In Writing Workshop we began our end of the year writing benchmark. The children will create a piece of writing independently. They will continue working on this through May 8th.
In Reading Workshop we have been focusing on understanding the importance of reading with fluency and expression. We read fluently and with expression, it sounds like we are talking. As the children read they will ask themselves "How would I say this if I were talking to someone?" The children learned about reading with excitement when the reader sees exclamation marks. We also focused on the characters and giving the characters a voice.
In Math Workshop we are understanding how to read a calendar. By using the months of the year, and the days of the week in sequence. We will continue to work on this and move into understanding how to create and use graphs.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Class News January 19-23
What an exciting week. We all came ready to learn after a long weekend.
Please note that report cards will be going home on Tuesday. Inside the report card you will find a lot of important information regarding your child. Please keep everything that is inside and return only the report card cover. Please sign on the third six weeks. If you have any concerns at that time and would like to meet with me please contact me via email. I will get back to you right away and we can arrange a mid year conference. If you do not have any concerns at this time we can meet before the year is over.
With the first semester behind us we have a lot of learning ahead of us. We will be working really hard so that everyone will be successful and ready to go to first grade. With that in mind I am asking if you would please remind your children of the expectations at school. It is important to follow directions, stay focused and on task. If I have to stop instruction to remind students of this expectation it takes away from their learning and others learning. I appreciate your support.
In Writing Workshop this week we are continuing to work on understanding how to revise our work. We our learning ways to help our writing become even easier to read. The children learned that when we like our writing we can make our writing even better: (First, I reread the story. Next, I can make a movie in my mind about the story. Finally, I can ask "What details can I add so the reader can see exactly what happened?") We learned that we can add missing words to our stories by adding a "carat". (pointy part of an arrow between the words to show where you will add details.) Another great tool we learned to use in our writing is revising our stories by adding details anywhere they are needed. We can do this by adding a new piece of paper in the middle of our story or add one at the end of the story.
It is so exciting to see the children trying this. Our focus was to reread our stories and think if the story helps the reader really see what is happening in the story. What awesome writers we are! YEAH!!!!
In Reading Workshop this week we continued to review routines and procedures and the characteristics of good retelling. We have been building our reading "book bags" with "just right" books. Many of the books in our "book bags" the children have read during guided reading. Our focus is to practice reading strategies and to practice reading fluency.
In Math Workshop we focused on understanding addition and subtraction. We are acting out number stories, comparing two groups to find out how many more or fewer, we determined how many are left when some objects in a group are taken away ("left" is the key word), and we solved problems by drawing pictures about joining two groups. We will continue to work on these concepts.
We continued to review all Kinder HFW that have been previously learned and we added (to,at,not,do). We will learn to read and write all Kinder HFW by the end of the year.:)
Our phonograms that we focused on were (ar, ck).
Thank you for your support and have a great weekend:)))
Please note that report cards will be going home on Tuesday. Inside the report card you will find a lot of important information regarding your child. Please keep everything that is inside and return only the report card cover. Please sign on the third six weeks. If you have any concerns at that time and would like to meet with me please contact me via email. I will get back to you right away and we can arrange a mid year conference. If you do not have any concerns at this time we can meet before the year is over.
With the first semester behind us we have a lot of learning ahead of us. We will be working really hard so that everyone will be successful and ready to go to first grade. With that in mind I am asking if you would please remind your children of the expectations at school. It is important to follow directions, stay focused and on task. If I have to stop instruction to remind students of this expectation it takes away from their learning and others learning. I appreciate your support.
In Writing Workshop this week we are continuing to work on understanding how to revise our work. We our learning ways to help our writing become even easier to read. The children learned that when we like our writing we can make our writing even better: (First, I reread the story. Next, I can make a movie in my mind about the story. Finally, I can ask "What details can I add so the reader can see exactly what happened?") We learned that we can add missing words to our stories by adding a "carat". (pointy part of an arrow between the words to show where you will add details.) Another great tool we learned to use in our writing is revising our stories by adding details anywhere they are needed. We can do this by adding a new piece of paper in the middle of our story or add one at the end of the story.
It is so exciting to see the children trying this. Our focus was to reread our stories and think if the story helps the reader really see what is happening in the story. What awesome writers we are! YEAH!!!!
In Reading Workshop this week we continued to review routines and procedures and the characteristics of good retelling. We have been building our reading "book bags" with "just right" books. Many of the books in our "book bags" the children have read during guided reading. Our focus is to practice reading strategies and to practice reading fluency.
In Math Workshop we focused on understanding addition and subtraction. We are acting out number stories, comparing two groups to find out how many more or fewer, we determined how many are left when some objects in a group are taken away ("left" is the key word), and we solved problems by drawing pictures about joining two groups. We will continue to work on these concepts.
We continued to review all Kinder HFW that have been previously learned and we added (to,at,not,do). We will learn to read and write all Kinder HFW by the end of the year.:)
Our phonograms that we focused on were (ar, ck).
Thank you for your support and have a great weekend:)))
Friday, January 16, 2009
Class News January 12-16
We enjoyed our writing celebration today!
For our writing celebration we choose our favorite easy to read story and made it even easier to read. The wring celebration is to celebrate all the work we have done and all the things we have learned over the past few weeks.
For our writing celebration we choose our favorite easy to read story and made it even easier to read. The wring celebration is to celebrate all the work we have done and all the things we have learned over the past few weeks.
Your child is coming home with their "celebration" book from this six weeks and from the 1st and 2nd six weeks of school. They were so excited and wanted to share with you how much they are writing now and what awesome writers they have become! Please send all three books back to school on Tuesday.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
In Writing Workshop this week we continued to work on a lot of ways to make our writing easier to read. We continued to work on stretching out our words, leaving spaces between words, and spelling many of our word wall words correctly. We have been working on not only writing for the reader, but also writing faster and more. We began using punctuation to break our thinking into easier to understand parts.
In Reading Workshop this week we discussed how to include the important parts of the story when we retell. We retold the important parts by putting the important parts in order. We used "time words" such as "first, next, then, after that, suddenly, finally, and in the end. We told our stories with expression just like when we are reading with fluency and expression to make it more fun to listen to. We talked about when we get stuck retelling a story we can "check back with the book" to find the part in the book that we couldn't remember. We have been working hard on all of the characteristics of good retelling: use the characters names, talk about the setting, include the most important parts, tell the story in order, use time words, use expression, and check back with your book.
In Math Workshop this week we participated in the middle of the year Math benchmark. We also continued to review concept previously taught. (Joining:making sets and Separating).
Shared Reading we learned the poems Chubby Little Snowman and You are my Snowman. We focused on finding words that used the digraphs (ch,th,sh,wh). The phonograms for the week were (ng/ea). We reviewed our previously taught HFW's. Introduced the word family (-ot), and blending words parts.
I will send home the result from the benchmark when the report card goes home.
Please visit the picture gallery. I have more pictures to add. Some of these were from today.
Have a wonderful long weekend!!
Shared Reading we learned the poems Chubby Little Snowman and You are my Snowman. We focused on finding words that used the digraphs (ch,th,sh,wh). The phonograms for the week were (ng/ea). We reviewed our previously taught HFW's. Introduced the word family (-ot), and blending words parts.
I will send home the result from the benchmark when the report card goes home.
Please visit the picture gallery. I have more pictures to add. Some of these were from today.
Have a wonderful long weekend!!
Friday, January 9, 2009
Class News January 5-9
Wow!
I was glad to see everyone back after the holidays ready to learn. Thank you to all the parents for all your wonderful gifts. You made my holiday very special.
What a great week we had coming back from the holidays. The kids worked really hard.
In Writing Workshop we are "Writing for the Reader" we have talked about stretching out our words to hear all the sounds. Each child also received a "space man" to help them remember to use spaces in between the words. We continue to work on taking a big idea and writing about a small moment from our idea. We have also been working really hard on writing words "in a snap". Our high frequency words are the words we want to write "in a snap". These words we call our "power words" because we want to read and write them quickly. As writers, we are working our hardest to write as much as we can. Writing clearly is our focus this unit so the reader is able to read our "words".
In Reading Workshop we are studying the process of retelling. We have been working on thinking about our reading and ways to help us remember what our stories are about. We talked about the "characteristics of good retelling". We learned that when we retell a story we want to remember to include the characters names, tell where the story is taking place (setting), and to include the most important parts of the story (beginning-middle-end). We will be working on discussing ways that will help us choose the important parts of the story.
In Math Workshop we are joining sets. We learned how to act out stories to tell how many in all. We learned the plus sign to represent joining groups when recording addition. We identified the equal sign to complete the number sentence for the word "is". We will continue to work on addition:joining sets.
In Shared Reading we enjoyed the poem The Snowball and Get Out!. This week our high frequency words were do, have, it, you. So far we have learned the H.F.W.'s am, are, and, can, I, in, is, look, like, my, on, out, said, see, the, we, were, was, going. The phonograms that we are working on are /00/ and /ch/.
In Phonological Awareness we introduced word families (-at), blending word parts, and omitting beginning/ending sounds of words. We will continue to work on some of this next week and throughout the year as needed.
We have been busy bees:)
Have a great weekend.
I was glad to see everyone back after the holidays ready to learn. Thank you to all the parents for all your wonderful gifts. You made my holiday very special.
What a great week we had coming back from the holidays. The kids worked really hard.
In Writing Workshop we are "Writing for the Reader" we have talked about stretching out our words to hear all the sounds. Each child also received a "space man" to help them remember to use spaces in between the words. We continue to work on taking a big idea and writing about a small moment from our idea. We have also been working really hard on writing words "in a snap". Our high frequency words are the words we want to write "in a snap". These words we call our "power words" because we want to read and write them quickly. As writers, we are working our hardest to write as much as we can. Writing clearly is our focus this unit so the reader is able to read our "words".
In Reading Workshop we are studying the process of retelling. We have been working on thinking about our reading and ways to help us remember what our stories are about. We talked about the "characteristics of good retelling". We learned that when we retell a story we want to remember to include the characters names, tell where the story is taking place (setting), and to include the most important parts of the story (beginning-middle-end). We will be working on discussing ways that will help us choose the important parts of the story.
In Math Workshop we are joining sets. We learned how to act out stories to tell how many in all. We learned the plus sign to represent joining groups when recording addition. We identified the equal sign to complete the number sentence for the word "is". We will continue to work on addition:joining sets.
In Shared Reading we enjoyed the poem The Snowball and Get Out!. This week our high frequency words were do, have, it, you. So far we have learned the H.F.W.'s am, are, and, can, I, in, is, look, like, my, on, out, said, see, the, we, were, was, going. The phonograms that we are working on are /00/ and /ch/.
In Phonological Awareness we introduced word families (-at), blending word parts, and omitting beginning/ending sounds of words. We will continue to work on some of this next week and throughout the year as needed.
We have been busy bees:)
Have a great weekend.
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