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.

Daily 5 Reading

What a fantastic week we had in first grade.  The kids are learning about our daily 5 reading rotations.  In my classroom, the students will go through a total of 5 reading rotations each and everyday.  The stations include read to self, listen to reading, read to someone, computer reading, work on words,  phonics, and guided reading.  Everyday I will choose one way for students to read:   listen to reading on ipods or cd players, read to self (where they read a variety of books on their individual reading level), or read to someone (where they share a book with a friend).  Also, everyday they will go to a phonics station with Mrs. Healy.  At this group, they will be learning about a variety of phonics skills from our Fundations phonics program.  Then, they will go to  guided reading with myself (Mrs. Hogan).   Your child will be with a group of 5 students reading a book at their instructional reading level.  We will use that book to work on comprehension skills.  Also, your child will rotate to our computer station.  At this station, the students will utilize the 7 computers we have in our classroom to read from a program called MobyMax.  One student that is at the computer station will get to go up and use our Promethean Interactive Board to play a reading game.  Our final rotation is work with words.  This is a station your child will go to work on their sight words.

If this sounds like a lot....it is!!!   This is why we take the first 2 full weeks learning how to go through each of these rotations.  So far, your child has learned about read to self.  They are currently trying to build their independent reading stamina to 15 minutes.  They've learned where they can sit during read to self and the three ways they can read their book (read the words, read the pictures, or retell the story).  On Friday, I introduced read to someone and we got to read to our friends for 4 minutes.  We will work on building our stamina during read to someone too so that we can read with our friends for 15 minutes.  Next week, we will continue working on building stamina in these two areas.  The students will also learn how to use our listen to reading area.  I'm so excited about our rotations and the kids are too.  We are all ready to get them up and running.  It is a slow process, but it is very much worth the time and effort put into getting them running.  It is very important that we use this time to teach how to work at each station so that they run smoothly.

This week, we also began using poems during shared reading to work on our reading fluency.  Reading fluency is being able to read smoothly, with few errors, and still understand what we read.  Here is a cute video of the poem we used this week Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear.

This week, we also began our writer's workshop.  The students are learning how to be an author of their own book.  The students have currently learned how think of something that has happened to them, sketch a picture, and then write words that match their pictures.  I'll write more about our writer's workshop time next week on the blog.

In social studies, the students are learning how to fill someone's bucket.  Filling a bucket is easy...when we do nice things, we make others feel nice and we make ourselves feel good too.  We talked about how sharing with our friends, helping others, playing with our friends, listening to others when they are speaking to us, and greeting others with a friendly hello are all ways we can fill someone's bucket.

This week, we also read the book David Goes to School by David Shannon.  We talked about how we can make smart choices.  The following is an anchor chart of the students ideas on how to make smart choices and be a good student.  They had some great ideas!

Thank you to everyone that has returned the forms from open house and the release forms for our website.  Below I will add some pictures from the first week of school.  Just a reminder that I will not add pictures of those students that did not return a release form.

 

Look at the PERFECT line!!!  What an OWL-some group of firsties I have!

Have a weekend!

Celebrating Citizenship, a Busy Month Ahead, Pics and More ~

Where to start…We have been busy, busy, busy to say the least!  I’ll begin by saying thank you once again to all of our parents who donated items for our flag cookies and apples. 

Picture day was on Wednesday and boy how sweet did our little firsties look that day.  I always love picture day because the littles always come dressed in their best.  They are so very precious!!!  I figured this would be a great day to take some snapshots of the class as well.  So I carried my camera around and took some great shots of the kids.  Enjoy the cuteness!!!Playing a rhyming game on the Promethean board during reading rotations.  I have a lot of games from Lakeshore that I use during our center rotations in reading and math.  The kids love them and so do I.  What a fun way to reinforce our learning in the room!Working with Mrs. Gosnell during work with words.  We love Mrs. Gosnell.  She is in our room 45 minutes of the day during our reading rotations.  Currently, the students are working on sight words with her.Working with Mrs. Dusenberg during reading rotations.  We love Mrs. Dusenberg too!  She is in our room during reading, math, and writing.  During reading she works on phonics with our students.Read to Self.Read to Self 

The students get to pick out their own good fit books.  We discussed in class how not everyone has the same good fit books.  Everyone has their very own book shopping day.  This is when they return their old books and pick out 5 new good fit books to work on.  We read the same 5 books for one whole week to work on comprehension (I understand what I read) and fluency (I can read smoothly with few errors and still understand what I read).

Practicing our smiles.Practicing our smiles.Practicing our smiles.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A little recess fun.A snapshot of our class.  Awww!!!

Mrs. Maness was able to get this snapshot of our class that included me!

Now on to some other things that have been happening in our classroom.  We began our bean seed observations over a week ago.  The students have been recording their observations in a bean seed journal.  We will finish our observations next week.  Then, we begin learning about plants. The following are just a few pics of this science project in action.
 

Working in their bean seed journals.

Our bean seeds sitting in the window. 

In social studies we were learning about the constitution of The United States of America.  We also learned about The Pledge of Allegiance and the United States Flag.  We dissected the Constitution and the Pledge apart line by line and discussed their meaning.  We also learned what each part of the flag meant.  Then, we made flag cookies.  They were yummy…so I’m told! 

I always enjoy having the kids make these cookies as a culmination to our citizenship unit.  Thanks again to all the parents that donated supplies for this activity.

Now for the important upcoming dates:
September 29 – October 3 – Spirit Week, please refer to the handout sent home today for the themed dress up days.
October 1 – Muffins for Mom; Field trip to the Peach Tree Farm  If you are a chaperone for this trip, please arrive at 8:45 a.m.
October 3 – Early Dismissal for homecoming at 1:00 p.m.  The parade will start at 1:30 p.m. Scholastic book orders are due TODAY!
October 10 – Donuts with Dad
October 13 – NO SCHOOL, professional development day.
October 17 – FIRST GRADE MOVIE NIGHT
October 23 and 28 – Parent Teacher Conference from 4-8p.m.
October 30 – Fall parties at 2:00 p.m.
October 31 – NO SCHOOL

A few weeks ago the cheerleaders held their mini-cheer camp.  I watched our minis perform at the high school football game.  They were adorable.  Here are some pictures of that event.  Sorry it took me so long to get these on here.  I guess that is what happens when you have thousands of pictures on your camera....I should really take care of that!  ;)