Opinions Are GOOD!

Which pet would you get?

As we move into the spring, your students are REALLY flying with their personal narrative writing. This is writing that focuses on an activity, event, or experience that is true, that has happened to them, and they feel they can write a full story about.

During this time, they are also REALLY flying with their sight word knowledge, letter/sound correspondence, and writing many sounds they hear in their words. It's time now to explore and experience new styles of writing.

Right now, we're focusing on writing our opinions and using the word because to tell the reader WHY they think one thing is the best or better than another.

One of our first attempts at writing our own opinion was writing which pet they would get and why. They had to use the word because to let the reader know they were giving their opinion and the pet had to be real - no dinosaurs, dragons, or unicorns!

The writing was outstanding! Here are a few examples of their writing and which pet they would get if they could.

I want a chihuahua because I can dress them up. They are small.

I want a cat because they are cute and let me pet them.

I want a puppy because they are little.

Tricky, Tricky Math!

As we move into the spring, our math concepts become increasingly complex, but REALLY fun! Recently, we began working on understanding how addition works and what we do when we add numbers together.

The first idea we work on is knowing the when you put two small numbers "together" they make one bigger number.

Sometimes we use what is called a number bond (below) to show the students our two small numbers coming together to make a bigger number. This is also called part - part - whole (and when we work on subtraction later this year, we'll call it whole - part - part).

This is a number bond where the students see the Whole - Part - Part of a number.

A skill we've worked on A LOT this year is SHOWING our work and thinking. The students are encouraged to create a math model - drawing, ten frame, number line (in older grades), tallies, whatever works for them! - to show their thinking. Here is what that looks like...

Math models help show a student's thinking and how they reached the answer of a problem.
So far, we've focused a lot on drawings AND using 10-frames to help show their thinking.

The last concept we work on, and will continue to work on through the rest of the year, is the idea of finding ALL number combinations that make up a number. For example, we focus on the number 5 for much of our time. My goal is for the students to become fluent in their number facts to at least 5 by the end of the year and know that 5 can be 0 +5, 1+4, 2+3, 3+2, 4+1, and 5+0 (illustrated below with the staircase).

Staircase showing ALL the ways we can make 5.

Addition is the basis of ALL our math skills, so creating a solid foundation and base for their math skills is such an important part of our work together this year.