During writing this week, we explored our straight and curved sticks. We built uppercase and lowercase letters with the sticks. We also talked more about Writers Workshop. I came up with a list of problems students may come across such as, not having a writing idea, breaking a pencil, not knowing how to spell a word, and we came up with solutions for each scenario. The goal is for students to become independent writers during this time. We also learned that when we think we are done, we have just begun! We can always add more to the picture, add more words or beginning sounds, or get another piece of paper to continue our story or start a new one. Once students become independent, I will be able to pull writers in a small group setting.
Students continue to enjoy choice time. The group has really enjoyed building with the sticks and connectors. We've talked about how it is not ok to build weapons at school, but all other inventions are welcome. I have heard some very creative names for everything they are building.
Dressing up is also a big hit! I love seeing them come into character.
Thank you to Jonah's family for the kinetic sand. How fun for us to create things!
This week during Reader's Workshop, we started all our components of balanced literacy. We begin with shared reading, where we read the same book/poem every day so students see the same words repetitively and become fluent in reading the poem by the end of the week. This weeks poem had the word I and am in every line. Then, we move into interactive writing where students come up with a sentence with our sight words. We practice writing it on the board as a group. We focus on letter sounds and writing our sight words. We also talk about sentence structure and adding punctuation to our sentences. Students come up and help, while other students write it with their magical marker in the air! Next, we have our phonics lesson in which we have been learning about letters through play with our names. Students have been sorting pictures by beginning sounds. In our reading lessons this week, we have been talking about how to read a book, from front cover to back cover, and use the pictures to help us learn. We also have been searching for words we know! Students have practiced reading independently and with a partner. We learned about what partner reading looks like, sitting side by side with one book in the middle. Last, we have talked about various centers students will rotate through and practiced them. All centers revolve around reading! More to come about centers soon.
In math this week, we've deepened our understanding of numbers 1-4 as well as talked about the words same and different more. Students have used manipulatives at their seats as well as on the SmartBoard.
We read Goldilocks and the Three Bears and then used this photo to find how many of each item. For example, find something in this picture that there is four of. The math units start fairly slow, as many students already know their numbers, however these lessons develop a strong foundation of understanding numbers which is important as we move ahead. Students also get lots of practice counting, using one to one correspondence and practice writing their 0-9 digits.
