October 11, 2013

Language Arts

• Writers’ Workshop – The children have written about favorite memories of the Topsfield Fair and other fun fall activities.  Journal entries each week will be about something true – a memory, a place, an activity, an object, a favorite anything.  We discuss the different ideas authors choose to write about as we read books in our classroom.

• Guided Reading – We reviewed the sight words, “I”, “a”, “the”, “it”, “is” and introduced the word “in”.  Thank you for sending back the word rings by Monday so we have them ready for our Guided Reading time on Tuesday.  The children have four of the paper copy books in their “Good Fit” book bags which they practice reading during our Daily Five Reading time.  Now that we have enough books to work with and more are regularly introduced, I have been asking the children to pick one book each week that they feel they have practiced enough and would like to bring home.  This book can be kept in a collection of books at home for their continued practice.

• The children are very excited about a new aspect of our reading program.  I have been implementing components from The Daily Five by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser into our classroom routine.  The Daily Five provides a structure for teaching reading which fosters literacy independence in the early grades.   We first talked about how to select a “good fit” book.  The children each have a special bag in which to keep these books.  A “good fit” book is one chosen by the child because of interest or a specific purpose.  The child should be able to comprehend what is happening in the book even if they are primarily “reading” the pictures or retelling a story which they have heard before.  At least three of the books in their bags must be books in which the child can read most of the words so they can practice fluency.  After working on book selection, we moved on to establishing a routine for “Read to Self” time.  During this time, the children take their book bags to a spot by themselves, they get started reading right away, they read quietly the whole time, and they stay in their spot.  We discussed the importance of building up stamina and being able to read independently for longer periods of time.  During this time, the children know that my job is to read with children.  Because the rest of the class is working quietly and independently, I will be free to work with small reading groups and individual children.  The next aspect of the program is called “Read to Someone”.  There are specific goals beyond what we have previously done with partner reading.  I will be introducing “Read to Someone” soon and will share more details later.  I am very proud of how well the children are doing with this new program and am excited by the possibilities it opens up for our daily reading time.

• Fundations – We have been working on the letters Tt, Bb, Ff, Mm, Nn, Ii, Uu, Cc and Oo.  Each day the children work on identifying these letters and sounds and on forming the letters through a variety of different activities.  We have been learning how to identify how many words there are in a sentence, how to begin and end a sentence, and how to change a word(s) in a sentence.

Math

• We continue to work on important skills during our calendar time.  Several activities help to develop an understanding of tens and ones.  The children continue to enjoy the "challenge" questions we ask each day.
• We have been working with the numbers 1 - 10 and doing activities using vocabulary such as "more than, less than, greater than, fewer than".  Children are often asked to explain their mathematical thinking.  They are beginning to realize that there is more than one way to solve a problem and enjoy sharing new ideas.
As always we continue to practice numeral writing.

Science and Health

• We continued working on our observation skills as we went on a leaf walk and then drew detailed pictures of the leaves we collected.
• We have been discussing the 4 rules in our Olweus bullying prevention program.  We will not bully others.  We will help students who are being bullied.  We will include students who are left out.  If we see someone being bullied we will tell an adult at home and an adult at school.

Literacy Centers

• In preparation for our field trip, we did several different activities exploring the community of Topsfield.
• Thank you in advance for helping the children to complete the family activity about a favorite place in their community.

Looking Ahead

Our Halloween parade and party will be on the afternoon of Thursday, October 31st.  On this day, please send in your child’s costume in a bag with his or her name on it.  No weapons of any sort are permitted with your child’s costume.  The Halloween parade will begin at 2:00 in the front of the school.  Following the parade, we will return to the classroom for our party.  Room mothers may be contacting you regarding items needed.