Surfer of the Week--Armand!

Armand was our Surfer of the Week. We enjoyed learning about him and his family. His mother came in on Friday and read a story to the class. The book she chose is one of Armand's favorite books that he and his siblings read at home!

I Caught You!

During Daily 5 I took pictures of students who were following the I-chart for their choice. After the round we quickly went through them and showcased that student for one or two good choices we could spot in the picture! Who will I catch next week????

I Have, You Have--Poem of the Week!

Writing Workshop Procedures

We have been working in a writing workshop format for several weeks now, but haven't really talked about what it is we are doing and why we are doing it. This week, we completed a couple of charts about what Writing Workshop is and why we do it. We also made a chart about what our workshop looks like and sounds like if someone were to come into our classroom during that time.

Read to Self Reminder!

In order to help remind my students of the "model" behavior during Read to Self, I took a picture of each student during a time they were following all of the items on our I-Chart. Today, when we reviewed our Read to Self I-Chart I passed out pictures of each student and we "ooooo'd" and "ahhhhh'd" about each photo. Students then taped them to their book box for a constant reminder seeing themselves doing the right thing during Daily 5!

Shape Sort

One of our Common Core State Standards is to sort by shape. This week we practiced sorting a mix of shapes into circles, squares, hexagons, rectangles and triangles. We then talked about which shape had the most and least by comparing the sets.

Building Stamina!

The video below is of my students during Read to Self and Work on Writing building stamina for Daily 5.  I'm so proud of them to be working on their stamina with reading and writing! The other three options will come by easily for them after these first two choices were restarted and practiced with just a few changes  and differences made and implemented this time around since it was launched at the beginning of the year.

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Work on Writing

This week we have gone back and revamped a few of our Daily 5 choices. One of those choices that needed some work was our "Work on Writing" choice. After introducing the new procedures and practicing our stamina today for just Work on Writing I can say I wanted to do cartwheels around the room. I was blown away at how into their writing the class was. During our 90 minute reading block the students are only allowed to participate in lessons/activities that are all about reading and ways to help them become a better reader. During the Work on Writing choice the students respond to a piece of literature in their book box. I introduced a new page called a "Story Map". The students are only filling out the top three boxes right now until we have worked on problem and solution a bit more. They write and draw in each of the boxes according to what story they choose from their book box. After drawing a detailed picture, they are to label their picture to help describe the setting and characters. Since today was our first day doing this activity, I had the students share their story map at the end of Daily 5 and it was incredible to hear 5 and 6 year olds give a type of "book talk" using their book and story map. I hope to have time to allow sharing like this much more once all five of the choices are put back into the rotation.


One thing I noticed that really helped my students stay on task was that I put a pencil pouch with a box of crayons and a pencil in each of their book boxes. This has helped with students needing to get up and retrieve a new crayon, as well as helped with adding more detail because they have a lot of colors to choose from in adding those details they see from the book.

 



Spider Writing

A week or so ago we learned about spiders (yes, sorry it took so long to post). We shared places where we had seen spiders and could see a spider. After reading a mini book from all about spiders, which is now in each of our book boxes, we completed a writing activity about a place we have seen a spider or a place we could see a spider. We filled out and completed the sentence "I see a spider on a ____." We then took a number 8 because a spider has eight legs and then 8 legs and pasted them on our illustration of where we would see a spider!

I see a spider on a log.

I see a spider on a web.

Word by Word Matching

We practiced one of our CAFE strategies for Fluency today called "Word by Word Matching". This strategy helps the students match the words on the page to the words they are saying by pointing to each word as they read. We first read the poem as a class and then students came up to the chart and read individually. They did an excellent job reading each of the words in the chart and as they were matching the words they were reading to the words in the chart they were able to monitor themselves that they were reading the correct words. There were a couple of students who were pointing to the word "like" for example and said the word "have". Since they were focusing on their word by word matching they realized they had read the incorrect word and corrected themselves before moving on.

Veteran's Day

In honor of Veteran's Day (which was actually Sunday, November 11th) we were fortunate enough to have 4 servicemen in our building to help with our morning announcements, raise the flags on our flag pole and recite the Pledge of Allegiance with us. Our principal, Ms. Higgins, also spoke with the school about how important our veterans are to each and every one of us. Be sure to thank a veteran you know for their services!


       

Give me 5!

We have a new addition to one of our classroom procedures today. We enter and exit our classroom multiple times a day and what better way to add in some extra practice than right then? I placed three hands on the wall and put our new sight word along with two older sight words on them. When the students are leaving our classroom to go to recess, lunch, special and at the end of the day they "Give me 5" and say the sight words as they do so. We practiced three students at a time doing this procedure which helped our first time as a class go even smoother. The students loved doing this and are excited to have the words switched around throughout the week and new words posted every week!