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.