Author Celebration and November News

Gosh-it's hard to believe that we are approaching the holiday season! We keep track of the days of school and I think we were all surprised the we had hit our 50 day mark! This month we had our first Author Celebration! Children worked so hard throughout our small moments unit and grew as independent writers. We celebrated with a museum style sharing exhibit. The work that they have done throughout the unit will be coming home in a stay home folder before Thanksgiving. I hope you enjoy reading their small moment narratives as much as I did! We also had a few special happenings this month. We had a great assembly about Veteran's Day lead by former Navy officer Chief Wilson and her son Cadet Wilson.
Here are a few Highlights!

Author Celebration
In order to get ready for our celebration we had to go through a few steps. We had to go through all of our pieces and pick just one that we wanted to fix and fancy up. This was hard!! Then it was time to fancy up our story with craft moves and interesting details. We made a connection to getting ready for a fancy party by putting fancy clothes on. Once our story's were "fancyed" it was time to turn to our writing partners for a little editing help. Once our stories were ready to be shared we celebrated by reading each others pieces and sharing compliments with the author!

Picking our Story:

Fixing and Fancying:

Author Celebration:

Veteran's Day:
Chief Wilson and her son Cadet Wilson came in to teach us all about the importance of Veteran's Day. We learned about the branches of military service. We learned about all the different jobs officers can have and the many ways that soldiers help people in need. We learned some important words like sacrifice and freedom. We even had a try at boot camp!

October Spotlights

What a busy month! We have had so much learning and fun going on! Mrs. Bockhorst came to visit and talked to us about the "zones of regulation". We had a bonus experience with Star Lab where we learned about planets and constellations. Then there was all the excitement of Halloween with the parade and the party!

Here are a few highlights!

Mrs. Bockhorst came in and reviewed the zones of regulation. We learned that there are many zones but that the best learning happens when you are in the "green zone." We learned strategies that can help our brain and body get into the green like deep breaths, chair push ups, and the hand pull and push. We also made bookmarks to help us remember strategies!

Weekend Update
We started "sharing circles" during Weekend update writing times. Before writing, children get into small groups of 3 and plan out what they are going to write about. It is a great opportunity to practice listening and speaking skills. Once children have shared in their small group they get right to work writing! During weekend update writing children are practicing narrative writing (which we call small moments). They are "zooming" into one part of their weekend and then telling us about it with good details.
Children are also practicing using phonics skills that we have learned as well spelling trick words from the word wall accurately. We also just learned about the "sentence frame" which is a visual reminder to start your sentence with a capital letter and end with a period. At this point First Graders are still learning where and when a sentence starts and ends so the expectation is not that they have all of their capitals and periods in the right spot but that they are thinking about it and trying to use some punctuation appropriately.

Halloween Party
Thank you to our room parents and all of the volunteers for a fun party! Here is just a glimpse at some of the excitement from our party.

Check back soon!

September Spotlight

Can you believe we have already been in school for 20 days! We have really accomplished so much by way of daily routines and expectations for learning. We have Daily 5 just about up and running (including reading groups!) as well as Writer's Workshop. During math we are diving into story problems and sharing strategies. During Read Aloud we are already onto our 2nd chapter back. Ask your child about Dory Fantasmagory-it's a definite favorite! Here are a few other highlights from September.

Daily 5
During Daily 5 children work on 5 components to build their reading and writing stamina and independence. We talk about student expectations as well as the teacher's role during this time. We know we have to pick and stick, start right away, work the whole time, keep our brain on our work, and our voices down low in order to build our muscle memory.

Here are some kids in action!

Read To Someone

Children read to a partner to practice their fluency. After each partner reads the other retells what was just read. We call this check for understanding.

Listen To Reading

Children listen to a story either at the listening center, on an iPad, or at the computer. At the iPad they scan a QR code to take them to a story online.

Work On Writing

This was our last Daily 5 component to introduce. During Work on Writing children have the choice to write anything they want. We made a list of writing forms such as cards, notes, letters, lists, fiction, nonfiction, kid news, poems and narratives.

Math

During math over the last few weeks we have been working on counting strategies, showing our count in organized ways, solving addition and subtraction story problems, and sharing our strategies and tools as mathematicians. We have talked about how we can use a ten frame, number line, cubes, counters, fingers, and counting on or back from a given number to help solve problems. We've shared different ways to show our thinking during whole group discussions. We have also played some math games using our tools.

Writer's Workshop

During Writing time we have talked about how writers have a special partner that helps them plan out their stories and even helps them fix up any "oops" mistakes. We practiced planning out our stories with our partners by touching and telling across our fingers. We then had our partners read over our stories and help us notice parts and words that didn't look or sound right. 

And here are a few friends who have read aloud their stories to the class!!

Hope you enjoyed learning about some of our learning over the last few weeks. Check back again soon!