I have good news... we are DONE with ABC books! That unit is over and we were glad to see it go! For the next 6 weeks we will be studying animals using fiction and nonfiction texts. This topic will blend into social studies where we will study maps, habitats, continents, and landforms. (Landforms are not exactly in the first grade standards, but they are in second and my soldiers are going to be prepared!)
The story in our Houghton Mifflin reading book was a good jump-off story. (if you check out the link, you'll find some great strategies and games for your student that goes along with their story for the week.)
Our story was Minerva Louise at School. It's a story about a hen who finds a "big, fancy barn" and is excited to go home to share all that she learned.
I like that this story opened my students minds to the difference between fiction and nonfiction stories. When I explained the difference, my students went into a discussion as to why this story could go into either category.
Fiction- chickens don't really go to school. Chickens wouldn't think everything was something else. (like the baseball was an egg) Chickens wouldn't decorate their nests like she does in the end.
Nonfiction- Chickens are real. Schools are real and you can learn in them. You might have a chicken at school for show-and-tell.
Impressive, right?! To keep some feathers being ruffled, I went on to explain about realistic fiction. Some parts could really happen, but you can still tell the story is imaginary.
Here is our chart showing what Minerva confused in the story. (just look over the mistakes!)
Tomorrow we will use a nonfiction book to go into detail about chickens, or farm animals in general, and the next HM story in their book.
Here are the terms we are going to need for this week. The "K" is for kindergarten review, and the 1 is for first grade terms. Not a huge difference as far as I could tell.
I didn't change their centers this week since they only did one day of centers last week. I also didn't give their spelling tests today. I wanted my kids to have one extra day to study the words from last week, so they will be tested tomorrow. Here are my soldiers hard at work on their centers!
This is a picture of Team 2's center- Read, Build, Write. This is my vocabulary center and this one's topic was gardening. (this center was found at Homeschool Creations.) Our science lessons last week revolved around healthy habits, and gardens grow healthy food!
The last picture is a comprehension center, much like my fluency center. Students have to put the story back in order.
Social studies was awesome today! We started by adding vocabulary on the board, and we came up with definitions as we went.
We didn't get to finish it, but we made a chart of the ones we covered today. (the definitions are not too technical- the students covered the big points!)
Next is a lake- a larger body of water. Last is a cave- a hole in a hill or mountain. (the students are looking through the hole into the cave)
The others were ones that had movement, so I had to get a video of those!
*sigh. We are so brilliant.
Ms. Hancock took video of us singing our Continents song, but it was too big to add to this post. It gets one of its own!
Our Daily Brain
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