Thankfully, I figured out what I was supposed to be teaching on Monday. Phew! 2 weeks off really clears your brain. :)
In ELA, we are starting synonyms. Awesome! I thought we would be at pronouns... but not just yet. So, synonyms it is!
Since I wasn't too prepared on Monday, I just introduced synonyms and talked about why we need to know what synonyms are. I related it to their journals and how they use the same words OVER and OVER. Good, good, good... everyone thinks everything is "good".... Santa is good. My family is good. School is good. It's our go-to word. And, I'M SICK OF IT! So, I basically told the kids that.... in a nicer way. ;)
I ran to the library last night to grab this book....
The book was great. The synonyms are a little advanced for first graders but they enjoyed it.
After reading the story and picking out the synonyms, we listed some as a class.
Then, we started talking about our journals and writing. I told them about the boring words that I'm SICK OF READING... and they had to brainstorm other words that meant the same thing. They had a ton of fun.
Because the word synonym is so much like "cinnamon", we had some cinnamon bun cereal. The kids were silly when they were trying to say the two different words - so cute. I think the cinnamon cereal helped them remember what the word is because we said it about 100 times in class. :)
I really feel like it was a lesson that will stick in their brains! Hopefully it does... we're going to have a little surprise synonym quiz tomorrow. :)
In Math, we're working on place value. We've (sadly) moved on to regrouping. Ugh. Dreaded regrouping. Base ten blocks drive me CRAZY. The kids love to play, build, and not pay attention. They start trying to regroup - grabbing cubes, taking cubes, getting ride of cubes, and dropping cubes. Yuck.
But, this group is so different. They did an INCREDIBLE job. We just worked through some problems with the tens and ones. We learned that we can trade 10 ones for 1 ten! We call the ones "little guys" and the tens "sticks".... weird, but it works. So, we traded 10 little guys for 1 stick. AND... they got to do a little writing on their desks again.
Tomorrow we're going to practice with the base ten blocks and then HOPEFULLY work on some written problems. I just hope that connection happens between the "tens/ones" and writing that stinkin' 1 in our tens place on our problems. We'll see!
I still have to do a little work for tomorrow.. so that's all for now! Thanks for stopping by!
We are working on regrouping right now in 2nd! I am impressed that your firsties are working on it too :)
ReplyDeleteWe are also working on synonyms starting tomorrow. I am going to read the same book! And we are going to make synonym snowflakes. I will be posting about it in my blog later this week! And I also posted about it last year in my snowman unit :)