Here is Daisy (and Ter'Rae photo bombing!) with her book tub. Please note she also has her first place trophy for raising the most money for Run for the Owls. Great job, Daisy! Also, our class got first place for raising the most money which means we are in possession of the Vernon Cup! Finally, we were the only class with 100% participation for Halloween costumes! We are killing it! I told Mr. Keefer we need a trophy shelf built in our room! We have started our reading program! Yeah! Our literacy block is as follows: We start by gathering on the carpet with our book tub. We sit with our reading group. I do a short mini-lesson on a reading strategy. The students practice with their assigned partner using the books in their tub. Then we start reader's workshop. The students rotate to the following stations in their reading group: read with me, using Lexia on the computer, read to self, and read to someone. After reading, we move onto writing. Some days I will start with a short mini-lesson. We have 2 groups on computers and 2 groups writing so each student writes for 15-20 minutes. Students are either writing in their journal or working on publishing a book. We will have our first published book to share at conferences. I meet with students during writing time to edit their work. Another poor quality picture. Sorry! We will be wrapping up our first IB unit in the next two weeks. Our first unit was conflict. As you can see, we brainstormed as a class where and what kind of conflicts can happen. I was so impressed with their global thinking and have no doubt it is from the rich literature we are doing for read aloud. Right now we are brainstorming examples of each conflict. Students are doing a writing/art activity for each conflict that they have an option of sharing with the class. Then we will go through and talk about resolutions. My goal is for students to be able to pick which conflict they would like to be assessed on. Then use our tablets to record a video of them discussing a solution to the conflict of their choice. Hopefully, these will be done in time for viewing at conferences! Tidbits:
I will be sending out conference reminders next week. If you don't have a conference scheduled, I will be emailing or texting you! We need some hand held pencil sharpeners. Both of my electronic pencil sharpeners have died. Also, we can only sharpen colored pencils with a handheld sharpener. If you could send one in, that would be great! Our snacks are starting to run low. If you can, please send snacks that are individually wrapped and we do have a peanut allergy in class. If you drop off your student in the morning, you may have noticed I have moved from greeting at the door. Not only is there a space issue, but our mornings were starting off a little chaotic. I'm using proximity to help students remember positive choices and give compliments. It makes for a much smoother start when I can focus on the students as soon as they sit down. Have a great week!
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We haven't officially started our reading program. Teachers still have trainings to attend. In the meantime, we are practicing building stamina for partner reading and reading to self. In addition, we have been completing all of our reading assessments. We have completed DIBELS. Most students have completed the assessment for Lexia which is an online resource that will allow students to work at their reading level. Also, it provides lexile scores. I will be using a combination of all assessments, behavior observations, and ability to work with peers to determine reading groups. We worked with our 4th grade buddy class last Friday. 4th graders assessed students on money. Then they practiced coin identification and counting money. It was a fun time for both 1st graders and 4th grade students. This isn't a great quality photo but I just can't express enough how amazing and enriched our read aloud time is with focusing on a single topic. There are text to text connections, text to self connections and text to world connections happening daily. Students are completely engaged with topics. One of our favorite quotes from a book was "Sun you are so even, so fair, as you share your light so equally on everyone". We loved it so much we needed to post it. Every time we finish a book students are so excited to print up the picture of the person we are reading about. We've also read some pretty great fiction stories where women are the protagonist. Our next social justice unit will be on Native Americans.
How is homework going? I am hoping it is the perfect mix of creating some responsibility but flexible enough that it works seamlessly with your family. Please let me know if I can be of a support for homework completion. |
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