April 8th:
This past week, we began a new unit in writing on sharing our opinions. In both reading and writing, students are being critical thinkers and sharing their opinions. We are discussing the importance of critical thinking when forming opinions and how our thinking is always improving based on others' ideas and new information. We can use other opinions to make our own opinion stronger, or to change our opinion. We will be forming opinions about their reading and participating in discussions that allow them to hear and analyze other points of view.
We are also writing about our opinions. The kids will act as judges, deciding which item in a collection deserves to win a blue ribbon, or first place. They will write an opinion piece, beginning with a topic sentence then listing three reasons that support their opinion. They will use transition words (first, next, finally) and end with a conclusion statement. Wow! Sounds like fifth grade writing! They will write these pieces to try and convince others to agree with their opinion. They will eventually share these on Seesaw. Once they are finished, you can listen to their opinion piece and see if they can convince you!
Next, they will chose a second place winner and write another opinion piece. They will be learning how to disagree politely and write about someone's opinion they disagree with. After that, we will be taking on the role of reviewers. They will be writing critical reviews about restaurants, toys, movies, etc and supporting their opinions with reasons in order to persuade their readers.
At home, talk about your opinions on various topics together and discuss your reasons on why you/they feel they way you/they do. Once they share their opinion pieces on Seesaw, listen and give them some feedback. Did they convince you to agree with them? Have a conversation about it at home.
This past week, we began a new unit in writing on sharing our opinions. In both reading and writing, students are being critical thinkers and sharing their opinions. We are discussing the importance of critical thinking when forming opinions and how our thinking is always improving based on others' ideas and new information. We can use other opinions to make our own opinion stronger, or to change our opinion. We will be forming opinions about their reading and participating in discussions that allow them to hear and analyze other points of view.
We are also writing about our opinions. The kids will act as judges, deciding which item in a collection deserves to win a blue ribbon, or first place. They will write an opinion piece, beginning with a topic sentence then listing three reasons that support their opinion. They will use transition words (first, next, finally) and end with a conclusion statement. Wow! Sounds like fifth grade writing! They will write these pieces to try and convince others to agree with their opinion. They will eventually share these on Seesaw. Once they are finished, you can listen to their opinion piece and see if they can convince you!
Next, they will chose a second place winner and write another opinion piece. They will be learning how to disagree politely and write about someone's opinion they disagree with. After that, we will be taking on the role of reviewers. They will be writing critical reviews about restaurants, toys, movies, etc and supporting their opinions with reasons in order to persuade their readers.
At home, talk about your opinions on various topics together and discuss your reasons on why you/they feel they way you/they do. Once they share their opinion pieces on Seesaw, listen and give them some feedback. Did they convince you to agree with them? Have a conversation about it at home.
February 28th:
We have been working hard on making our own "teaching" or Non-Fiction Informational books! To the left are some of the charts we have hanging in our classroom that we have learned about to help us with this process. The students have created a Table of Contents, been writing their different chapters for their books, and as of yesterday, learned how to write a great introduction to add to their books. Their books have been quite impressive! Be sure to ask your child what teaching books he or she has written or is currently writing in class! Ask them what "craft moves" they have added to their books so far. Craft moves are the different writing crafts that we've learned from other non-fiction authors and texts, such as using our pictures to teach our readers, twin sentences to help our readers understand new words or more about our words, and comparisons to help our readers be able to visualize or "get a picture" of what we are trying to teach.
We have been working hard on making our own "teaching" or Non-Fiction Informational books! To the left are some of the charts we have hanging in our classroom that we have learned about to help us with this process. The students have created a Table of Contents, been writing their different chapters for their books, and as of yesterday, learned how to write a great introduction to add to their books. Their books have been quite impressive! Be sure to ask your child what teaching books he or she has written or is currently writing in class! Ask them what "craft moves" they have added to their books so far. Craft moves are the different writing crafts that we've learned from other non-fiction authors and texts, such as using our pictures to teach our readers, twin sentences to help our readers understand new words or more about our words, and comparisons to help our readers be able to visualize or "get a picture" of what we are trying to teach.
January 13th:
Just like in reading, we are introducing Non-Fiction into writing, as well. The students are learning how to write "teaching books" to teach about a topic they feel they know a lot about. The other day, the students brainstormed an "Expert List" of topics they felt they could teach others about. They will use this list as we continue this unit to help them come up with their topics for their writing. Be sure to ask them about some of the topics they chose to add to their "Expert List". To the left is a picture of a poster we will be reviewing in class to help us with this writing unit.
Here are some of our focuses during this unit of study:
*Writing informational books to teach others about a topic.
*Breaking down and organizing a topic into important parts (chapters)
*Using words and pictures to teach important information.
*Including non-fiction text features such as table of contents, headings, labels, captions, close-ups, and bold words.
November 11th:
We are focusing on....
*Learning more about crafting small moment, narrative stories
*Making our stories come alive by making our characters talk, move and feel
*Telling our stories in small steps using transition words
*Using mentor texts and trying out some of the strategies we see other authors use
*Beginning to edit our work for best spelling, upper/lowercase letter usage, and punctuation
You can help at home by:
*Ask your child what they are writing about
*Ask what they are trying to make their stories "come alive"
*Pick small writing tasks to practice correct letter formation and upper/lower case usage (when they are making sight word flash cards is a great time for this!)
October 15, 2018:
Right now, we are working on writing and telling "small moment" stories from the events in our lives. A small moment is one moment from our day. Unlike a huge "watermelon story," such as a trip to Disney Land, a small moment is a "seed story" - or one event from our trip, such as riding on Splash Mountain. First graders love to tell stories! They come in everyday with a story about going to the park, loosing a tooth, or playing with friends. But sometimes they struggle with coming up with ideas to write about. As they share their stories, tell them, "That would make a great small moment for you to write about at school!"
In Writer's Workshop, I teach them to go through the Writing Process. Our steps are:
1. - Think of an idea. For a small moment, this could be something you do (like riding my scooter or going to gymnastics), or something that has happened to you (like getting caught in a rain storm or making cookies with Dad.)
2. - Plan I tell them this is the most important! We will learn various ways to plan our story. Right now we are thinking about what happened first, then next, then after that and are "touching and telling" (touch each page as you tell the story out loud and think about what would go on each page), then sketch (draw a quick sketch on each page to help you remember your plan)
3. - Write! As you can see, we don't begin with writing our story!
4. - Revise I tell them, "When you think you're done, you've only just begun!" We add detail to our story using "spider legs" and think how can I make my story better?
5. - Edit We check spelling and punctuation. We are talking about leaving spaces between our words, writing with lower-case letters, learning strategies for spelling words we don't know, and using punctuation. Of course not all of our spelling is expected to be correct! We focus on the patterns we are learning in our Words Their Way sort, and we use our Word Wall to help us spell. First graders spell phonetically and that is what we want them to do for most words right now.
Ask your child to tell you about the small moment stories they are writing in class!