January 10th

As we return from our Christmas break, it is time to get down to the nitty and gritty of writing and reading.  We learned the final two components of the 

Daily 5: Listen to Reading and Work on Writing.  

During Listen to Reading, the students listen to a story or non-fiction book online.  When children listen to a story being read aloud, it exposes them to proper grammar, expression and a variety of high level vocabulary.  All this in turn, helps them become better readers and writers.  

During Work on Writing, the students write independently, using their tools in their writing folder, building stamina each time they write and thus, becoming better readers and writers.

The students practiced Work on Writing on Monday and Tuesday by doing a free-write about winter.  This is an ongoing writing project that is not edited by me at all.  The did really well and will quickly build their stamina.

Here is a video of the class working so hard on their writing:

We read our first winter story, "The Biggest, Best Snowman", which was the introduction to our winter theme.  To begin our first writing task, we created some adorable little fingerprint snowmen.  The students used their imagination to decorate them and to make them doing a winter activity. 

Using a writing prompt as a guide and a list of winter vocabulary words that we brainstormed, the students wrote about what their snowmen were doing. At this point in the year, some students are writing entirely on their own, some need a bit of support and a few need full support.  Each child works at the level that they are on at and I provide support wherever needed.  I am really impressed with the effort of these kiddos and I just love reading their writing.

Here are some examples of this guided writing activity:

We are also becoming better readers everyday! 

Here are some little readers for you to listen to.

This week in Math we learned about greater than, less than and equal to.  The students played a game called Number Face-Off.  Students work in partners and they each flip a card.  Whomever has the greatest number says, "_____ is great than _____" and gets to collect the cards.  If both students turn over the same card, there is a number face-off.  Both students flip 3 cards face down and then a fourth card gets put face up.  Whomever has the greatest card at the end, is the winner of that round.

As a introduction to our Five Senses unit, we made popcorn!  We watched it pop - which was SO exciting! - and then we used our five senses to describe the popcorn.  It smelled and tasted delicious.

  

CONGRATULATIONS TO LOCHLAN FOR BEING STUDENT OF THE WEEK!