We are all poets and didn't even know it… and much more!

We have been very busy in these last few weeks.  I have many pictures to share with you.  From asking questions during reading, to creating our own Onomatopoeia, to poetry,  and even a cooperative Thanksgiving project. your kids have been working very hard! Enjoy all the photos!!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I will be traveling to Maryland tonight (hopefully I will beat the storm) to visit my sister, brother in law, and my favorite nieces, Lucy and Emmy.  When we come back to school on Monday it will be December.  I cannot believe how fast the time has gone!
Enjoy your time with your family.



We have learned that asking questions before, during, and after we read is important in order to help us understand the story.  We are working hard on our comprehension and we have added "questions" to our strategy board!  Have your kids ask questions while they are reading at home.  Have them start with "I wonder….." Here we used sticky notes while we listened to the story Fletcher and the Falling Leaves, and we added them to our board!

During writing workshop we have learned about Onomatopoeia.  Ask your children all about it.  They have been using sound words to make their stories more interesting.  They all created their own sound cards to hang up in the room to help us remember to use them in our writing.  They were all very excited about this!

Over the last couple of weeks we started our Poetry unit.  Not only would we be reading poems and talking about them, but the kids would be able to write their own poetry.  We used Regie Routman's book Kid's Poems.  First we used our schema to brainstorm what we already knew about poetry.  Then we learned about Free Verse poems and we shared a couple of published poems by real first graders.  The kids were inspired and they LOVED being able to write their own poetry.  We have also talked about Acrostic poems, Color poems, Sensory poems, Cinquain poems, and Rhyming poems.  You will be "WOW"ed by your little poets.  They will keep all their poetry in their poetry folder and they will be able to bring it all home at the end of the year.  Here is a sneak peek at the budding poets!

We wrote this poem together as a class.  They sure are superstars!

Here are our Color Poems

Acrostic Poetry

Cinquain Poems

For the past week or so, we have been working on a cooperative group Thanksgiving project.  I am hoping your children have told you a little about it.  There job was to create a Thanksgiving character that best represents Thanksgiving.  We first brainstormed which characters we would like to work on and then I split them into their groups.  They used their schema as a group and wrote what they already knew about their character and what questions they had.  Then They are been working with their groups to create this character, think about what character traits they want their character to have.  They had to come up with a name and colors they would use.  Finally they had to actually build their character.  All of this was done with their group and they had to use teamwork and cooperation to do their best work.  They took turns being the recorder and doing the writing.  We talked about how to listen to our team and to be flexible with our ideas.  They all had a few problems, but worked through them to create the best character they could.  Today they will be writing their final draft.  They will need to come up with 3 reasons they think their character will be the best to represent Thanksgiving.  Then they will present it to the class.  Pictures of the final products will come later!  Enjoy seeing the process and how the teams worked together.  They were awesome!

Next we created our character using materials from the classroom.  They used books to help them figure out what they look like and what they should wear.  

Next they brainstormed and worked together to come up with character traits that best fit their characters.

I can't wait to see how this project ends up. They will be presenting their characters to the class today.  Stay tuned for some final pictures.

To end our Thanksgiving unit, we talked about being thankful and for the things that we should be thankful for.  They already brought their final copies home, so I hoped you enjoyed them.  They first worked hard to plan out their ideas and then used that to write their final copy!  Here are just a couple pictures of their hard work!  Happy Thanksgiving!