Students are invited to wear pajamas to school tomorrow (December 18th.) Please, no slippers.
I returned to the classroom today to find these books on my table. An "anonymous donor" purchased them from my Book Fair wish list for our classroom. So, thank you, anonymous donor, we are so grateful for your generosity! I recently attended a professional conference about the Daily 5, Daily 3 Math, and CAFE learning structures. One of the moments that really stuck with me was when the presenters said, "The person in the room who does the most work does the most learning." In the spirit of that comment, we revised our CAFE board today to include strategy cards written by the students. Immediately I noticed the children looking at the CAFE board, watching me staple up the cards their classmates had written, wondering when they would get a turn to write one too. I can already tell how much more important the strategy card are because they are in the kids' handwriting. Students are learning another round of Daily 5 this week- Read to Someone. One of the stepping stones to successful partner reading is knowing what to do when your partner gets stuck on a word. Today we practiced asking the reader if they needed "coaching or time" to figure out the tricky word. Students brainstormed ways they could coach their partners to figure out the word, including: sound it out, skip it and come back, look at the letters. We also discussed that coaches help their players improve, rather than doing it for them. When a child wants time, the partner will sit quietly and wait while the reader works to figure out the word on their own. If you are reading with your child at home, consider asking them "Do you need coaching or time?" when they struggle with a word. We have been very busy in Room 36 these first few weeks! The children have worked to learn many of the routines and procedures that will make our classroom successful all year. They have also learned Read to Self, Work on Writing, and Listen to Reading in the Daily 5. Math by Myself and Math writing are underway in Math Daily 3. Every day, the children are building independence with reading, writing and math tasks.
The children have written our Hopes and Goals for the year, and used them to create our class rules. Each day, we work to LIVE the rules, talking frequently about what it looks like, sounds like, and feels like when kids follow the rules. The children also participated in their first role play to practice how to ask to join an inside recess game. Soon, we will get into our first science kit about Life Cycles. Children will observe several types of insects to learn about the stages in a life cycle as well as characteristics of an insect. Open House for K-2 families will be Tuesday, September 22, at 6:30. I look forward to meeting you! In just a few days, we will be starting a new school year! I have been working to get the classroom ready for all of my new children! On Wednesday, August 19, from 5-6:30 pm, join me for a Back-to-School BBQ at Pleasantville. You will be able to meet me, and our student teacher, Ms. Rudner. You can find your way to our classroom, and maybe see some of your friends and classmates. I'm so excited that we have a chance to meet before the first day of school.
There was a piñata at Drew's birthday party. The 3 Gonzalez sisters collected 4 packs of bubblegum that fell from the piñata. When they got home, they decided to split the 4 packs of gum evenly. They opened each pack and counted 6 pieces of gum in each. How can the 3 sisters divide the bubblegum evenly? How do you know? Our students have been hard at work on words! The children are practicing with flash cards of the Most Common Words. They use magnet letters, stamps, marker stamps and "glow boards" to practice target words. They also work on practicing the phonics skills we are learning as well as fluency phrases. It's so exciting to see all the progress they are making. Every day, children are calling us over to hear them read their flash cards and showing us how they have learned their target words! Ms. Creadick and the kids created a display in the classroom showing their "tweets" about good for books. We have been working hard to teach the children how to choose books that are a good fit. Children use the acronym I-PICK to help them remember the qualities of a good fit book, including interest, purpose, comprehension, and knowing MOST of the words. They were so excited to hang up their work themselves (with a little help from Mr. Watson for the high spots!) The children have been hard at work in math. We have started our second unit of the year, "Shapes, Blocks and Symmetry." The children are learning the attributes of 2- and 3-dimensional shapes with hands-on exploration. Here, Bobby shows the cube he made with "tiny cubes." John made a larger version, then calculated how many small cubes he needed. Haji made three different cubes out of other geoblocks. |
AuthorNews about Mrs. Barbas's Class in Room 36. Archives
December 2015
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