Week of September 21-24, 2009

This week we worked in our Handwriting Without Tears workbook and focused on proper writing posture and pencil grip. During our Writer's Workshop we wrote about real things that have happened to us before and practiced being completely quiet during writing time with the help of writing music. Our classroom library is fully open and we are enjoying reading a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction books. We also used our Investigations workbooks for the first time.

Conflict Resolution Skills

Conflict happens to everyone and we are learning how to resolve our conflicts peacefully and constructively in our classroom. After talking about what conflict is, we learned about the "Conflict Escalator." This is a concrete image that first graders can relate to in terms of how conflicts escalate and de-escalate. We read a story about a conflict and then worked in small groups to determine what made the conflict worsen and how we could have avoided the conflict in the first place. We will continue to talk about how to resolve conflicts using role plays, children's literature and real-life situations throughout the year.

Fifth Grade Buddies

On Tuesday, we met our 5th grade buddies from Ms. Lombardi's class. We got to know each other through interviews. We found out how old we were, how many siblings we have and what we love to do. We are looking forward to many more fun times with them this year!

Welcome to our Blog!