Game work station:will have various learning games. This week they are exploring rhyme bags. Ian has just found that van rhymes with fan.
123 work station:Used as math practice. This week students used stamps to represent numbers in a "If you give a mouse a cookie" counting book. Merrick is working hard.
Writing work station: We make books at this station. Usually it will be a theme book or connected to a story we're reading. We begin with a October book where we use a word chart to choose words to copy and then illustrate. This is a work station I encourage children to make strong effort to complete. As we progress with our writing you will see students' creativity flow here.
Puppet Theatre work station: Usually used to practice retelling stories we've read in class and acting them out. This week students used character sticks from "Brown Bear, Brown Bear".
Star work station: Can be any extra activity that fits into needed practice. This is often a thematic activity. This week students practiced putting together sentences we created and cut up as a group. They each follow the pattern "I like ___ (color word)." Sophia built this sentence all by herself!
Listening work station: Students are listening to a Christopher Columbus story. As our year progresses students will write listening responses to the stories.
Magnetic work station can have various literacy activities using letters. This week students sorted letters with sticks and/or curves. Here you see Lily, Payton and Evan working cooperatively.
ABC work station: Students will work with letters and or sounds in some way. This week they used letter stamps to stamp their names. I emphasized using lowercase letters. Sam is carefully putting the stamp away in the correct drawer.
Our browsing book work station: Often has a book with simple text for students to read. Normally that book is read to them first so that it is familiar. We use high lighters to find sight words we're learning. This week we highlighted "the". When these books come home please ask your child to read it to you and tell you the word s/he highlighted.
Our big book, "Dan Goes Home" helped us review rhymes and introduced both the question mark and exclamation marks. This Monday we will complete our lessons using this book. We will learn to use the word Dan to spell rhyming words by changing the first letter.
Our word study lessons helped us practice hearing syllables. Being able to hear and break a word into separate syllables helps us break down the sounds for our sound spelling. I also introduce our helping hand with vowels. Please know that vowels can be confusing to young children. Developmentally some children cannot yet differentiate the 5 main vowel sounds. They may think that egg sounds the same as a word beginning with a. However, some children are ready for the challenge of vowels. Often I look at these lessons as an introduction for some children without the expectation of mastery. With that said, most children did better than expected with sound spelling one syllable words with short vowel sounds.
We celebrated Columbus Day on Monday by reading a big book, looking at our globe & telling a summary of his trip and making a project with his 3 ships.
We worked with several math concepts this week. Some are..
Using dice we rolled a number, counted or recognized that number and recorded it by tracing that number. This went fast for some students while others had to persevere to complete all columns of numbers waiting for the dice to roll their needed numbers.
A clown paper should have come home Friday used to have students draw objects to represent numbers on the clown's balloon. If your child struggled with this, please take a few minutes to practice this skill.
We used the book "Going on a bear hunt" to introduce or review directional words such as in between, beneath, over etc. We also learned a new song from Jack Hartman called "Going on a treasure hunt" with similar words. A shorter/taller lesson was also taught this week with photos of furniture in our room to measure ourselves against.
Student's are already making great gains with their writing. This week we had mini-lessons on writing independently using tools inside our room such as a date stamp which is kept at each table.
Students had several lessons on using sounds to spell/write ideas. One of the techniques I use to teach this the analogy of how a turtle might talk. Using "turtle talk" students stretch the sounds of a word so they can better hear the sounds. In the examples shown here you can see how students are attempting to spell using sounds. If you look at Payton's work she's started her story with "Once upon a time". I am thrilled with the progress I am seeing already!
h the books to things in our lives. "When Sofie Gets Angry" is a book that most students can relate to. We had turn & talks (time to turn to a partner seated next to him/her and share ideas in quiet voices) to share our connections with one another. Many students could tell countless stories of when they were angry at one tine or another. During our independent component, students were asked to make connections with their own books. You'll see a photo of Hailey sharing the connection she made with her book.
We also had our first experience with book shopping. Children took home their personal books and were taught to book shop from our classroom library this week. We start by choosing 3 books and will eventually have 6-8 each week. They will have opportunities to "read" these books during independent reading part of Reader's Workshop as well as each morning upon entering our classroom. The photos here show Payton and Nolan enjoying their chosen reading spots during independent reading. The chart shown here represents ideas taken from the children and myself to help us choose books.
A big thank you to Evan's mom & Christian's mom for helping decorate our classroom for Halloween. They were both here volunteering all morning for the Fun Run and when it was rained out for a short time they kept busy in our room!
Extra bits of information for you...
Missing work-If you don't find a piece of work in your child's folder that appears on the blog. There a few possibilities regarding the missing paper: First, it may have been misplaced in a desk or book bin or somehow didn't make it into our "work tub". It could have been missing a name and the owner was unable to recognize it as his/hers. Third, your child may not have completed it. Sometimes children don't always finish all work stations that week. If those children are off task and not using time wisely I will likely send the unfinished work home or have him/her complete it during free choice. However, there are times when children are working hard at other stations doing quality work, but didn't get to all stations. As long as they are practicing and participating in real work I do not feel a need to have all work stations completed. For example, often a child is interested in writing and will do more than is expected at that station. I don't feel a need to pull him/her from an involved piece of writing practice to build sight words at the magnetic center or go over to the listening center. Throughout the weeks s/he will have many opportunities to practice at each station.
Library Books- Please try to return books on Mondays. If your child does not bring home a new book on Tuesday, s/he likely didn't return the last one.
The books you sent from home on the first week of school were sent home on Friday. We learned how to book shop and will be using our classroom library to fill our book bins.
Reminder to send in your child's birthday book and the number book home project.
Book orders- There is still time to get on-line at www.scholastic.com to place book orders for your child. Reading each day/night with your child is the very best thing you can do to support his/her literacy.
Popcorn Fridays-Many parents have inquired about the popcorn cards. It sounds as though several students did not get their popcorn last week. My guess is that there was confusion on that first popcorn day. To help in the next popcorn Friday I will ask the PTA for a list of my students with cards and I will let those students know to go to the table and ask for their bag. Hopefully, this will solve the problem. There were no sales this Friday due to the Fun Run.
Halloween Party- Notes went home last week regarding our classroom party. For those of you new to Dublin I want to explain that it is our tradition to start our celebration with a whole school parade. This will begin on Monday, October 31st, at 2:30 PM and usually my class leads the parade! It's a great day to come and see the school spirit of Dublin. We walk through two main halls and then outside to the playground. You may want to take your first photos in our hall and then beat us out back for the entire parade. Afterwards we will go straight back to our classroom to begin our party. Claire's mom has planned a few activities and games and we are looking forward to having many helping hands so that all runs smoothly.
Upcoming dates to note:
Thursday, Oct. 20th: Student council pumpkin sale
Monday, October 31st: Halloween party
November 17th: conferences
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