Borch is scruffy. While having this discussion, we were giving examples of things that may be scruffy. One of those examples was my dog Maxie. I promised I would take a picture of Maxie in her scruffy stage - right before she needs a hair cut. Sometimes scruffy can be cute!

Story Problems

Over the last couple weeks we have been working on story problems in math. For first graders, this can be challenging. Believe it or not, it doesn't take long for them to learn multiple ways to solve a problem though. Here is one problem that was given to the class with four different ways to solve that problem. Students must show all their thinking with pictures and numbers. As they become better mathematicians through the year, they will also include words to describe their answers.

It's about comprehension!

Throughout our author study of Mem Fox we have been working on different ways to build our comprehension of her work and other literature. One of the favorite things we have done in our classroom has been our Reader's Theatre. Reader's Theatre is a great way to practice fluency, teach intonation, and build comprehension. Our first grader's have loved reading a script of Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge. We have also learned how build comprehension though different graphic organizers. These have included story maps, story webs, character webs, and venn diagrams. Ask your child to tell you about the different comprehension strategies we discussed in class.

What is a student generated rubric?

In Writer's Workshop our goal is not only for us to assess student work but for student's to be able to assess their own work as well. One way that we are able to teach them to do this is through a student generated rubric. When we begin working on a genre of writing, students learn what is important to make that work meet the standard through the mini-lesson. The students are able to practice what is taught during the independent work period. Once they are starting to understand all the elements of that genre, we begin to put together a rubric as a class. It is important that this does not become a teacher rubric but one that the students create. The students decide how we will label the different levels of writing. In this instance, Matthew from our class reminded me that last year I told him we could do the one he wanted on our next rubric. Our next rubric was this year - and yes, Matthew made sure to let me know. So the class voted and they too liked his idea of labeling the different stages of writing as a baby, toddler, and big kid (I just looked for the clip art to go with it). Then the students decide what elements are important to make the writing "its best" such as including a beginning. The students decide what they feel are important in a beginning. From there we decide what should be included on each level. Then we go on to include other elements as we progress through that genre of writing. Through this whole stage, students are using their own words to describe the writing and the elements which they feel are necessary to be a "big kid" writer. Sometimes the students disagree on what something should be called or how it should be worded so we take a class vote to decide. It always amazes me that the children know exactly what makes good writing and set the expectation as high as I would if I were writing it myself. I am also "Wowed" by the language they choose as young writers.

We use this consistently in class to look at work from other students and decide where he/she falls on the rubric. Students use it to determine their own needs as a writer. We also use it when they are reading their work to a partner and helping each other to grow. Check out a piece of work later this week that showcases a piece of work that began as a "toddler" and has grown into a "big kid".

Apples...A Great Book For Fall

Looking for a great book to read as we begin Oct.? Here is a great non-fiction book by Gail Gibbons who is wonderful at writing non-fiction text.