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!

Author's Chair

My class loves sharing their writing in the "Author's Chair". This week we practiced capitalizing the first word in a sentence, adding a period and writing all of the other words/letters in the sentence with lower case letters (unless it's a word from our "What Gets a Capital Letter" chart). Each student that shares first reads his/her sentence and then shows the class their illustration. We give each author a compliment on his/her writing before the next student shares. We are becoming authors and illustrators!

Surfer of the Week--Elsie!

Elsie was our first "Surfer of the Week". We loved getting to know all about Elsie this week when she brought items that are special to her in to share with us. On her last day, her mom came in and read us a story that was one of Elsie's favorites from when she was a baby. Thank you for sharing with us this week Elsie!

My Eyes Can See

New Bathroom Procedure!

Today we learned our new bathroom procedure during our morning 90 minute reading block where we do Daily 5. The students are allowed to use the restroom without asking to go, but only get the one chance during the 90 minute block. During the student's choice time, I am working either one on one conferring with students or working in strategy groups and are not to be interrupted while they are completing their independent choices. We were having a few students who seemed to be spending more time in the bathroom than at their choice =). So to solve this problem, we now have our names outside the bathroom door and if a student chooses to use the restroom during one of his/her choices they remove their name tag from the door and place it in the basket. After doing so, they go about the rest of their morning completing various activities during each of the five choices. Today being the first day, we had several students who were sure to use the new procedure. I'm sure the "newness" will wear off and it will just become part of our normal routine!

Election Day!

During writing time today we discussed how today is Election Day. We put what we are studying in writing and information about Election Day together in a predictable chart. We started talking this week about what words get a capital letter, the beginning of a sentence has a capital letter and every sentence should have a period at the end. We haven't talked about question marks or exclamation points yet, so right now all of our sentences are usually ending in a period. We completed the chart about Election Day using what we have learned with capitalizing the beginning of the sentence, special holidays and names of people. We also had a few words within the sentence that were missing and we discussed why they should not be capitalized. We finished each sentence by adding a nice, round period! After completing our chart, we read through our Time for Kids magazine all about voting on Election Day!

Fun with Numbers 0-20!

During several math mini-lessons we have practiced recognizing and creating numbers 0-20. This week we put an activity at "Math with Someone" where they are doing the same idea as we did in the mini-lesson. One partner takes a number card out of the bag, while the other partner closes his/her eyes. The partner reads the number and hides it and the partner who had their eyes shut opens them and creates the number on the pan. If they get the number correct, we give each other a compliment on a job well done. If they create the incorrect number, we ask them to try again!

 

Below is video of two students completing the activity together.

 

Describing Spiders

To finish our study about spiders, we completed a chart describing what spiders are, what they can do and what they have. After filling it out we realized we learned a lot about those 8 legged non-insects!

Stop! Stop!

Our poem this week was called Red Means Stop. The new sight word "go" was in it!

 

Number Bonds!

One of our new activities for Math by Myself during Daily 5 Math is to practice different ways to make numbers 1-10. The student takes a chart that says "Ways to Make 10" (and other numbers) with two circles on it, a dry erase board, marker, eraser and 10 counters. They can choose any number 1-10 to work with. Once they pick their number, they count that many out and put them on the chart. Then by moving various amounts from circle to circle, they create different ways to make that number and write it on their dry erase board into a number bond.

All About the Characters!

During our first mini-lesson today we learned about characters in a story. We first talked about what we already knew about characters and most of the students only were familiar with characters in movies or television shows. After discussing what made those characters in movies, we realized characters are also found in books! We discussed how in order to consider a character they have to talk, move or do something important in the story. For example, a tree in the background is not a character unless it is talking in the story. We then read a Halloween story about Clifford and wrote down any characters we found while reading! Afterward, we discussed what made those people/animals characters.

Spider Masks!

We have been learning about spiders! We wrote sentences about spiders this morning and created our own spider masks this afternoon. We were sure to add 8 legs to the mask! We will continue our study on spiders and bats the rest of the week.

Grandparent's Day!

We had a wonderful showing of grandparents for our Grandparent's Day! Below is a video montage of both pictures and video taken from the fun morning. The students went to several stations with their grandparents. They read stories, painted their hand print on a poem, played games, made a placemat, created a pasta necklace, painted their cheek and ate cookies and drank punch!

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Red Ribbon Week

This week was Red Ribbon Week. We showed our support and goal to saying no to drugs by wearing our red ribbons and giving a thumbs up!

Fire Safety

We learned all about Fire Safety and ways to stay safe if we are ever near a fire. We completed a chart as a class telling some of the information we learned.


During our math time, we used shapes we have been working on to make our own fire trucks! We started to realize how many shapes are around us all day long!

Hokey Pokey! Poem 10-25-2012

Our poem this week was one line from the Hokey Pokey! We had a lot of fun saying the poem with the motions and adding in a few other lines as well =).