Weeks 5 & 6 in Review

Wow! It has been a couple of  BUSY weeks in our classroom. We have been busy with Picture Day, a Fire Safety assembly, dental students from Calvin College coming to talk to us about dental hygiene, two substitute teachers, beginning homework and Book Bags, emergency drills (fire, severe weather and lock down) and finishing up the MAP Test. In addition to all of this, we are continuing to learn and grow as students. I don't have a lot of pictures from last week or this week, which is why I am combining this update into one blog.

I continue to be amazed by my well behaved class. Despite our busy schedule, the students continue to be patient, friendly and most of all flexible.  They are really thriving and love school. 

During our writing time, the students have learned how to stretch out a small moment. Basically, they have learned how to add details to an idea. We are learning how to write in booklets (paper stapled together).  The students work with a partner to plan their writing.  They touch a page and then say what will be written on it. The partners discuss how an idea can be stretched.  I continue to hold individual conferences with students who want to publish a piece of their writing.  It takes about 10 minutes to meet with each child.  Therefore, the publishing process is a slow one. I will soon  begin to type the stories that have been completed and edited.  It has been fun to read the small moments and stories written by your children.  I know that you will enjoy reading some of their writing at conferences.

 I have finished up reading testing and will begin reading groups next week. I can't wait to begin working with the small groups of children.  I have selected Good Fit Books for us to use.  The students are all good readers.  This year we are going to spend a lot of time working on fluency/expression and written responses.  During the individual reading testing, I noticed that these are two areas that most students were the weakest in.

As a class, we will begin working on long vowels sounds. I have specific activities planned to help each child improve their ability to read, write and recognize long vowels.

In math, we are finishing up our first unit.  We will have a test in class early next week.  There is no need to study because we will do that in class. Our next unit will be learning how to find perimeter and area. 

Thank you for taking the time to read our blog! I hope that you will check back again in a week to see more pictures (I promise to use my camera more next week) and an update!