All School Hike and Other Highlights

Hey all!

It was a busy week in our first and second grade class! It has been a real joy getting to know your children better and better each day. We are also getting more and more settled into our days and routines. We had a wonderful day for our All School Hike as well, it was great to see the kids in such bright spirits. It was a wonderful way to end the week. Look at these two hikers enjoying the day:

We have introduced a new part of our literacy time, Word Work. We use the Fountas and Pinnell (See my literacy page for details about this program) word lists for our first and second graders. There is a 25 word list, a 50 word list, 100 word list and a 200 word list. These are all sight words, meaning these are words that we need children to know by rote memory, without having to work on the sounds in the words. Roughly speaking, we expect first grade students to know the 25, 50 and 100 word lists by the end of the year, and for second graders to know all of those plus the 200 word list by the end of their year. Children can work together and quiz one another on reading the words, they can practice writing the words on chalk slates or whiteboards, or they can get quizzed by a teacher.

I also started our beginning of the year reading assessments and I got through about half of the kids. These reading assessments are used to help me develop beginning of the year teaching points (reading strategies, letter sounds, etc.) within small reading groups. We will be starting these groups in the first week of October, when I have the class results.

We talked about Rumney CARES this week as well and we'll be working our way through the rest of the letters next week while developing our class rules. We also are going to be working on some Hopes and Dreams for our year as well. The kids will be making some posters that talk about this that we can hang up in the room.

Over the next few weeks we'll also be starting our first science unit on matter. I'll be working on also introducing our studio time, which is a critical part of Project Based Learning (see the page on Project Based learning to read more).

As always, please be in touch if you have questions about our class or if you'd like to just check in and chat about your child's start to the year. I'm always happy to meet up.

Enjoy the weekend!

~B

Highlights Of My First Week Back

It has been a wonderful first week back at school, thanks to your wonderful children. It has been a long time coming and I have really appreciated all of your support and well-wishes. I know it has been a struggle for some of the kids to have this transition at the beginning of the year, but it feels like we are bouncing back nicely and finding our rhythm.

We have continued our work at literacy and practicing our read-to-self and writing choices. We have been working up our stamina in both areas. We will be introducing word-work next week. This is a time when kids get to work on their sight words, which consist of the first 25, the next 50, the following 100, and the final 200 for first and second grade. The kids work through them all at their own pace, getting quizzed by friends and adults.

In first grade math we are working on the number line, learning our cuisenaire rods, math games, dot cluster cards, and addition facts. The kids are all working so hard! Ask your child about some of the motor challenges we do to help build our right and left brain connection. It has been a real treat getting to know your children as math learners. We started making our math journals as well. This is going to be where we do some of our work and where kids get to record their math thinking. I look forward to you seeing this and noticing what great thinking they are doing.

In Writer's Workshop we have begin to work on our first writing piece, titled "My favorite...". The kids all chose which favorite to write about (favorite vacation, food, sport, etc.). We talked about the writing process in general, in that while writing you should think about your handwriting, spelling, punctuation, and as writing as many words as possible. We'll be working on these skills as we go through the coming weeks and months.

We've also been talking about Rumney CARES and will be discussing it more next year and connecting these to our class norms. The kids have done a wonderful job talking and working on these. It takes time to gel, but these kids are doing a great job thus far.

Again, it has been a great start tot he year and I look forward to many more great days to come!

All the best,

Ben

Class Update

Highlights of the Week in Room 1-2B

It has been so much fun to be in Ben’s class these last seven days! The students really miss,Ben, but have been so helpful and co-operative. We began a project that has been a great way to introduce classroom materials like markers, scissors, and glue, and to think and write about our ideas and expectations for the beginning of the year. Look for your child’s flip book,  First Day of First Grade or First Day of Second Grade. 

            We have read aloud many books, including non-fiction books about wolves, whales and bees, as well as several of Laura Numeroff’s series “If You Give a ----- a ----.  We look for details in the pictures that help tell the story, and talk about the circular pattern in all of the books.

            We began talking about Rumney CARES and how we want to treat each other in this class. Math has begun full force, with the first graders staying in this room and the second graders going to Ms. T’s room. We build staircases with the rods, play the “what’s missing” game, make tens with rods, play Which is Greater? With number cards, and Number Line Squeeze.

             I look forward to returning to Ben’s class later in the year.

Scottie Brower