Students are getting more acquainted with the regular routines of First Grade. They have had their second Spelling Pre-test and the workbook pages that help prepare them for Friday’s test are looking more familiar each day.

First Graders are very responsible for their nightly homework page. Packing up the homework folder, completing the work carefully and neatly, and remembering to only use lowercase letters is a challenge everyone is embracing. Then there is the important task of remembering the next morning to take out the folder and place it in the green basket. Everyone is all making much progress!

In just the short time the students have become official First Graders, they already have learned four neat math games that they love to play with a partner. Monster Squeeze is a game that uses the number line and two monsters to squeeze closer and closer to the mystery number. Playing this game helps us to develop language to refer to numbers by using phrases such as “greater than” and “less than”.

Another popular math game is Penny-Dice. Two students each pool a pile of ten pennies to make a bank of twenty. Taking turns the partners roll a die and collect that number of pennies. Play progresses until someone is able to roll the exact number of pennies remaining. Whoever has the most pennies is the winner.

Bunny Hop is a game that uses a number line from 0-20. A bunny hops forwards the number of spaces on the die. Once a player reaches 20, they turn their bunny around and race back to the rabbit hole, represented by zero. Winning is tricky because you must roll the exact number to land on zero.

Top it is an Everyday Math game that has several variations as students move through grade levels. It is essentially a card deck with numbers 0-20 that students shuffle and pile between them. Each student picks up a card and then the player with the highest value card takes both cards. This game is sometimes called “War”. The students can play it on the computer or with a real deck of Everyday Math cards.

Reading activities have focused on learning the names, sounds, and motions for the Open Court sound/spelling cards which hang on the wall of the classroom. The phonics lessons are based on the students’ understanding of these cards as they build their word attack skills throughout the school year. Decodable books such as Chirp and Scat and Little Pat, from Open Court have provided opportunities to put sight words and phonics skills to work while demonstrating comprehension.

Students are learning about how their brain learns and stores information. Using the analogy of a computer’s hard drive students are beginning to understand that the more modalities or senses they use in learning a new concept, the easier it is for their brain to store it for later use. When they say the name of the Open Court card, combine it with a motion and model the sound the letter makes, they are helping their brain to make sense of and place meaning with the visual image.

First Graders are also beginning to use the movie camera inside their brain to create pictures when they listen to a story. We will continue to build on this idea as we listen to stories, share our “movies” and create our own stories. Seeing the details in our movie camera enriches comprehension and enhances written expression.

Laura Jacobsmeyer
First Grade Teacher