In the "Hot Seat" with Tough Borris

During our mini-lesson, we read the story Tough Borris by Mem Fox. After reading the story Ms. Tracy picked two different students to play the part of Tough Borris. The other students were able to ask this character questions. Some of the questions were: " Do you ever cry?" "Why do you wear earings?", "Why are you scary". The students enjoyed this activity.
When reading stories with your child have them pick a favorite character to act out. This is an easy and fun to check if your child understood a character from the story.

Rockin Our Number Sense

Math Choice Time is an important component to our Math Workshop. After learning a few new math games, the students have the opportunity to choose which game they want to play during Choice Time. Our Standards-Based Bulletin Board this month, shows our community what Math Choice Time looks like in our classroom. Previously we introduced the games of On/Off, Counters in a Cup, Roll and Record Addition,


Roll and Record Subtraction, and Double Compare. All the games focus on building number sense. In the game On/Off and Counters in a Cup the students play with 10 chips.


This helps the students learn the different combination of ten. In both games of Roll and Record, the students play the game with two dice. They are working on number combinations of 12. The real focus that we were looking for is "How do the students count the dots?". Do they simply count each dot on each dice? Do they count on by placing the larger number in their head and counting up? Do they know the combinations without counting. Choice Time also allows us to conduct informal assessments as we observe the students playing each game. Many of these games can be played at home, if you are interested in having a copy of the game sheets and directions, just let us know.

Disco Pumpkin

Today, we finished making our class pumpkin for the Literary Pumpkin Festival. The festival is a celebration of fall and literary characters that we have here at Chets Creek every October. This year we decided to continue our disco theme. Each student had the opportunity to glue mirror tiles onto our pumpkin. They also made a dancing body to attach to their picture. The pictures we used are from the beginning of the year when the students had their disco wig on. When you look at the display it looks like the students are dancing under the lights of the disco ball. If you have time, please make plans to come into our front foyer at school. You will be amazed at the creativity of each class.

Where the First Graders Went on a Field Trip

On Friday we took our first field trip this year. We loaded the bus and made our way to the movie theatre where we saw the movie Where the Wild Things Are. The Chets Creek first graders had the entire movie theatre to ourselves. We had an upclose seat to watch the main character of the movie Max, sail off on his private boat to where the wild things are. When Max arrived he and the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws. This fictional story looked as if the characters from the storybook jumped right off of the pages and onto the movie screen. After watching this imaginative tale we were more than ready to visit Sunshine Park where we would eat lunch and enjoy playing with each other. The weather was perfect, although it was just a little hot for October, atleast the skys were blue. We had a great day together!!

Wild Things Fieldtrip from Michelle Ellis on Vimeo.

Open House

Untitled from Michelle Ellis on Vimeo.

Using Strategies To Read

Reading is a complex process and, because of this, no single strategy works best all of the time. In Kindergarten the boys and girls learned strategies that provide a balance between reading strategies, self-monitoring, and cross-checking behaviors. This year in first grade we have been reviewing the reading strategies and taking them a little deeper using harder text. Here is a list of some of the strategies your child should be familiar with.

1.Look at the Pictures - readers make predictions about words based on clues gained from the picture.

2.Point to the Words - young readers to be sure that they are saying the same number of words that are on the page. This is not a strategy they will as they become more proficient readers.

3.Does it Make Sense? Good readers need to make sure that what they have read is logical and sensible.

4.Get Your Mouth Ready - readers need to get their mouth ready for the beginning sound(s) when they are stuck on unknown words.

5.Reread- children reread to use knowledge of oral language and to check meaning.

6. Chunk it - readers break unknown words apart and look for parts that they do know.

Every Day Counts Calendar Math

Each afternoon, we spend 10 minutes learning a variety of math skills through the calendar. We talk about the days of the week and when they fall for this month. For example, September 9th is on a Wednesday. Each number card also has a different picture so we explore patterns. We count how many days we have been in school. Today was day 12. We represent that number using the Tens Frame and with sticky notes that follow a pattern. We also explore the number 12. The number 12 means we have one bundle of 10's and 2 ones. We also use the number 12 to help us count minutes on the clock. Using the 100's chart we practice counting by different numbers like 5's and 10's. The last portion is picking two numbers and writing a word problem to match those numbers. It can either be an addition or subtraction problem. The students make up the problem and write an equation to match. It is a lot of math in a little bit of time. It is a very powerful part of our day. Have your child look at the picture above and teach you about each part.