Spirit Week

Spirit week was an absolute blast.   I've shared all of our spirit week photos on our Facebook page this week.  However, I know some of you do not have Facebook.  So here is a look at our photos for each day of the week.  I was so sad to miss the first two days of the week.

'Merica Day'

'Tropical Tuesday' My lovely substitute Mrs. Julie Oppermann participated in spirit day too!  (First grade teachers were the winners this day!!)

'Winter Wednesday'  

'Tacky Tourist Day'

We couldn't just take one photo!!!

Selfie time!!!

'Pinto Pride' Day  Honoring our past football champs.  Thanks Mr. Williams for joining in on the fun today.

In awe of the ring.  Let's go Pintos!

Here are the pictures I have of the students and their spirit day "outfits."  Of course, missing two days this week did not allow for me to get photos of the students for each day of  week.  Here is what I do have.

'Merica Day'  Thanks Mrs. Morrow for taking the picture for us.

'Tacky Tourist Day'

Love these kiddos' props for "Tacky Tourist" day.

'Pinto Pride'  Love the class' spirit!  

 You can check out our academic updates on the side page on the blog.  Just click the link "academic updates."   I'll be back next week with more pictures and happenings from the classroom.  If you're wondering...the PINTOS did WIN their game last night.  GO PINTOS!!!!

Getting in the Swing of Things

School is in full swing.  The kids are becoming experts in their reading and math rotations.  We have also built up our stamina (how long we can work independently) in reading, writing, and math.  They are also very well versed with our CAFÉ board.  You should take the time to ask them about checking for understanding, back up and reread, cross checking, and tune into interesting words.  We have actions for each of these reading strategies and the kids are really starting to understand when to use these strategies while we are reading.  This week, we spent our comprehension time working together on all four of these strategies.  I read the books Froggy Gets Dressed by Jonathon London and Beatrice Doesn’t Want To by Laura Numeroff.  Together we practiced using the four reading strategies.  Next week, the students will be given their check for understanding bookmarks.  These bookmarks help remind the students of the questions they need to be able to answer after they read 3 or 4 pages of a book.  At the end of the story we are reading we MUST check for understanding as well.   Also next week, we will continue to learn how to use our ipods in the listen to reading station.

One day a week we see Mrs. Dicus our reading specialist.  She teaches a short mini-lesson and then we work on the computers while the teachers work in small groups with students.

 I am so thrilled to announce that our Chromebooks have finally arrived.  I want to thank our amazing principal, Mr. Williams, for taking the time to write the America’s Farmers Grow Rural Education Grant.  This $10000 grant allowed us to purchase Chromebooks for our students.  We already had 2 computers in our classroom.  With this grant, we now have 7 computers for student use in our classroom.  These student computers will be utilized during reading and math rotations.  We use the computer program Lexia, MobyMax, and More Starfall in our class during rotations.  I sent home the login information for MobyMax today.  It is in your child’s blue homework folder.  They can utilize our subscription to this site at home. 

This week we also learned about the constitution of the US.  We read the book We the Kids by David Catrow and listened to the Preamble song on School House Rocks to help us visualize the meaning of the constitution.  We also learned that the United States Flag is a symbol.  We talked about what the flag means.  In addition, we discussed The Pledge of Allegiance and its meaning.   Next week, we will learn about some more United States symbols.  We will finish our unit off next week by making “flag” cookies.

 

Watching the School House Rock video "The Preamble."

A HUGE THANK YOU to all of you that placed a Scholastic book order.  Our class earned over 3000 bonus points.  We also added a huge collection of new books to our classroom library.  This is so important.  We go through more books than you think during the school year.  Each year we lose numerous books due to the natural “wear and tear.”  The kids love getting new books!!!  So thank you thank you thank you!!!

All of the new books we added to our classroom library.

CAFE Strategy Board

Hello again!  We had a wonderful ~short~ week of school. The students started out each day this week practicing their transition to their RTI class.  RTI stands for response to intervention.  Every morning from 8:10 til 8:40 your child will go to their RTI class.  Each student goes to a class where they will work on specific skills geared toward their own individual needs.  These classes change very frequently as we reassess your child's needs.  The students will begin going to RTI on Monday morning.

This week we got all of our reading stations up and running.  The students did a great job rotating from station to station.  They also enjoyed the small group aspect of reading rotations.  We also talked a lot about our class CAFE board.  The CAFE board is a menu of reading strategies.  Throughout the year, we will add reading strategies that good readers use to our CAFE board.  The students will then use this board to record their reading goals.  CAFE stands for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, Expanded Vocabulary.  This week we added two reading strategies under the Comprehension portion of our CAFE board.  Comprehension means I understand what I read.  The students have been learning how to check for understanding while they read.  This is a very important strategy because it helps us determine if we understand what we reading.  When we check for understanding we stop reading and ask ourselves who is this story about, what is happening, how is it happening, when is it taking place, and where is it taking place.  If we can't answer these questions then we know that we do not understand what we are reading.  When that happens we need to use the second strategy we added to the comprehension portion of our board which is back up and reread.  When something doesn't make sense the first thing we do is back up and reread the book.  Another strategy we added to our board was under the Accuracy portion of our CAFE board.  Accuracy means I can read the words.  This is very important too because to be able to understand what we read we have to be able to read the words in the story.  The strategy we added to the accuracy portion of our board was cross checking.  Cross checking is a strategy we use when we read a word and it doesn't quite make sense.  We ask ourselves does it look right, sound right, and does it make sense?  These questions make up the cross checking strategy.  If the word doesn't look right, sound right, or make sense we must back up and reread.  The last strategy we added to our board went under the Expanded Vocabulary portion of our CAFE board.  Expanded Vocabulary means I know, find, and use interesting words.  The first strategy we added to the vocabulary portion of our board was tune into interesting words.  This gets the students listening for interesting words throughout their reading.  While they notice these words, they are encouraged to check the meaning of the words and use them when communicating and writing in the classroom.  Next week, we will continue to work on these four strategies as a class.

Read to Self in the bathtub.

Using Wiki Sticks to practice writing our sight words.

Working with Mrs. Healy on our phonics.

Using Starfall during work on computers.

Our Promethean Board reading rotation.

Read to self....looks pretty comfy.  

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend.  I will be spending a portion of my day working the PTO golf tournament.  If you signed up to play, I will be seeing you at hole 3.  If not, you can still stop out at the club house and bid on any of the great silent auction items that we have up for grabs.  It's going to be a great day for the tournament.  Thank you all for your support.

I also just want to thank you all for the amazing first Scholastic book order we had.  We earned nearly 3000 bonus points towards FREE books for our classroom.  I was able to order multiple packs of FREE books.  I am so excited and I know the kids will be too!  I can't wait to share what we get when they come in.  Thank you all so very much for supporting our classroom library!!!!  Our next book order will go out sometime in October.

Writer's Workshop, Guided Math Groups, Read to Someone and More

Another busy week is down in the books!  The firsties have been working very diligently to build their stamina in reading, writing, and math.  Stamina is the fancy word we use to describe how long we can work independently.  It is very important that the students are able to build their stamina to 12-15 minutes.  Why?  Because while the students are working independently, the teacher is working with guided reading, writing, and math groups.

Last week on the blog, I spent a lot of time discussing read to self.  The students have built up their read to self stamina to 12 minutes!  I am so proud of their hard work.  This week I want to talk a little about read to someone.  The students learned this week that some of the time, they will be asked to go read to someone.  When this is one of the rotations, the students will choose someone in their reading group to read with.  The students sit EEKK (elbow to elbow, knee to knee, book in the middle so they both can see)!  This week, the kids learned how to choose a book to read with our partner and how to read together.  The first way I teach the kids to do read to self is called I read, you read.  This is where partner 1 reads a sentence from their book and partner 2 reads the sentence after partner 1.  We talk a lot about how our books fit our needs and it is important to follow along and read with our reading finger so that our partner can see the words we are reading.

Read to Someone

Read to Someone

Read to Someone

Read to Someone

Read to Someone

Read to Someone

Read to Someone

The students also got the chance to practice going to listen to reading this week.   They are learning how to take care of our cd players and the ipods.  We will continue to practice listen to reading next week.

Listening to a book on an iPod.

Listen to reading

Listen to Reading

Listen to Reading

The students have also been learning about our writer's workshop.  The writer's workshop begins with a mini-lesson.  This is where I teach the whole class a writing skill.  Then, the students go off and work independently or in small strategy groups with a teacher.   So far in the workshop the students are learning the basics of writing narratives (stories about things that we have done or things that have happened to us).  The students learned to think of something that has happened to them, sketch it across their three pages, and then write the words that match their pictures.  We've also learned that when we think we are finished writing, we've really only just begun.  This is the very basics of the writing process.  The students are learning to go back through their piece and add to their pictures and words when they think they are finished writing.  Of course as the year goes on students will be asked to revise and edit their work, but we aren't quite their yet.  :)

This week the students have also learned about guided math groups.  Math will begin with our calendar meeting.  We conduct calendar on our Promethean board. 

After calendar, I teach a mini-lesson to the whole class over the new concept for the day.  Afterwards, the students will rotate through four different stations:  guided practice with Mrs. Hogan, Math Fluency, Math Games, and Computer Math.  Guided math practice gives the student more practice with the skill we learned during the mini-lesson.  We also review daily the concepts that have been taught previously throughout the year.  Fluency is where the students will practice their math facts.  Math games will be a center set up with games that review previously taught skills.  Computer math will allow the students to work on Moby Max (you'll hear more about this soon), or StarfallMORE math.  This will also be the time that one student plays a math game on the Promethean Board.  WHEW!  The kids have been so busy and I'm so thrilled with the progress they have made.  Next week, we plan to have all rotations up and running.  

Don't forget this a 4 day weekend for your child.  Also, a quick reminder that I have signed up for Remind.  This is a safe way to send text messages to your phone or emails to you with important reminders.  Signing up is quick and easy.  If you sign up, you will receive all the important date reminders that I text out for my class.  Of course all these dates will be listed on our class newsletters, the blog, and our Facebook page.  The Remind text messages are just one more way to ensure you don't miss any important dates and happenings in the classroom.  Below is the information on how to sign up.

I also sent home our first Scholastic book order forms today.  These will be due back next Friday, September 11th.  You can use our class code of GW2T9 or you can fill out the order form and send it to school with the money.  Scholastic offers great books at a remarkable price.  This is a great way to build your book collection at home for your child.  Every order you make gives your child's class bonus points.  I use these bonus points to purchase new books for our classroom library!  

*NO SCHOOL 9/7 Labor Day

*NO SCHOOL 9/8 Professional Development Day for Teachers/Staff
*9/11 Scholastic Orders are due.  You can order online by using our class code:  GW2T9 or by filling out the order form and sending it to school with the money for the order.

*9/12 PTO golf tournament.  We still need teams.  Sign up and help out your local elementary school.