GoNoOdle!

With all of the hard work and thinking happening in 1-Thomson, of course we need some "brain breaks!"  Using GoNoodle.com, our class looks forward to yoga with Maximo or doing a little dance to the music!  It helps us to get the wiggles out!  The more brain-breaking we do, our GoNoodle mascot gains more strength and grows bigger and bigger. Here we are brain-breaking while practicing counting by twos!

Building Number Bonds

What is a Number Bond?

Each day begins with our math calendar routine and our Math in Focus lesson for the day.  We are currently practicing number bonds.  The children have been building numbers to ten and breaking them into parts in several different ways.  We have built bonds using scales, connecting cubes, teddy bears, and even pumpkins!  Ask your child to show you some number bonds at home. They are almost number bond experts!

Practice number bonds using the mathszone website:

http://mathszone.co.uk/number-facts/number-bonds-to-10/

Number Bond Example

A Week with Kevin Henkes

Adding character traits to our character map

It was a busy week in 1-Thomson!  The children are settling into the routines of first grade and there is wonderful learning happening!

This week, we studied one of my FAVORITE authors and illustrators-Kevin Henkes (check out his website-http://www.kevinhenkes.com/)!  We read several of his popular stories such as "Chrysanthemum", "Wemberly Worried", "Sheila Rae, the Brave", and "Lilly's Big Day" to name a few.  The children enjoyed discussing and comparing the character traits of Wemberly, Sheila Rae, and Chrysanthemum while practicing their retells of the beginning, middle, and end.


(CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.3: Describe
characters, settings, and major events in a
story, using key details)
.

Fun with Pete the Cat!

Writing Book Reviews

Last week, we spent our reading time exploring the popular Pete the Cat books written by Eric Litwin.  Pete is such a cool cat!  Ask your child to tell you about his or her favorite Pete the Cat story!  We had so much fun reading and rereading "Rocking in My School Shoes", "Too Cool for School", "I Love My White Shoes", "Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons", and "Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses".  We discussed Pete's character, sequenced events from each story, and then wrote a book review of a favorite Pete story to end the week!  As Pete would say, "It's all good..."

Watch Pete the Cat videos from your home computer or tablet and follow along with your favorite book!
 http://www.harpercollins.com/childrens/feature/petethecat