The Right Placement is Important!

Hello First Grade Families!

This Monday we started off with a weird morning message.  I asked the students to read the message and then silently raise their hands while they are thinking to share their thoughts or comments.

Soon the hands went up.  The friends were confused, it sounded like I was saying that Explorations would happen in the afternoon, but that's not right!  We realized little things, for instance, depending on the punctuation placement, I could be saying, "How are you?" or, "How are you today?"  The friends soon began suggesting punctuation that would help clarify and make this easier to read.  The date in particular is an instance where the correct pause is important.  Here were two suggestions that didn't seem quite right:

And here's our final edit:

Monday morning was our Exploration Classes.  The students felt especially proud of their ability to stay with their work with Amy and their guest teachers!  Monday afternoon we used the time to continue exploring measurement.  We spent some time comparing our different tools and their relationships to each other.  

How many inches is a foot?

How many feet is a yard?

What abbreviations are used for each of these?

After we reminded ourselves of important information we measured the two snake skins!  This has been something exciting for the students.  Ever since Doug, Silas's dad, came and told us his snake was about to shed, we've been waiting to be able to see how long it is.  

Did you notice the problem the students had in the second to last image? (You can click on it to make it larger!) We realized that placement isn't just important with punctuation, but when using measuring tools.  The kids found it helps to be precise in where you put these down. Next, we had to do the math to figure the answers because of the choice of tools that the students made.  And now we know!  Thank you to Silas's family for bringing this in to stimulate our interest and give us such a cool opportunity for learning!

Next we were off to measure more items.  Please come in to class to check out their findings!  Have a great week!  Love, Jennifer