As part of our inquiry into relationships we have been doing lots of talking about the characteristics of a good friend. In Grade One we believe a good friend can be caring, fun, helpful, a good listener and many other characteristics.
Miss Carnright visited both grades and helped us to think about the most important characteristics of a good friend for each one of us. What each person values in a friend can be different for each person. To show this, we had the chance to make our very own FRIENDSHIP BRACELET!
First, we had to come up with the 5 most important characteristics of a friend and then label each of these with a colour bead. We ranked these from the most important to the least important and chose the coloured beads to match. Then we had the fun task of making and wearing our very own friendship bracelet.
May and Maiko ranked the important characteristics of a friend for them and reflected over their learning.
Aoba and Anastasia proudly showing off their friendship bracelets.
Luna and Nina are great friends and each other have many qualities that they like in a friend.
Sarah and Juri both thought that being helpful was the most important characteristic in a friend for them.
So, ask your daughters to explain their friendship bracelets to you and what each colour means. I'm sure you will learn a lot about what they value in a friend.
In grade one, the students build on the foundations they have already learned in kindergarten in terms of letter formation but it's important for the students to really focus on their penmanship skills so they are writing the letters using the right strokes. This will help them to write at speed when they are older and also to write clearly. We have recruited one of the world's leading experts on handwriting, Mr Chuck Bigman, who has many years of experience of teaching handwriting, to help grade one students. Chuck teaches the letters in groups where each letter follows a certain pattern. Chuck's reasons for teaching the letters in groups is that it helps students to remember the form of the letter and when learning how to write the letters, students can inquire into what particular letters have in common with one another. Here are the groups:
Here is a short video of Chuck explaining how to set yourself up properly for neat handwriting every time. Make sure you follow Chuck's advice:
If you are viewing this on a smartphone or tablet at home, it may be easiest to put this page on your home screen by selecting the "Add to Home Screen". Then you do not have to search for this page any time and doing your handwriting homework will be easy!!!
Unfortunately our blog page does not allow us to type in d'nealian font so the letter printed below are not actually in d'nealian font and look different to the real d'nealian. Watch the videos to see what they are really like! Set 1-Anti-clockwise round letters: o (page 35) c (page 37) a (page 33) d (page 34) g (page 36) q (page 65) Set 2- Down and re-trace upwards letters: r (page 58) n (page 59) m (page 60) h (page 47) k (page 48) p (page 61) Set 3- Down and off in another direction: i (page 53) l (page 45) b (page 44) u (page 54) w (page 55) t (page 46) y (page 56) j (page 57) Set 4- Zig-zag letters: v (page 66) x (page 68) z (page 67) Set 5-Odd letters: e (page 38) f (page 43) s (page 39)
That's all folks. We hope Mr Chuck Bigman helps you to write your letters neatly and clearly! Good luck and keep practising!
In our first unit, we have focused on the learner profile attributes of CARING and PRINCIPLED.
Do you use these words at home with your daughter? Do you know what these words mean in your own mother tongue? If you speak a language other than English at home, we would love you to teach your daughter these words and use it at home.
If you add a comment to this blog, you can tell us in your language how to say these words. It might be a surprise for your daughter to hear the word in her own mother tongue just like some of the girls are surprised to hear some of these words in English for the first time.
Being Principled - Ideas for developing it at home:If your daughter is not doing the right thing, instead of telling her what she is doing wrong, you can ask her if she is being principled. Then when you see your daughter doing the right thing, you can say, "Wow, you are being so principled in the way your helping your brother to reach the door handle."
Being principled is not just about following rules. Have a look at this video and see what you think. Is it alright to sometimes break rules?
Being Caring - Ideas for developing it at home: Of course there will be many opportunities to point out to your daughter how caring she is being at home so an idea is to look out for other opportunities when she is caring in different ways. For example she might be caring in the way she opens a door for a stranger or picks up a piece of rubbish on the street.
Now watch this video. Think about the attribute of caring. If a friend makes you sad, can they still be your friend?
In this unit, we have been focusing on the attitudes of empathy and confidence.
Does your daughter know what these words mean in her mother tongue? Can you teach her? Doing that will make a big difference to her and you can use those words with her right through elementary school.
Showing empathy at home: At school the girls have been thinking about how others feel when they do things that they do not like. This has helped them developed empathy. At home, you can do the same think by saying something like, "Wow, I can see how you empathised with your little sister by staying with her when she cried."
Being kind is a great way to develop a feeling of empathy because you will slowly be able to imagine how others feel when you do kind things for them. Have a look at this video on kindness. How would you answer these questions in the video?
Expressing confidence at home: Confidence comes from believing in yourself and in others. It does not mean showing off but it comes from knowing how to react well to yourself and others in different situations.
If you can show empathy to others, if you can be principled, if you can be caring, then you will build your feeling of confidence inside!
The 1st grade advanced Japanese students have been studying Hiragana at class for the past few weeks, and to make the class a little more exciting the students made a poem using any hiragana that they know!
We will having our first Hiragana Quiz on September 26th, Monday at class, so please try your best everyone❤︎
The test will include the Hiragana we studied so far あ to の, half of all 51 Hiragana!
Friday, 16 September 2016
Word Study in action in Grade 1
This week the Grade 1 students began working with their own word sorts during Word Study time. During this daily 20 minute session, each child is given their own list of pictures or words (based on their ability to hear and spell sounds in words in a pre-assessment to the program) which they sort based on sounds, letter patterns or what they have in common.
Here is an example of a word sort based on the short a vowel sound like in 'cat' and the short 'o' vowel sound like in 'sock'. An extra column has been added titled 'oddball' for words the students feel don't fit into either category.
This word study program encourages children to analyse words and make their own justifications for why certain words should be sorted in a particular way. They often work in partners, reading the words aloud and discussing their ideas for the word sort. Time is also spent with teachers discussing the sorts and going over the meanings of new words. A big focus is on looking at the vowels (a,e,i,o,u) as these are the tricky letters that can change their sound.
This week 1A have been practising the "Closed Sort" where the words are sorted back on a specification such as the sound of the words. 1B have been practising "Memory Pairs" where two words are turned over and if they are a matching pair, then the player gets to keep them. Over the course of the this year the children will be introduced to new word lists and different, fun ways they can sort these words and in turn learn how to read and spell these words.
Here is Mio, using a "Closed Sort" to sort her words based on sounds.
Emi H, Natsuki and Anastasia are sorting their words together
Juri and Aoba are helping each other complete their picture sort.
Matilde focused and concentrating on where her next picture should be sorted.
As well as daily practice at school, the children will often continue this word study practice at home for homework. So stay tuned for more word sorts and games to encourage the development and love of language in Grade 1.
It seems that the Grade One girls all have wiggly teeth. Today Nina lost a tooth in Music Class. We think that's a reason to celebrate! We danced to the song "Loose Tooth" by making a partner dance.
Grade One girls have been learning how to dance with a partner.
--Dance in a caring way.
--Hold hands gently.
--Try to move in the same way. Jump together. Go side to side together.
--If you have a problem talk to your partner.
We have different kinds of "dance relationships."
Side by side
Facing / Mirror
Follow the leader/ Shadow
We're learning a dance to the song "Boku No Mixu Jusu" or "My Mixed Juice."
Grade 1 EAL students were read the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr. and illustrated by Eric Carle. The students were given clues to predict the animals that appear in the story. Then, they wrote their own books patterned on Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Once their books were completed, the students shared their stories with each other to build their communication skills, giving clues to the others to try to guess the animals they have chosen.
The grade 1 children have been inquiring into the people that are important in their lives and the roles those people have.
Our central idea for our "Who We Are" unit, is "The relationships children have with others can have an impact on well-being"
We began our inquiry by introducing the term "Relationships" and thinking about who are the important people in our own lives. The students drew themselves in the centre and then drew and labelled the other people they have think they have relationships with. After a class discussion where they all shared their responses the children then added more details to their relationship drawing in red. This documented their 'added on' learning that the got from the class discussion.
Next, we thought about what roles (or jobs) do these important people do in our lives? We came up with a class list and symbols to describe these roles.
We made connections to the people in our own lives and classified these people under the roles (carer, teacher, love-giver, helper and protector) they take in our own lives.
Thanks to all the parents for helping their children fill in the survey about the roles they have in their family. The children have enjoyed sharing the results with their classmates.
The next stage of our unit is to inquire into the ways we can build good relationships with other people. Our ES school counsellor Ms Carnright will be visiting Grade 1 next week to talk to us about the characteristics of good friends. To prepare your child for this, chat to them about 'what makes a good friend,' and the importance of friendship.
Grade 1 student have been enjoying some stories from the library media centre related to their current Who We Are unit. We have been learning new profile words to describe what makes a good learner by identifying characteristics of some of the story characters.
In particular we have focused on:
Caring
Reflective
Open Minded
Now whenever they read a book in class or the library they can reflect on these characteristics and how they support successful relationships.
This year we are launching Writing Workshops from grade 1 right through to grade 6.
Our first unit in grade one is about writing small moment stories. These are a true stories about a time when the learners did something or when something happened to them.
Over the last two weeks we have learned about four important parts of small moment story writing. The chart below is built up over the lessons and the grade 1 writers can use it in every writing workshop so they can check what they need to do next.
One of the most important parts of small moment writing is to touch and tell the story. Here is Mirai showing an example of 'touch and tell'. The writers touch the pages as they actually tell the story out loud. They do this as it gives them a chance to rehearse what they want to say and think about the organisation of their writing. They can think about how to break the parts of the story down over the pages. You can see that Mirai and her writing partner Natalee are having a lot of fun with 'touch and tell'!
The writers also have a model by the teacher they can refer to when they are doing their own writing.
Here you can see the other important planning part "sketch across the pages". The writers do this so they can visualise the parts of the story better. The story below shows what happened after Mr Brigham sat down in a restaurant. A big rip appeared in his trousers in a very embarrassing place!
Our most recent lessons have been about revising our writing. The writers have been learning that when they "are done, they have only just begun". They can then look back at their pictures and writing and check if they have answered the questions "who, what, where, when, how, why?".
The writers have also learned to use revise strips like the one below so they can add information to the story.
This writer has thought about the question "what?" as in "what happened?". She realised that there were more things that happened that could still tell the reader. She has used a blue colour to show that this work has been revised.
You may be surprised to hear that we have told the writers to stop using erasers while doing their work. This piece of writing shows how the writers just put a neat line through any mistakes instead of trying to make the mistake disappear. It means that the writer and teacher can see what their thinking what and how it changed and also over time they can see how their writing is improving.
Why not ask your daughter about what is similar and different between what she did in kindergarten and what she is now doing in grade 1. You will be surprised at what she can do after just two weeks!
