Powerful Learning, Poetry, Penguins, and Oh So Much More....

I want to thank you all for being so patient with me as I am slowly but surely catching up from being absent when my daughter was ill.  I was also absent this Monday and Tuesday for the Powerful Learning Conference.  This is a conference that I attend as part of our PLC (Professional Learning Community) work.  Every year when I attend these conference I learn such a great deal of information from other schools like ours that have gone above and beyond to ensure student learning and growth is taking place in their schools.  This year was no different than the previous years, except for the fact that I was not overwhelmed with new information.  Instead this year the things I saw these exemplary schools doing are also the same things our school is in the process of doing.  One of the biggest ideas that I saw this year was the usage of data notebooks for the students.  This idea is not one that is new to me.  In fact, my firsties all have their very own data notebook.  Inside the notebook my students track the sight words they know, their progress in reading (their DRA2 level), published writings, and their math scores.  I wanted to start out small this year because data notebooks can be such a powerful tool for students.  Well let me tell you I learned so much from a particular school on using data notebooks.  I am excited for the students to share their notebooks with you during our spring conferences.  Next year, I plan to send our data notebooks home on a weekly basis and have our students write their current goals in their notebooks.  Currently, when the students and I discuss reading, writing, and math goals I post them in the classroom.  Next year, my goal will be to have my students record their goals to place in their binders to take home and share with their parents.  What a powerful tool for both you and your child.  I am so excited to take the idea of the data notebooks to a whole new level next year.
This week, we learned about the sounds of ou and ow.  Students were given the following poem to help them remember the sounds these two letters make.  You can grab your own copy by clicking on the picture.

We then brainstormed words that have the ou and ow sound and wrote them on band-aids and placed them on our chart.  Today we went back into the text of several books we read this week to locate these sounds.  We recorded them on following worksheet.  Click on the picture to grab your very own copy from Fantastic First Grade

.I left my camera at home the day we did this activity.  I hope to get some pictures of our anchor charts and come back to post a few.
Next week, we will be learning about standard RL 1.4 Identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses.  We will be doing this with a variety of poems by Eloise Greenfield and A.A. Milne.  We will also take a look at some of our vocabulary strategies on our CAFE board and identify how these strategies will help us become better readers.   The students will use their Interactive Word Work Journals to record the vocabulary that we learn in these poems.  In addition, we will begin using Deanna Jumps unit on penguins as well as my own unit on penguins to work on some foundational reading skills as well as begin our first shared research project of the year.  You can check those units out below if you are interested. 

Come back next week for a peek at how this all played out in the classroom.  Until then, stay warm and cozy!!!