Weekly Update

Dear Families,

We had another busy and productive week in our classroom.

In reading, the students continued their work in guided reading groups.  Most guided reading groups are still reading fictional stories, which allow us to dig deeper into various comprehension tasks while focusing upon reading strategies to help us with fluency and accuracy. We continued making personal connections to the characters and the events.  We also learned how to use our new "Reading Response Menu" in class.  This is a collection of reading responses that they students choose from as they read their books. The menu gives the students options how to respond to a book, or what thinking task to do.  For example, the students can choose to write in their Literacy Book, read the book to a friend to work on fluency, show their understanding of the book in a picture, or give the book an award.  If the student chooses to give the book an award, he/she will name the award and justify why this award is given.  We currently have 5 stations open and we will open more reading response tasks next week.  We love our reading menus!

In writing, the students had a very special treat this week when the author David Martin emailed us and asked us to vote on our favorite endings for a book he has not yet published.  David Martin is currently developing two new characters, Gertie and Gus.  They are very funny.  I have worked closely with David Martin for many years and he has shared many un-finished and unpublished books with my students.  This was, however, the first time we were directly involved in the writing/editing process.  What a treat!  We look forward to seeing this book in our library and our book stores soon.  If you want to explore david Martin's website, I have linked it here.  It is also linked on our school web-site under Author Links.

This week, we also had another 4 Winds class.  We learned about leaves and their characteristics.  Here are some pictures from our workshops.  Thanks again parent volunteers for providing these science classes to our students.  We sorted the leaves based on their characteristics, we created artistic leaf bugs and we colored them.

Lastly, below is a list of reminders:

• Please return the purple permission slip for our upcoming field-trip to the Flynn on November 18th
• We are going to the WCS Book Fair on November 12th in the morning.  This is a time for students to browse books, and write a wish list for you if they wish to return and buy later in the evening.  If you want, your child can bring a small amount of money (we usually recommend $5-10) to buy a book. Tax will have to be paid as well and sometimes, as you can imagine, it can be very difficult for a child to understand why a book cannot be purchased with $5 even though that is the price on the book.  Thank you for discussing this at home with your child.  We will talk more about this in school as the Book Fair nears.  We only buy books in school.  If your child wants to buy pencils and posters, for example, we encourage parents to return in the evening.
• Next Tuesday, our rotating related arts switches to Guidance with Ms. Tatlock.
• We still have PE on Wednesdays and Fridays. Sneakers please!
• We are integrating more technology into our classes every day.  If your child did not bring in his/her own head-phones to use, please bring them in on Monday.  Let me know if you need help getting these.  It is so much better not to share head-phones and the classroom is so much quieter when we use our head-phones.  Thank you!
• Don't forget to check out KidBlog again this weekend for another challenge!

Have a great weekend!

Maria

Math Update

First grade mathematicians are learning to read and represent data in different types of graphs.  They are also learning to compare these findings.  Sometimes we vote in class, and sometimes we take a survey.  Ask your child to explain.

Here is a picture of a pictograph:

Here is a picture of a line plot:

Literacy

Hello Families,
I wanted to share a couple of pictures from some of the strategies we're working on in reading.  As a class, we started our Vocabulary Tree.  When we participate in read alouds, we "stop and think" about challenging words, and we discuss how we can figure out the meaning of these words.  Then, we add these words to our Vocabulary Tree.  Currently, we add "apples" to our tree.  Here is a picture of our tree.  Some of our current words are talons, prey, predator, and nocturnal.  We also have schema and respect.  Thank you for encouraging your child to think about interesting words at home too.

As you might have read in our weekly update, the students work on different reading strategies to make sense of the books they read.  We like to call these different strategies "tools".  They help us find meaning and there are many to choose from.  To symbolize all of the different tools we have in reading, we have a reading tool box.  Here is a picture of it.

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
We love "shake breaks" in our classroom!  Shake breaks are times when we dance and follow directions how to do the movements while listening to a song.  Sometimes, we use shake breaks as a reward when we fill our buzzy jar, and sometimes, we we dance a short dance to break up a longer class or as a surprise in the middle of class when all the students have worked hard and completed all their work.Here are two videos so you can see us all dance.  You can also access these songs and dances at home by simply going to our dancing page on my wiki (I also linked it here for your convenience)

The whole school loves shake breaks so much that this week, when all the students filled the Bee Hive in the office, we had a special Jazzercise in the gym together.  We had so much fun dancing together.  It is great to see the kids excitement when we integrate physical exercise and learning together!

This week in reading, the students continued working on various strategies to make their reading more fluent and their comprehension deeper.  As a class, we discussed the importance of making personal connections to our books.  We learned how we can "stop and jot" these connections on post-it notes and we read many books highlighting strong personalities or experiences.  For example, we read "Wemberly Worried" by Kevin Henkes.  The students discussed a time when they too were worried, just like the main character Wemberly.  The students wrote about these experiences and they also recovered "Power Rocks" with positive and encouraging words on them to hold when they feel worried.  If your child lost his/her power rock already, let me know and I will send home another.  The students also blogged about their personal connections.  If you are interested in seeing their posts, please visit our KidBlog and log in.  I posted an online real aloud of Kevin Henkes's book "Chester's Way".  The students were asked to thinks about the different characters in this story and share a personal connection.    We will continue working on different reading strategies in our guided reading groups next week as well.  Thank you all for reading with your child at home every night!

In writing this week, the students started a new unit called "Small Moment Writing."  Small moment writing is very similar to our previous unit in that they are both about personal narratives.  In small moment writing, however, the students are taught how to choose one element, or moment, in their story and stretch it our over several pages.  They will learn to use interesting adjectives to describe the setting and the characters in their stories.  They will also learn how to use dialogue effectively; sometimes as conversation between the characters in their stories, but also as speaking bubbles, or thinking bubbles, in their pictures.  The students will also learn how to weave in the 5W's into their writing.  They will be encouraged to think about how they can write about who was there, when it happened, where the story took place, what happened and why something occurred.  This is rather tricky because we do not want to ask the questions and then answer them; rather as authors we want to weave in these elements throughout the story.  Ask your child to explain our "Tiny Topics Notebooks" and why we read already published stories written by my former students.

In science this week, the students on Harmony continued learning about Force and Motion though our team-wide workshops.  It is wonderful to see how excited they are about science and how we can integrate engineering and creativity into this process as well.

Reminders:

• Picture re-takes will be on 10/28 at 8am at ABS.  Please contact the front office for more details and paperwork.
• Our school-wide Bee Wear is available again.  Please consider buying a cool-looking T-shirt or hat with our school motto.  I sent out an email with order forms and information.  It is also published in the School Bell.  Thank you!
• It is getting colder and colder every day it feels like.  We have recess every day (unless it is raining) so please make sure your child has warm, weather-appropriate clothing.
• On Tuesday, October 28th, we have our last PE as a rotating related arts.  We will begin Guidance with Ms. Tatlock on November 4th.  More information will follow.
• We still have PE on Wednesdays and Fridays so please remember to wear, or bring, those sneakers.  We LOVE to earn those red buzzies!

Regards,
Maria

Weekly Update

Dear Families,

We were very busy this week in school even though it was short.  Remember, we have no school tomorrow and Friday due to in-service and parent-teacher conferences.  Thank you for signing up on our google doc.  I have already met with some of you and I look forward to meeting with the rest of you tomorrow and Friday.  It is always great to share about your child's learning and progress!

This week in writing, the students met with their editing partners to give, and receive, constructive feedback on their stories. The students had a writing rubric to guide their conversations and they did a great job learning from each other.  They also started their covers, with lots of details and catchy titles.  I am sharing these stories at our conferences but I will hold on to them until a little later this year.  Some students have already expressed an interest to have them published in our Reading Restaurant in May. (No worries, first grade parents-you will learn more about Reading Restaurant as we approach May!).

In reading, the students continued their work in our guided reading groups, receiving instruction and participating in small group discussions about the books we read together.  This week, we learned about "schema".  We learned that schema is a fancy word for something that we already know about something.  We learned that if we already know something about, let's say bats, we will learn more new information faster, because we already have references for that topic; a schema.  We practiced using our schema this week by choosing books, both fiction and non-fiction about authors, or topics, that we are already familiar with.  We discovered that we can make predictions and anticipate plots or events by simply knowing the characters from other books by the same author.  We also discovered that it is easier to remember new information when we already know a little about that topic.  We made sure that we continued to practice our "stop and jot" strategies from last week, a time when we actively engage with our books by jotting down ideas, words or queries on post-it notes.  The students love to read and write.  The students also love to read and show their understanding with art.  We finally got our amazing digital self-portraits up outside our classroom.  here is a picture, but please visit our classroom to see them up close.  They are truly amazing.  The students used Paint, a computer program to create their own self-portraits, using illustration techniques created by the author Todd Parr.  Todd Parr has written many terrific books for young children and his message is as powerful as his illustrations.

This week, the students on team Harmony also started participating in our science workshops on "Force and Motion."  For the next several weeks, the students on team Harmony will be mixed up and rotate between all the classrooms to learn about different aspects of force and motion.  I am offering classes and workshops on gravity, Ms. Crowley is teaching pushes and pulls, and Mrs. Benoit is teaching workshops on acceleration and friction.  Here are some pictures of the students from my workshop this week.  After learning about the pull of gravity and air resistance, the students were challenged in a scientific engineering task.  They were challenged to make a structure that could "defy" gravity, and be sturdy enough to hold up an egg, a tennis ball, or a billiard ball on its top.  The students did an amazing job working together and problem-solving, using only the materials provided, while integrating new-found knowledge about gravity.

Have a great long weekend.

Maria

Weekly Update

Dear families,

Time certainly flies!  It is hard to believe but it is October already and the weather is getting chillier every day.  Please remember to send your child to school with warmer clothing as we have outdoor recess every day, unless it is raining.  If your child wishes to keep a wind-breaker, or jacket inside his/her locker that is fine too.  Extra clothing can also fit inside them, even though they are small.  We usually put extra clothing on the top shelf.  It comes in handy if a child falls or steps in a puddle or in wet grass at recess. Thank you. 

In reading this week, the students continued working on different reading strategies and projects through our guided reading groups, or Book Clubs as we call them.  Some children received new "just right" books this week, and some children continued working on the books we started last week.  If your child did not receive a new book this week, it is because the book we are currently reading is long and requires deeper analysis and work. This week 1st and 2nd graders continued their work on making sure they are actively engaged in the reading process.  We learned how good readers "stop and think" about their books to make sense of the texts.  We practiced this by jotting down our questions, wonderings and interesting facts on post-it notes which we shared in circle and in our Book Clubs.  We call this reading strategy "stop and jot."  We learned that active readers collect facts and questions from their non-fiction books.  For example, we read a book about animal cave homes and collected many questions and facts together as a class on our post-it notes.  We also learned that active readers also "stop and jot" down questions and interesting facts from their fictional stories.  We read a book about a bear family collecting food in the forest, and we jotted down facts about their character traits and the setting and asked questions about what the author wanted us to learn.  The children did an amazing job and loved our post-it notes!  Ask your child to share this new, effective strategy at home!  I hope you have many, many post-it notes:)

We met with our reading buddies again.  Thank you Ms. Davison's class for visiting our space again and reading with us.

In writing this wee, we continued our literacy skills in the computer lab by adding to our "All About Me" posts on our KidBlog.  The children follow the writer's workshop model in blogging as well, starting with an idea and then creating a first draft.  Instead of revising, we call it editing online and we meet with our computer buddies instead of our editing partners.  We add words and pictuers to our writing, just like we do in traditional writing, however, our pictures are digital.  Last week, if you recall, the students learned file structure and retrieved their own pictures on our school common drive for upload!  It is amazing what they can do!  I am so proud of them.  Thank you for supporting these literacy skills at home.  We loved reading your blog posts and comments.  Some students even blog from home, sharing more about themselves and their lives outside of school.  We love it! 
This week, the students learned that when we comment on somebody's post, we use a similiar format to that of a letter.  We start by addressing the person with a "dear...." or "hello".  We include the person's name and give a compliment.  The we ask a question, because blogging is all about communicating with each other and sharing ideas.  We end our comments with a "from..." or "sincerely...".  Please visit our blog to read our posts.  We had over 30 comments posted today! WOW!  The blog is linked here (and it is also on the right sidebar of this blog).

In writing this week, the students also continued working on their personal narratives, adding details to their words and pictures.  We are currently exploring how to make our beginning, middle and end stories more interesting and we have read many, already published books together to learn how to make effective, and interesting, beginning, middles and endings to our own stories.  We also share our own writing techniques and have created anchor charts to help us remember all of the wonderful ideas we have discovered so far.  Please visit our classroom to see these. Here is a picture. We hope to publish these pieces by next week.  the children will meet with their editing partners and then create a cover and title.

Lastly, I wanted to remind you of our upcoming parent-teacher conferences, starting next week.  I sent out an email with an invitation to a google doc last week but I have linked the doc here again.  If these times do not work for you, please let me know and I will find you and your family another slot. Next week is short, with no school on the 16th and 17th.

Thank you for suporting your child's learning at home.  As always, let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Have a great day tomorrow and weekend.
Regards,
Maria

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
We had our first 4 Winds science class this week.  Every month, our 4 Winds parent volunteers come in to teach us science in an engaging, hands-on experience.  This week, we learned about insects and bugs.  Our lessons start in our kiva with a team-wide puppet show.  Then, the students break into smaller work-stations.  In these work-stations the students have the opportunity to explore various ideas of the content taught.  This week, we acted like scientists outside, collecting bugs and sharing our observations together in a small group, using our senses to describe them, rather than our feeling or ideas that they are "cool-looking" or "awesome". We learned that scientists are always objective and stick to the facts!  In another station, we learned all about the parts of insects and bugs as we assembled "real" insects again using felt pieces.  Lastly, the students learned about insect characteristics and attributes through an interactive matching game. Thank you parents for volunteering for this program. Here are some pictures.

On Friday last week, we learned more about Rosh Hashanah in our classroom.  Lee's mother visited our classroom and did a short read aloud and taught us about making wishes for the new year.  She brought apples and honey for all of us too!  Thank you Mrs. Friedman for teaching us about this wonderful holiday!  If you and your family have a special holiday you would like to share with us, let me know.  We would love to learn more about it.

Lastly, please note that I sent out an email with sign-ups for parent -teacher conferences.  I am looking forward to chatting with all of you about your child's progress and academic learning at school.  Let me know if you are having problems signing up.

Also, if your child has not brought in his/her own head-phones for our computers, it would be great if you could.  We are integrating technology more and more every week and as we sometimes experience lice problems, it would be great if your child could have his/her own set.  Please let me know if you and your family need assistance purchasing these.  I am happy to help out.

Regards,
Maria