Warm Winter Greetings from Room 10!

Winter has surely come, and is quite likely going to bring us some more cold temps and white stuff in the coming days.  Thank you for sending your first grader to school well prepared for recess.  In order for children to play in the snow, they must have boots AND snow pants.  They head outside unless the windchill is particularly cold which happened this week for certain.

Ask your first grader about Higginbotham and Sophie (pictured above).  They've been tucked close to the garden since early December.  We are waiting to see what will happen to them come spring!  So far they are fairing pretty well in the snow.

Room 10 continues to be a VERY busy place.  We said farewell to our Liligrace this week who has moved to New Hampshire with her family.  The children worked together to create a friendship blanket and special book for Liligrace.  We are so sad to see her go, but know she is heading off to new adventures!

Reading, writing, math, social studies... and lots more.  Are days are most definitely full.  The children and I have transitioned from telling "small moment" stories during writer's workshop, to comparing, learning about and writing non-fiction, informational books about a wide range of topics.  We are studying the various text features in non-fiction texts:  table of contents, labels, captions, indexes, glossaries and lots more.  

I'm glad to report that at this point in the year we have a much better handle on our new enVision math program and I'm delighted to see the ways children are thinking about math, particularly the addition and subtraction concepts taught so far.  Children are utilizing a variety of tools and strategies to problem-solve, and are becoming quite skilled at communicating and applying their mathematical thinking in a range of ways, including written, oral and with the benefit of visual, hands-on tools.  

We will continue to practice solving addition/subtraction via word problems, games and rote practice in the days ahead, but we are also moving forward into a new unit  -  representing and interpreting data.  The children and I will explore concepts of data analysis involving three categories of information.  Using tally marks to represent and record data will be one of the key concepts learned. 

Please, as always, let me know how the math homework is going.  I'm happy to troubleshoot areas of need should they arise.

Amazing work is also being done during our center and guided reading time.  Children are practicing a wide range of skills including:  developing a flexible, broad use of reading strategies when tackling a new book, responding to texts to demonstrate comprehension, building greater fluency, expanding vocabulary, comparing types of genres, and most importantly discovering books that they most love to read.  All of this is very much a work-in-progress for most children.  We have lots more learning to do for sure!

Learning to spell our 100 Grade One "Trick Words" (sight words) is also a tall task this year.  I gave out the list of words at November conference time.  Finding time to practice the spelling of these words at home would be greatly appreciated.  We are practicing them here every day, but a double does won't hurt!

We have been studying Martin Luther King, and the many important messages embodied in his life's work, as well as from those that worked alongside him.  The children, as they tend to be every year I teach about Dr. King, are puzzled and dismayed by the climate of that time period.  This fosters very rich, meaningful conversations about where we've been and how far we've come.  As adults, we know issues of race and equality continue to challenge our country.  In our classroom, however, helping young students begin to understand these concepts (in very age-appropriate ways) is one way to begin a conversation about a very important topic that will undoubtedly be part of their learning in the years to come.  I suspect your first graders may be talking about Dr. King at home too.  My hope is that they will continue to gain awareness, think deeply and ask their important questions. 

The 100th day of school is fast approaching, as is our Valentine's Day celebration on February 12.  I will be sending a class list home soon so that children can prepare valentines for their friends.  If you are already thinking about shopping for valentines, please know that it is the school's policy that no food items be given as part of the valentine.

More soon from Room 10....  As always, your questions are welcome at any time.  Stay warm out there!

Attitude of Gratitude!

In the spirit of the holiday season (which, ready or not, is upon us!), and in an effort to focus on reasons we are truly fortunate, Room 10 is starting a project that will take place from now until we leave for the holiday break.  Introducing..... ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE!

It is true that many first graders by nature tend to be pretty upbeat, optimistic little beings.  That said, I do know that recognizing and celebrating all that we are grateful for promotes greater optimism, feelings of well-being for self and others, and quite simply a greater appreciation about what we can all learn from our peers, teachers, families and community members.   I'm hopeful that it will also bring us closer to the true spirit of the holiday season - giving from the heart in a way that is impactful to others and ultimately ourselves.

This week, we are kicking off our ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE project.  I will begin, of course, by facilitating a discussion about what gratitude means.  Then, each day we will take time to recognize and celebrate the many ways we feel grateful.  I suspect these will take the form of small, but important, gestures of kindness between friends and teachers, as well as things, actions, people, animals, places, etc., that make us happy and feel thankful.  We will see where our attitudes of gratitude take us!

We will be be creating a bulletin board with an ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE tree to display our ideas.  We will also have a special ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE jar setup in the classroom, with small slips of paper, for children to share how they are feeling grateful.  These will be shared every day or so.

The holiday season is often a busy time, and one filled with the pleasures of gifts, parties, food and holiday cheer.  I'm hoping that our ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE project helps to bring a greater awareness of how truly fortunate and blessed we all are.  It will be exciting to see what ideas and notions pop up for all of us in the days ahead.

Wishing everyone a joyful and gratitude-filled holiday season!

Kathy Ravinski

... Look for a home-school family gratitude project by the end of the week.  With an eye on what a busy time of year this is, I promise it will be simple!

Fall Garden Clean Up Day!

We worked hard last week, while the weather was still warm, to clean up and put the garden to bed until spring.  The children pulled weeds and old plants, gathered planter markers and signs, discovered some lingering carrots and coiled up the hose for winter storage.  Many thanks to Mrs. Crocker for her helping hands.  It was a job well done by all!

October Highlights

Room 10 is definitely in full swing, and Halloween is quickly becoming the topic of choice during free time!  More information will be coming soon about Halloween festivities, but for now know that a Halloween parade has been planned for 9:30 AM on Friday, October 30, and our classroom party will take place at 1:30 PM that same afternoon.

A few highlights of what we've been working on as of late...

• The children are beginning to meet with me at the reading table during our  "literacy center" block.  This is a time when they read “just right” books with a small group of children who are at a similar reading level.  It is a great way to differentiate and provide instruction based on the varied needs of the children in my room.  Among the MANY reading / phonics skills and strategies the children are learning about, one is reading fluency.  This is when a reader reads smoothly and with an even tone of voice.  The children are working to read like a “river” (with flow and fluency) and not like a “robot” (word by word).  This takes time and practice for some children, so don’t be worried if your child isn’t doing it right away.  Like many of the skills we’re learning this year, this part of reading doesn’t happen overnight.

• Another important focus area will be teaching the children how to retell a story in their own words after they’ve read it.  This skill also will take LOTS of practice.  Over the next few months we will work on retelling skills:  recalling and orally retelling the characters, setting and the main events of a given story or text.  

• During our daily "word study" time, the children are learning a wide range of phonics skills.  We have been reviewing / practicing all consonant and short vowel sounds (as in the words had, dig, got, bed, and hug).  We are building words with magnetic tiles, writing sentences with an eye on uppercase letters at the beginning and punctuation at the end.  We are learning about "trick words", also known as "sight words" (or high frequency words).  These are words the children will encounter often as they read/spell.  While they are learning how to segment/blend words that are phonetically regular by using a "finger tapping" strategy, they are also learning that "trick words" often don't look the way they sound so therefore they can not be sounded out.  They must be recalled and mastered by sight.  All of these skills will be practiced and reinforced many times throughout the year.  

• Our home reading program will start very soon.  Look for more information about BOOKTIME and the best ways you can support your first grade reader at home when he/she brings a book envelope home with "just right" books.

• I hope you and our child have enjoyed the first couple of weeks of Poem Notebooks.  Please try to send your child's notebook back to school on Thursdays as we use them often.  If you need to keep the notebook another night or two, just let me know.  The number of poems will continue to increase as the year moves along.  Some children like to read all of the poems each week.  Others prefer to pick and choose some of their favorites.  Either way, try to read for at least 10 minutes (or more) on Poem Notebook nights.

• Our writer’s workshop block is a favorite time in our day.  The children are learning that writers think first, then picture a story in their mind, and after that put their ideas into words one part at a time.  Learning how to stretch an idea across several pages and include key details takes lots of practice.   Of course, the children are also working hard on spelling, spacing, punctuation and organization.  This is a tall task indeed, but one that they are tackling with enthusiasm and persistence. 

• During our math block, the children have been working hard to solve addition / subtraction problems presented via a range of math story "types".  The children are learning how to use Part/Part/Whole visual tools to help them solve given problems.  Problems are presented in ways that ask children to determine what information is already known, and what they need to find out.  My goal is to create a separate math page on this blog so I can more specifically communicate what we are working on.  More on that soon!  

• You may have found that some of the math pages that come home are not fully complete and may have unfinished problems.  Our new math program offers a bounty of math practice pages, and I pick / choose which ones I feel will best meet the expectations in a given lesson.  I want to leave time for children to practice the math concepts with age-appropriate, hands-on games, rather than always tackling the task in a worksheet.  I'm working to strike a balance between the two.  Please feel free to finish any unfinished math problems at home with your child.  

Please always let me know if you have any questions about anything happening here in Room 10.  It has been a great start to the year and there's lots more learning, news and fun to come!

10 Days in Room 10!

I am looking forward to seeing everyone at Parent Information Night on Monday.  This photo gives you a sneak peak at one project we worked on this week.  When presented with the question - WHAT KIND OF PLACE DO WE WANT ROOM TO BE? - this is what we all came up with.  We have lots more to explore and learn in the days ahead!