It's been a busy place here in Room 10 this first month of school. You'll find a few photo highlights at the bottom of this post... lots of happy, hardworking faces for sure!
It was wonderful to meet so many of you at Parent Information Night. A giant thanks to Kaitlyn Kay and EB Larson for volunteering to be our room parents this year. If you've not yet had a chance to include your information on our classroom directory, please try to do so as soon as possible. This allows the room parents to reach out for help for classroom parties and other activities here in Room 10. We'd love to have a complete directory out to all of you soon.
Next week I will be sending in specific login information so that you can view the work we've done on SeeSaw, our classroom portfolio system. The children are very excited about the work they've shared so far. This link to the SeeSaw Intro will give you a sneak peak at what SeeSaw is all about. Look for more information next week, including specific login information.
October brings our kick-off of Guided Reading and Writer's Workshop.
During Guided Reading I will be meeting with small groups of children to work on reading fluency, strategies to employ when we get stuck, reading comprehension, phonics/word study, and lots more. I've begun one-on-one check-ins with the children which is helping me zero in on their "just right" independent reading level. "Just right" means a child can employ and demonstrate various reading behaviors BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER reading with both fiction and non-fiction texts. We have lots to explore and learn, and we will be tackling it all one step at a time.
During Writer's Workshop the children will be building upon what they learned in Kindergarten as we engage in our first unit, Personal Narrative Writing. This is a time when children will write Small Moment stories about things that are happening (or have happened) in their own lives. We will work hard to think about and generate ideas, orally share them first to help us plan out the sequence, and then engage in the steps of writing and illustrating. Children use various writing strategies to flex their writing "muscles" so that their stories come to life on the page. We also attend to lots of writing mechanics such as spelling, spacing and punctuation. Again, there is lots to learn and explore!
In Math, we will build upon our foundation of accurate/efficient counting as we delve into addition and subtraction problems. The children are learning language such as Part, Part, Whole to help them think about numbers as wholes that can be broken up into parts. We will engage in lots of math talks, peer problem solving and sharing, so that we find multiple ways to think mathematically and represent our thinking.
As part of our Morning Meeting routine, the children are keeping track of the number of days we've been in school using ones and tens place value blocks, and also with coins. Learning to identify the names and values of the penny, nickel, dime and quarter, and count combinations of coins, is part of the first grade curriculum. This can be an abstract concept for many children, and one that takes lots of practice and repetition. Feel free to begin practicing at home too.
I have a good collection of real pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, but could use some half dollar coins too. I know these are harder to come by, but if anyone has some to share I'd love to wrestle up one for each student to use this year. Any and all donations are welcome!
From time to time I will put out a request for classroom supply donations too. Please contribute if you are willing and able. I always appreciate the contributions, but fully understand if you cannot help out. There is a "Supply" tab on this blog so feel free to check back from time to time to see if anything more is needed. Right now, I could use the following:
- Gallon and Quart size ziploc bags
- Rolls of paper towels (better for big spills than the ones the school provides!)
- A ream of bright yellow printer paper
- A new game of checkers (our existing one is well loved and missing many pieces at this point!)
- Two packages of Mr. Sketch markers (the fat ones, not the thin ones!)
If you are able to send something on the list please let me know so I can let other families know we are all set. Thank you!
Enjoy the weekend. October here we come!!!
