Well On Our Way!
Can you believe we are already wrapping up week 3! This week we have really gotten into the swing of things. We spent some time going back and re-discussing the importance of being a good listener. As a class, we talked about why it is important to be a good listener (so that all students are able to understand what is going on and so that everyone can learn)! We talked about the importance of using our whole bodies to listen. During our lesson we labeled a class diagram (which we refer to often) as well as labeled our own individual diagrams. Our pictures showed that it is important to have our eyes looking forward, to have listening ears, mouths waiting to talk, quiet hands (in our laps are best), legs still (criss-cross applesauce), and bodies facing forward! Additionally, we wrote about how we can be good listeners. We will continue to refer to our class diagram as needed in order to ensure a positive and helpful learning environment. Below you can see how all of our friends are practicing Whole Body Listening!
During our Reading Workshop, we continued our discussion on the story Chester's Way. We have had some great discussions about the setting of the story as well as the characters in our story. On Thursday, we took a look back in the text to prove our understanding of how the characters (Chester, Wilson, and Lilly) became friends. While looking back through the text we were able to show our understanding of the sequence of events that led to the characters becoming friends. Take a look at the connections to text that our friends Benjamin and Hailey made.
During Spelling and Phonics we focused on the Short e (hen, beg, vet, etc). We focused on identifying the sound that the short e makes as well as how to blend (putting the sounds in a word together) and segment (breaking apart the sounds in a word) words. We spent time each day reading, building, and writing our words as well. In addition, on Thursday, we read a new story called Those Silly Men. Each page in the story introduced a new character whose name contained a short e, as well as additional short e words. Our class spent time reading this story as a whole group, individually, and then in partners. Repeated practice really helps to learn and maintain these skills!
Our Writing Workshop focused on handwriting practice this week. We have been working hard to correct and maintain proper letter formation and spacing. We have worked on tracing and writing both upper case and lower case letters, as well as tracing and copying sentences. We have talked about the need to include CAPS and ENDS to our sentences as well. As we continue on into various writing units, we will continue to focus on being conscious about adding capital letters to the beginning of our sentences and not throughout the rest of our words. We will also focus on adding punctuation to the ends of our sentences to show the completion of our thoughts, as well as stretching our words to sound them out. Here you can see how Emily and Brooklyn included both CAPS and ENDS in their writing about the setting in Chester's Way! They also stretched out their words!
Our Daily 5 literacy block is in full swing! This week our friends have learned about the remaining 3 stations in addition to Read to Self and Read to Someone, which they have been building their stamina for since the beginning of school. As I wrote last week, our goal for first grade was to be able to Read to Self for 20 minutes at a time. We have been building our stamina every day and on Tuesday we were able to read for 21 minutes straight, while following our guidelines (getting to work right away, reading the whole time, staying in one spot, not talking to our friends)!! In addition to these two stations we have learned about our Listening to Reading station (we get to use our Chromebooks for this), Writing station, and Word Work station. We are continuing to build our stamina for all of these stations and have been extremely excited to be able to rotate through the various stations and work independently!
During Read to Self, our bodies are in a quiet space, away from other distractions. You can see here that these friends are working hard to keep their eyes on their books and to stay in one spot!
When Reading to Someone, we make sure we are sitting Elbow to Elbow, Knee to Knee (either facing each other or right next to each other) so that both people are able to see and hear the story. In these pictures, our friends are taking turns reading. After one person is done reading their book, they sit and listen to their partner read a story to them. If a partner gets to a word they do not know we make sure to wait and count to 3 in our heads before we ask if they need help. Sometimes we just need a little time to stretch those words!
At the Listening to Reading station, our friends are using a website called Epic. While on the site, they are able to choose from a variety of books in various interest areas and are able to look and read along while a story is being read to them. I have seen a lot of friends very interested in listening to nonfiction books about the weather, snakes, and sharks this week.
At our Word Work station, students are using a variety of materials to build words. Specifically, they are practicing writing and building our spelling/phonics focus words with the short e sound. We are able to use marker boards, letter beads and strings, magnetic letters, rainbow writing and more to help practice those words!
When visiting our Writing Station, our friends have learned that they need to stay in one spot the whole time. They also learned that they need to work the whole time. There are a variety of things for them to work on, such as practicing handwriting, writing letters, drawing pictures and writing about them, writing on marker boards, writing sentences containing our weekly spelling/phonics skill and more!
While wrapping up our week, we spent some time on Friday enjoying our popcorn and book shopping! We are finding that it is very important to fill our book boxes with the right fit books. Our friends worked on sorting their books to make sure that they put them away in the correct spot in our library. Next, they picked new leveled readers as well as picture books! They are continuing to add our weekly spelling and phonics books to their book boxes every Thursday. Those books will remain in their book boxes for a while and will eventually be sent home!
We cannot wait to begin a new theme and story next week in Reading and Writing Workshop and continue to build our stamina at Daily 5. We will also continue our math focus on building our understanding of number patterns through 10.
As a reminder, Scholastic orders are due next week Friday - make it simple and use our online class code MCVDY! Money from candy sales is also due on the 30th!
Next week is Spirit Week! Make sure to join the fun and dress up for each special day!!
Monday: Comfy Day
Tuesday: Hat Day
Wednesday: Sports/College Day
Thursday: Mismatch Day
Friday: BLUE and GOLD Day
Additionally, don't forget to join in on all of the Homecoming Fun on Friday evening! School will dismiss 1 hour early at 2:40. There is a Homecoming Parade starting at 5:00. There will be a designated meeting spot for all Forest View families to meet and enjoy the fun! Be on the look out for a roped off area with red, yellow and blue balloons across from the skate park! The theme is SUPERHEROS! Dress up and have fun!
