We are Family!

Since the beginning of the school year, we have been working hard to create school families in our first grade classrooms.  But for the past two weeks, we shifted our learning to our own unique families.  It was an easy transition to make – The students still get to talk all about themselves (Their favorite topic!) and we continue to teach important concepts through familiar content.

During the first week we started a new anchor chart about families.  We added a column to our standard “can/have/are” chart because we talk so much about what families “like to” do.  The students loved sharing what they like to do with their families, and we loved hearing about all their adventures!  One of my favorite responses was that families are “important” and “different”.  I love how deep these first graders are thinking already!  Towards the end of the week, the students made their own anchor charts during our writing block.  It was a great way to explore a new purpose for writing.

Throughout the two weeks, we created a word collection of family words.  Each morning, we brainstormed words starting with each letter of the alphabet to add to our boxes.  The students came up with some great words, and we let them add them to our collection as long as they could justify it being a “family word”.  We really loved what they said for m, n and o.   They said we should write “no” for n because moms always say no.  Then we needed to add “maybe” to m because moms sometimes say that too.  Finally, they said we needed to write “ok” in o because every once in a while moms do say ok. 

We read one of our favorite books about families – The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant.  We loved reading about all the fun the extended family had together.  The students could definitely relate!  They made text-to-self connections in one of their “Smart Centers” (We’ll post about these later, but in the meantime check out April DeCesare’s site about “Smart Schools".)  We called this one “Book Smart”.

In another Smart Center, Family Smart, the students responded to Loreen Leedy’s Who’s Who in My Family? by creating their own family trees.  The photos make it hard to see, but they wrote names of family members on each apple.

One of our favorite homework assignments of the school year happens during this family unit.  At the beginning of the unit, we send home a plain piece of white construction paper with some simple instructions – Have each family member trace his/her hand on the paper and sign his/her name.  The students then get to share with the class hat makes their families unique and special.

By the second week of our family study, we started talking about the roles of specific family members.  During our interactive read alouds where we review as well as introduce new CAFÉ strategies, we read books like What Aunts Do Best and What Uncles Do Best by Laura Numeroff, 31 Uses for a Mom and 33 Uses for a Dad by Harriet Ziefert and The Ultimate Guide to Grandmas and Grandpas by Sally Lloyd-Jones.  In the Family Smart center this week, students decorated a house with the chores or jobs that individual family members have.

In Ms. Arbogast’s room, we had to take a little time-out during the second week of our study to review some classroom procedures.  Maybe the honeymoon came to an end, maybe it was the low barometric pressure, but we had some  . . . let’s just say interesting behavior going on.  So, we read another great book about families, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, and designated a sort of cool down spot in our classroom.  The spot is located in our classroom library, out of view of the other students but in plain view of me, and is appropriately called “Australia”.  After setting some ground rules, it is my hope that students can use this spot to remove themselves from the action, calm down quickly and join the rest of the class refocused and ready to go.  (And that it doesn’t see too much action!)

We continued to work on Reading Response Journals on Friday afternoons.  We read The Napping House by Audrey Wood, and the students wrote about what they take to bed with them.  These say “I sleep with 2 dolls and 1 elephant.” and “I sleep with my dog."

This past Friday, we read A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams.  The students pasted a jar and used thumbprints to represent the coins.  Then they wrote about what they would do with money they saved.  These say “I would use my coins to buy [a] house.” and “I would use my coins to buy a big bed.”  Thank you again, First Grade Parade for the great ideas for Reader’s Response!