The start...

of our THIRD week of school. It seems as if we have been back so much longer...I feel like our little room is really bonding and becoming that community of learners!  It makes me so happy to be here with my littles!

This morning we ventured to Pod 2 computer lab.  We did our first istation assessment.  Istation assesses our phonemic and phonological awareness, spelling and reading comprehension. This is just another TOOL that I use to look at these reading components...it is by all means not the only assessment we use!

I will start my face to face assessments this week and use the istation results as a starting point!

It was definitely time to move on in reading and start choosing some of our own books. I guessed at levels sooooo....these cannot be considered JUST RIGHT just yet!  After I complete the assessments mentioned above...We will be better equipped to shop for JUST RIGHT BOOKS!

We now have some anchor charts to help us remember what it looks and sounds like during our readers workshop!  The newest additions are those on the right.  We can reflect on our workshop time ourselves!  As well as know what day each table will shop.  Today...I let everyone pick some books. Tomorrow...we will talk about the Tuesday group returning and getting new books!  Shopping for books happens first thing in the morning prior to 8:00! SOOOO...It is very important for my littles to be in the classroom on their shopping day or they could be out of luck for another week! <wink>

The littles did a good job shopping.  Just right books consist of their independent level and two levels below that!  The purpose is for them to be successful independent readers during workshop time!

 We have littles reading on all sorts of levels in here! It is SO EXCITING!!!

 Once we get to our reading spot we are able to get organized and we are ready to READ...Today, I had a little ask, "HMMMM, do you think we should 'up' our time?" Made my heart melt!!! I love it when they want to push themselves!

This week I am introducing I cans...We will be adding I can statements to the board together so that students have a goal!

 Our reading goal this week is to be able to tell what an authors purpose is.  We used a little trick...
P= Persuade
When the author's purpose is to persuade, it means the author is trying to get you to buy or try something.

• commercials
• billboards
• advertisements
• Opinions

I=Inform

When the author's purpose is to inform, it means that the author is trying to give you information and teach you facts.

• Non-Fiction Books
• News
• Recipes

E=Entertain

When the author's purpose is to entertain, it means that the author is trying to make you enjoy the story by keeping your attention.

• Fiction
• Comics/Jokes
• Mysteries
• Adventures

We will continue to talk about this throughout the week.  We may even have to make some sort of PIE chart!

In math our goal this week is to organize objects into groups and then use the groups to skip count...making things more efficient! Look at this group!

WowZeRs!!!

We read The Masloppy Family.  This is a story about Nicolas.  He helps his big family, living in a big  house get organized. He decides to take inventory of things around his house.  We found lots of things in our classroom that could be "inventoried". 

Each group got a numbered bag to "inventory"...I was watching to see how groups organized their items and came to a final number!  Lots of great thinking going on today!  We still need some work on counting GROUPS of 2 or 5...I think we have the 10s down pat.

This group did it a little differently...they grouped their bears by colors. They recorded how many of each color they had.  Then added the groups together... 

 When we talked about this...they noticed that they could make three groups of 8!  Repeated ADDITION...on their way to multiplication without even knowing it!  I love the sentence at the bottom...24 all tagth with all the Teyyes. 24 altogether with all the teddies!

This group seems to have the right idea...But look..."We didn't finish!"  

I have to mention...I have missed my FIRSTIES!  Last year I LOVE LOVE LOVED my kinders...it had been awhile with that age. But coming back feels like HOME! Everyday they do something extra amazing and I just think, "WOW...I GOT to be HERE when that happened or when they figured that out!"  Thank you Thank you Thank you for sharing your little one with me each and every day!  

Okay and then our day ended with our very first CLASS MEETING

and the Olweus Bully Prevention Program

Bullying is a Serious Issue

Bullying is aggressive behavior that is intentional and that involves an imbalance of power. Most often, it is repeated over time.

We will have class meeting that address this and other issues that arise.  Our goal is to make Spears Elementary a place where bullying never happens. 

Good Luck to some of our littles that are playing in their first baseball game of the season tonight and trying out for HOCKEY!

Have a wonderful evening! Please let me know if you have questions...I will try to answer them!

Love,

Ms. Guy