As our first grade travels around the world visiting different countries to learn how they celebrate the winter holidays, we have stopped in Sweden this week to learn about St. Lucia. She is the oldest daughter in the house and serves sweet buns and hot drinks on the morning of December 13th. That is the longest day of darkness in Sweden. Here is our St. Lucia serving crumb cake to the students as they all make their own crown of evergreen and candles.
We have been learning how to read and write informational books. In reading workshop, the students have been learning how to make keyword maps and mark important and interesting facts to help them teach their partner about their book. The students are enjoying being the "teacher" when it is their turn in partner time. They use sticky notes to mark their facts to find them more easily when sharing.
First grade has officially begun their travels this week. We are flying around the world to visit countries and learn about their winter holidays. The students have their suitcases already full of items from 3 countries- Israel, America and Germany. As the students are visiting the countries, we are talking about what holiday is celebrated, how it is celebrated and the traditions that passed down. We connect many of these winter holidays through the traditions of lights, food and family. The students had a blast learning about Hanukkah earlier this week. They learned how to play the dreidel game with Mrs. Kulmann's class. They even had gelt (chocolate coins) after.
The students have been learning about tens and ones. They are exploring what a 2-digit number really means. The students faced a challenge where they had to organize their 43 pieces of popcorn(cubes) in a way that made it easier to count for others. The results were amazing! They used various tools that we have already explored, and were able to show their thinking on paper. After a brief discussion midway through, the students gave each other new ideas on how to further make their work even FASTER for others to count and went off to change, fix or finish their thinking.
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