Hey everyone,

It has been a busy couple of weeks in our 1/2 class. It was wonderful to see almost all of you for Open House. It is always a great pleasure to see you all. As always, please know that you are always welcome in our room. If you'd ever like to talk more about concerns, celebrations, or anything else, please be in touch.

We had a great day on Thursday collecting and weighing Rumney squash on Thursday. Thank you to all of the volunteers who make our beautiful garden possible. We all get to benefit from all of this healthy food. The kids are not only benefiting from the nutrition, but also an opportunity to learn something new about weight and scales!

We have finally finished up all of our beginning of the year assessments. It is amazing how missing the first two weeks can really set you (and by you, I mean me) back. Next week I'll begin meeting with individual students and small groups in reading. Also, some of the kids in class's writing time will be looking a bit different, We have some kids in class that are great artsists, no doubt. The problems is that literacy time should not be the time when we are working on our drawing skills. Since I am the only adult in the room during this time and I can't oversee everything everyone is doing at the same time, I am going to be changing how writing looks for some students. Instead of doing writing during literacy time, they will be working on word work, reading to themselves, partner reading, and listening to reading. These students will then be getting more explicit writing instruction during writer's workshop (12:30-1:00) daily. This will involve handwriting practice as well as writing using picture prompts. As their work habits and skills improve, they'll graduate to be able to do more independent writing during literacy again.

In Writer's Workshop, we are continuing our great work on our narratives, both fiction and non fiction. You can look at the writing tab on the blog to see how their writing gets scored. The scores are used by me to help guide my future instruction in writing. I'll be sending home scored sheets as well as a copy of their writing piece. They are making great progress!

In first grade math, we are continuing our work on the number 5, adding 1, using a number line, and writing our numbers. The kids are all working so hard and doing great work. Please take a look at the math section of the blog to get a better idea of what math looks like in first grade.

Thanks, everyone, and see/talk to you soon!

~B