Big News!

Turns out LOTS of things qualify as BIG NEWS when you are in Grade 1!

"I lost a tooth!"

"I have sparkles in my hair!"

"I went skating last night!"

"It's my auntie's birthday!"

"Check out my socks!"

In the first 10 minutes of the day, my ears always ring with the students' news, excitement, and joy!

Channeling this energy, we now have begun sharing daily news! Each day one student is chosen to share something special in his or her life, and we are all so happy to help create the message!

"I got home on Friday night."

We work as a class to write a child's news, but it is led by that particular student. By using the Word Wall, finding words we need around our room, utilizing our children's picture dictionaries, and stretching out words we don't know together, the news of the day is crafted! 

Then we spend a few minutes working with the sentence, sometimes hunting for vowels, other times counting syllables. We have a catchy rap we always say to help us write a strong sentence. It takes about 10 minutes, but it's 10 minutes of really powerful, engaging learning!

This is a tremendously rich opportunity for countless Language Arts mini-lessons; capitals, end punctuation, rhyming words, environmental print, Word Wall Words, spelling, word families, vowels, phonic rules, blends, syllables, and so, so much more! 

Here is some of the news we've recently shared:

"I went to Launch Pad."

"I had a sleep over."

"My birthday is going to be soon."

Sharing our news is one of our favourite times of day! We collaborate as a class and have lots of fun along the way, and there is ALWAYS exciting news in Grade One!