"Peek at the Week" March 9-13

 We had so much fun going to see the play Ivy and Bean on Monday!  The play combined scenes from many of the books in this series.  We have read the first two books of this series, but there are many more.  These are fun books to read with your child- be sure to check them out!

In other exciting news.... we won the Coin Wars!!!!  Thank you to everyone who donated coins and money.  We will be having our Ice Cream Party on Friday afternoon.
                                                               

We enjoyed all the new books for our classroom library!

 Here is a peek into our week!

Math Workshop
We wrapped up Unit 5 this week. We took our assessment on Thursday.  Please look for these to come home early next week.

On Monday we will begin our next unit on Data Analysis.  This unit if full of new vocabulary and concepts for finding the difference between numbers.  Please keep the family letters in a safe place so you can refer to them when helping your child complete homework!

Reader's Workshop
Our strategies for solving tricky words continues to grow!  This week we focused on strategies for making meaning.  We are learning that reading doesn't just consist of reading the words on the page - we also have to be thinking while we read!

We added these strategies this week:

Readers make a picture in their minds
When we watch movies, the characters move and talk.  We want to create these same images in our minds while we read!  Readers try to imagine things characters do, say, and think while they are reading.

Readers ask, "Do I understand all the parts?"
Earlier this year we learned how to retell stories.  Now that we are stronger readers, we have to be aware when stories may become confusing. We have to stop and ask ourselves, "Do I understand all the parts of the story?" We want to check our understanding often while we read.  We learned that even grown up readers have to do this!

Readers notice the setting of stories.
Our stories are now more complex, and authors use many different settings to tell the story.  We have to be aware of where the story is taking place in order to understand the story better.

We practiced this with the book Ivy and Bean and the Ghost That Had To Go.  

At the beginning of the year we might have simply said 'At the beginning of the story, it takes place at school.  Then the story takes place at home'.  But now that we are March first graders we can be even more specific.  We know that the story starts out at recess on the soccer field.  Next, Ivy and Bean are in Bean's backyard in her old playhouse.  See how it is easier to imagine where the characters are?

Next week we will be focusing on how readers notice interesting words and how they use clues to figure out a word's meaning.

Word Work

We continued our focus on R-blends. 

Making r-blend words

ABC order r-blend word

Our Friday word work centers also focused on r-blends. 

R-blend poem

We highlighted all the r-blend words in the poem!

R-blend sentence scramble 

We cut out words and arranged them in a sentence that mad sense!

R-blend 4 in a Row

Our last center on Friday was an exciting one- keyboarding! Our classroom is piloting a new keyboarding program that we are hoping to implement next school year! Keyboarding Without Tears goes along with our handwriting program, Handwriting Without Tears. This program will teach child beginning keyboarding and mouse control skills  through interactive literacy experiences. 

We were excited to see Mat Man again! Many students remembered him when they learned to draw people in K4!

It felt really funny to use fingers other than our pointer finger to type! We really had to concentrate! 

After spring break, we will spend 5-10 minutes each day on keyboarding skills. :)

Science

This week we explored color. What happens to color when we mix it with water? We started with a black dot and a green dot on a filter. Then, we added water and look what happened!

We learned that the color black is made up of many colors! Green is made up of yellow and blue! Adding the water separated the colors!

We had a great week! 2 more weeks until spring break!

Enjoy the beautiful weekend!

Love,

Mrs. Hogue

"Peek at the Week" March 2-6

Take a peek into our week!

Math Workshop

We started the week off by learning how to add 3 addends to find a total. We learned that another word for addend is number.  We tried different strategies, but found the easiest way to add 3 numbers is to group them into an easier fact!

This friend added 5 + 4 to make a total of 9. Then, she was able to add 7 more to get a grand total of 16!

Of course, it is always easiest to find a ten group! Then we know our total will be a teen number.

Next we began exploring double digit numbers on the hundreds grid. But first, we had to do a quick review of ten groups and ones.  We were split into groups and given a bin of objects to count- and we had to work together!

We quickly learned that it was easiest -and fastest- to group the objects into ten groups. This helps us stay accurate whe. We are counting. 

On Thursday we began using the 100 grid to help us add.  We learned that as we go down a column we are adding one, and as we go across a row we are adding 10 more!

We wrapped up the week practicing adding and subtracting 10 from a given number!

Reader's Workshop 

This week we added 2 more strategies to our tricky work chart:

Look for long vowel patterns

We learned that readers need to pay attention to vowel patterns. This helps them make sure the word sounds right in the story. We were on the lookout for some common long vowel patterns in our own books. We recorded them on stricky notes and displayed them!

Try other sounds for letters

As we found words with the 'ea' pattern, we quickly learned that it can make 3 different sounds: long e, short e, and long a! Talk about tricky! That's why it is important for readers to try other sounds when the first way just doesn't sound right!

Word Work

We began looking at R-blends this week. We will continue this into next week.

We also enjoyed Read Across America Day on Monday!

"Peek at the Week" February 23-27

I can't believe I am writing the last February post for this school year! Even though February is a short month, I always feel like it 'feels' the longest. The weather is cold, the days still get dark early,  and the rejuvenation from winter break has worn off. 

As a school, we have noticed an increase in student reminders about following the Stormonth Way.  We will be focusing on hallway expectation over the next several weeks. It is expected that our hallways have a 0 voice level in order to be respectful of the learning going on in the classrooms. Not only are we holding our students to this expectation, but we as teachers and adults are working on this too. If we expect our students to follow this rule, then we also have to follow it! Our PBIS team has some fun incentives they are working on to recognize classes who model appropiste hallway behavior! Be on the lookout for outstanding line and body basics when you come to Stormonth! 

Here is a peek at our week!

Math Workshop 

We have been very busy problem solvers this week. We wrote, solved, and proved story problems with various unknowns!

We learned that various means 'different kinds'. Sometimes we are solving for an unknown total and other times we are solving for an unknown partner! We even learned that sometimes the first partner is unknown and other times the second partner is unknown! We learned all of this while still building strategies for solving problems with teen totals! Phew!

Here are some number stories we wrote!

Then, we solved each other's problems!

We continue to work on explaining our thinking to others. We got many opportunities this week to be the teachers and explain how we solved problems!

Pretty cool, huh!? I'm so proud of these kiddos!! 

On Fridays, we have started focusing on our fact fluency. We are calling this day "Fact Fluency Friday". (Clever, I know!) We are practicing building our fluency in fun and engaging ways.

5 In A Row- solving facts and trying to get 5 squares in a row!

Power Towers- solving facts on cups and adding them to a growing tower!

Computer games- I have added some websites we know under the websites tab. Be sure to check them out for extra practice at home! 

Reader's Workshop

We contined adding strategies for solving tricky words!  

We added:

Break words apart part by part

This strategy is similar to 'chunking words' but rather than just looking for chunks in one way, readers might try breaking the word apart in serveral ways in order to figure out the tricky word. For example, in the word afternoon, some children might know the words after and noon. Others might need to break it aprt further into af  ter  noon. 

Think about the kind of word

When we get stuck in a tricky word it is important to stop and think about what kind of word it might be. Is it an action word, a place, a rhyming word,etc.? This helps us think about what will sound right and make sense in the sentence.

Flip the Sound

We know vowels make more than one sound. If a short sound doesn't sound right, flip it and try the long sound! 

Read the story again 

This strategy is so helpful when we don't know exactly what a word means. We read the story Knuffle Bunny Too this week. We realized there were a few words we didn't quite know the meaning to, so we read it again. The second time through we were able to infer the words' meaning because we were already familiar with the story! 

Word Work

This week we started focusing on consonant blends. We focused on the L blends this week: bl, cl, fl, gl, pl, sl.

We started by sorting pictures by their initial consonant blends.

We made words with blends.

We alphabetized blend words.

And during centers on Friday we unscrambled blend sentences!

Our other Friday centers included:

Blend 4 in a Row 

Spelling City (now with PERSONALIZED lists!) Children who knew all the first grade words were given some new high frequency words to study!

Making words 

Science 

We have spent the last two weeks exploring how solids can dissolve in a liquid. We conducted the experiment: The Great Sugar Race.  We we exploring what dissolved faster- a sugar cube, or broken up sugar. 

We saw very quickly that the broken up sugar dissolved quicker. Next, we explored water temperature. Would sugar dissolve quicker in warm water or cold water? Ask your child the results of this investigation!

In other news..

We were invited to the second grade character fashion show! It was so fun to try and figure out which characters they dressed up as! We did a pretty good job inferring characters based on their clues!

The bookfair is coming to Stormonth on Tuesday, March 10. It will be from 3:00- 8:00 in the cafeteria. The cakewalk is also happening that evening. Be sure to check it out! Mrs. Diamond and her crew have been hard at work making sure this will be a great time for your family!

We wi be having a classroom 'Coin War' all next week. The winning classroom will win an ice cream party. Even if we don't win, I still feel like we do since all your coin donations will go towards new books for our classroom! This bookfair always helps me stalk up on great books for our classroom!

Our field trip to the play Ivy and Bean is on Monday, Match 9. We will be eating lunch early that day. I strongly encourage you to send a bag lunch with your child that day. 

I hope you enjoy the weekend!!

Love,

Mrs. Hogue

"Peek at the Weeks" February 9-13 and February 16-30

Math Workshop

We started our new unit in math this week! We focused on number stories with teen totals.  We reviewed the words unknown partner and unknown total. 

We also began looking at strategies to help us solve teen subtraction probelms. 

One way we learned is by counting on from the partner to the total. 

Another startegy we explored was breaking apart the partner to make 10. For example, if you have 14-6 = __, children would break the 6 into 4 and 2. Then they would take 4 away from 14 to get 10. Then take 2 away from 10 to get 8. This strategy sounds tricky, but after some practice it really helps children solve these probelms mentally!

Reader's Workshop

We started our second tricky word unit last week!  In this unit, we will be adding a lot of strategies for tackling tricky words now that we are stronger readers and are reading harder books!

We are learning that readers must ask themselves 3 important questions when solving a tricky word:

Does it look right?

Does it sound right?

Does it make sense?

As we learn new strategies, we are putting them into one of these three categories. 

We are also building our own personal strategy charts to keep in our book bins! Each time we learn a strategy, we add it to our chart!

Toward the end of last week we learned how partners can 'coach' each other through tricky words! When a partner gets stuck on a word, their partner can suggest a strategy to try!

Our goal is to be independent when tackling tricky words while monitoring and self correcting our attempts. So far we are off to a great start!

Word Work 

We wrapped up our study on long and short vowels. We spent time reviewing all the vowel sounds!

We also learned the rest of our word wall words:

Before

Going

Man

I'm

Because

Our

Mother

We practiced our vowels and word wall words in centers this week:

Building word families (long and short vowels)

4 in a Row (review of long/short U)

Mixed Up Sentences (word wall words)

Spelling City (word wall words) 

What a fun two weeks!

It has been a very cold couple of weeks, and our classroom gets very, very cold inside! Please make sure your child is dressed warmly each day or brings an extra sweater/sweatshirt!  Thanks :)