"Peek at the Week" September 15-18

Reader's Workshop

This week we focused on the good habits readers have in order to become a stronger reader.  Just like many of us have built good habits of brushing our teeth, turning off lights, and picking up our toys, readers also must have habits they do automatically without being told!

We are practicing building our good reading habits so they become automatic wherever we may read! We learned this week that readers need to 'warm their minds up for reading' by taking a sneak peek at the beginning.  This encourages children to study the pictures and begin to make predication about how they think the story will go.  Next, we learned that it is important to be aware of your predictions, or 'sneak peek' as you begin reading.  Were you right?  Do you need to change your thinking?  

We then learned that it is important for readers to do SOMETHING when they finish a book - reread, retell, or reread their favorite part.  This encourages young readers to think about the story they have just read before moving on to the next story.  

Finally, we ended the week learning that it is important to always push ourselves as readers.  We always want to read more during our read to self time. We read more by staying focused and coming up with a reading plan.

We also began learning how readers work together with a reading partner.  We practiced encouraging each other to use the good reading habits we learned.

Writer's Workshop

We spent the week busy writing small moments about our lives!  We learned how to use our writing folders this week to hold all our wonderful stories.  We organized our writing into 2 pockets.  The pocket with the red sticker holds all our stories we have finished, and the pocket with the green sticker holds the stories we are still working on!

We also learned spelling strategies good writers use when they get stuck on words.  We learned writers need to say, stretch, hear, and write all the sounds they hear in words.  We also learned to use the word wall word to help us spell words!

Word Work

We learned our first 5 first grade word wall words this week:  

that

play

of

me

in

Over the next several weeks we will learn 100 word wall words.  The expectation by the end of first grade is for first graders to read and spell all of these words.  We practice these words in a variety of ways throughout the week, but I strongly encourage you to practice at home too!

Math Workshop

We continued practicing our routines and expectations for math workshop.  We were excited to use our Chrome Books this week to access Dreambox Learning!  We learned how to be safe with our Chrome Books, how to access this program, and how to put our Chrome Books away when we are finished.

In other news...

• Thank you to everyone who was able to make it to Parent Orientation Night on Wednesday!
• Please look in your child's folder for fall conference information.  Please be sure to indicate 3 times on the form and return it to school by the end of the week.
• We will begin MAP testing on Friday this week. 

Have a great weekend!

Love,

Mrs. Hogue