Blog Archives

Third Week

8/26/2017

The children are getting very accustom to their new classroom as they are finding their fitting place and becoming comfortable with their surroundings as well as rules and routines.

Here is a summary of what happened in our classroom:
Getting to Know Each Other…

Students listened to and watched an interactive story called Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae. In this story, Gerald the Giraffes watches all his friends boogie down to the beat at the Africa Jungle Dance and his only wish is that he could dance just as well. He tries hard to learn, but his clumsy body and his friends telling him "Giraffes can't dance" discourages him to even try. Finally he meets a cricket who tells him to listen to the music and "find your song." Gerald soon realizes he can dance he just needed to try again to different music! After reading this story, students enjoyed two songs which can be found here on our class website Don't Give Up by Bruno Mars and The Power of Yet by Janelle Monae. Students then thought of an academic and personal goal that they have and posted it on our "Things We Can't Do....YET!" poster.

In Langauge Arts...

Without looking at any illustrations, students used their visualization strategy to really listen to the story I Need My Monster by Amanda Noll. Halfway into the story, students had to illustrate one scene from their mental movie. This particular story included rich vocabulary and word choice, so it lent itself well to visualizing the details. Students got to share their monsters. Then we read the story looking at the illustrations in the book. It was really cool to compare students' interpretations!
We continue to use highlighting strategies to find text evidence in the stories we read from Wonders. Using this strategy, students are learning to be critical thinkers as they read closely when asking and answering questions.
After reading student writing samples, we talked about what good writing looks like. Every student got to jut down their own idea on a sentence strip. Later we sorted these sentence strips based on similarities and developed three categories into a tree map. The categories we came up with were as follows:
- IDEAS/TOPIC
  - all sentences on topic
  - uses interesting details
  - ideas is clear to understand
- ORGANIZATION
  - has a beginning sentence
  - has an ending sentence
  - sentences come in order
  - uses transition words
- SPELLING/CONVENTIONS.
  - uses capitals and lower case correctly
  - uses periods, commas, questions marks, quotations
  - sounds out hard words and spells grade level words correctly
  - spaces between words

In math...

Using our Stepping Stones curriculum, students learn about the counting-on strategy. Students learned it's much more efficient when you start at the larger number and count on the smaller number. Using this strategy is faster and leaves less room for error. Students applied this counting-on strategy when solving word problems. They had to write matching equations with the unknown in the correct position to various math stories. For example, the following problem would have the following matching equation:
- There were 12 lollipops in a bag. Mom bought some more. Now there are 16 lollipops altogether. How many did Mom buy? 12 + ? = 16
Students also learned about the commutative property. They learned that with turn-around facts such as 5 + 7 and 7 + 5 you can switch the two parts and it wont effect the total.

REMINDERS AND ANNOUCEMENTS

Field trip Monday (shoes and home lunch is needed)
PE for group B-please wear shoes and comfortable clothing on Tuesday
Don't forget to check and sign your child's planner daily! Thank you!

Please help your child log the genre he or she reads daily. It is important to expose them to the correct genre name when referring to the books they read. The Genre-at-a-Glance chart is located behind the reading log (laminated to the manilla folder).

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A Second Week

8/18/2017

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What another engaged week we had together learning about each other and building a safe learning environment for us all. We are still learning about routines of our classroom that will help us to be efficient. Some of these routines include: classroom jobs, morning routines & bellwork, lining up & washing up for lunch, and signing in every morning.

Here is a summary of what happened in our classroom:
Getting to Know Each Other…

Individually, students took a reading survey that asked questions about what books they like to read, how often they read, what genre they enjoy most, and how they learned to read. It was very powerful to see how everyone reads for different purposes (to be entertained, to learn new things, for homework, etc…) and how books are a very special part in everyone’s life!

In Langauge Arts...

After reading a picture book called Wolf! by Beeky Bloom, about a wolf who struggled to learn to read but never gave up and eventually became the best reader in his town, students wrote down what they think good readers do. We later made a circle map with all our ideas. This map is now decorating our classroom, as there are many wonderful ideas that we never want to forget like...Good Readers...
- reread the story if it does not make sense
- focus on their mental movie
- never give up when the words get hard
- ask for help
- sound out words
- stop and check
- read everyday!
- use picture clues, etc...
Students used highlighting strategies to find text evidence in the stories they read from Wonders. They practiced looking for key details. As students were asking and answering questions about the text, they learned to use Q.A.E. = Q=Repeat the Question, A= Answer the question, E=Provide Evidence. Students used this nemonic device to help them answer the questions in a complete sentence and with text evidence.
In addition to fables, students also learned about expository or informational text. We read a text called "Meet the Artist." Using this text, students answered various comprehension questions and "marked up the text" using highlighting strategies to find textual evidence. They responded to comprehension questions learning how to restate the question before answering.

In math...

Using our Stepping Stones curriculum, students learn about place value, this week going up to the hundreds place. They also practiced writing numerals and number names for three-digit numbers. Students learned that with three-digit numbers you say the tens and the ones together, but the hundreds is said separately, so a hyphen is needed between the tens and ones, but not for the hundreds. For example, three hundred fourty-nine.

REMINDERS AND ANNOUCEMENTS

Spelling test on Monday (normally it would have been on Friday, but due to the Holiday it was pushed back to the following Monday)
Field trip is on 8/28 (shoes and home lunch is needed)
1st PE is scheduled for 8/29 (shoes needed to participate)
Don't forget to check and sign your child's planner daily! Thank you!

Please help your child log the genre he or she reads daily. It is important to expose them to the correct genre name when referring to the books they read. The Genre-at-a-Glance chart is located behind the reading log (laminated to the manilla folder).

And one last thought… most of my updates won’t be this long- there were just so many different activities that we did this week and the week before that I wanted to share! As a mom to a 1o-year-old boy who always has a hard time sharing what he does in school with me, this is what I hoped for- a way to find out what goes on at school so we can extend his learning at home or simply engage in a productive conversation at home. It’s what I hope these updates will do for your family.

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A Great Start!!!

8/12/2017

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What a wonderful (and BUSY!) first week we had in school! It was an exciting week getting to know the children (who I am enjoying immensely), setting up routines, and creating a safe and open environment where the children will grow and learn this school year.
Here is a summary of what happened in our classroom:
Getting to Know Each Other…
-To build inclusion and practice communication and listening skills, students created T-shirt designs that represented themselves. Their paper-shirts were divided into sections to include topics such as family, favorite place, favorite food, etc... Students could share their shirts with the class as others listened and learned about their new classmates.
-To showcase their birthdays, students designed their own cupcake using construction paper. Later in the week they put their cupcakes on display in the classroom in timeline-order. As we did this, we discussed what a timeline is and reviewed the calendar months in order. (This will serve as a nice introduction to our social studies/history unit coming up soon about timelines!)
-We discussed in detail about our class "Recipe for Success" and the 8 components to be successful. Students worked with partners as they each focused on one trait from our "recipe" and wrote about what it means to them. They created a speech bubble, which is now decorating our front door next to their gorgeous photos in their chef hats!

In Langauge Arts...
-Students listened to many stories this week. One in particular, an Aesop fable, The Lion and The Mouse was used to help students practice visualizing as they read. As students were read the story, they were asked to make a "mental movie" of various scenes in their minds. Using this story, student discussed a very important life lesson: No matter if you're big or small, you can make a difference!
-In addition to fables, students also learned about expository or informational text. We read a text called "Meet the Artist." Using this text, students answered various comprehension questions and "marked up the text" using highlighting strategies to find textual evidence.

In math...
-Using our Stepping Stones curriculum, students started to learn about place value, specifically tens and ones. They also practiced writing numerals and number names. They are still working on adding in the hyphen when need in number names. Extending their knowledge of place value, students compared two-digit numbers and even order numbers from greatest to least or least to greatest. To end the week, student leaned about even and odd numbers.

REMINDERS AND ANNOUCEMENTS
-Field trip forms are due on Monday 8/14
-Field trip is on 8/28 (shoes and home lunch is needed)
-1st PE is scheduled for 8/29 (shoes needed to participate)
-Spelling homework will begin next week (see AVID binder ELA tab for schedule or homework page on website
-Oral fluency homework will begin next week (1-minute reading/word count)
-Wonders comprehension homework will begin next week
-Don't forget to check and sign your child's planner daily! Thank you!
-Please help your child log the genre he or she reads daily. It is important to expose them to the correct vocabulary when referring to the books they read. The Genre-at-a-Glance chart is located behind the reading log (laminated to the manilla folder).

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Third Week

A Second Week

A Great Start!!!

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