Small Moments: A breath of fresh air

This week the first graders took a small break from the classroom to visit Brookfield Farm in South Amherst. This field trip was designed to support our Small Moment writing unit. Students spent the morning picking flowers, watching (some rather rowdy) pigs and taking a a snack break, before heading back to Crocker. Teachers took pictures at various stages of the trip to look back to and write a short, small moment story, with a: first, next, then and last sequence. Students will first participate in this shared writing activity to better understand the elements of a small moment story, before writing their own personal small moment stories. How nice it was to get outside, slow down and enjoy the sunshine as summer comes to an end.

Students have enjoyed being reacquainted with the Superkids and been focused on a quick review of letters and their sounds, as well as practice decoding and encoding short vowel cvc words, blends, and some work with glued syllables. I have enjoyed meeting one:one with some of the students to pinpoint their current BAS reading level. I will continue to BAS next week at several parts of the day.

I am amazed with this group's ability to explain their thinking during our daily math blocks. Students are engaging in number talks and the steps they took to solve each math problem. Students are very involved in their own learning and play the role of both the student and the teacher. Students are engaging in a daily lesson and a 3-center rotation: independent work, partner games and teacher time. Students have been strengthening their number sense, counting skills and use of gird and number line. Students will begin to work on decomposing numbers up to 10.

Students are off to a great start and already becoming a tightly knit group. Thanks for all of your support thus far!