Writer's Workshop
Our recent writer’s workshop lessons have been focused on small moments. A small moment includes zooming in on the most important part of a story to write a clear and focused personal narrative. Writers are like photographers. Photographers can take pictures of their whole day like writers can write about their whole day or photographers can ZOOM in close to the most important or interesting part of their day like writers can ZOOM in close to tell about the most important part of their day. Instead of writing about my whole trip to Disney World, I can focus on riding my favorite roller coaster. Rather than writing about my entire winter vacation, I can zoom in on sledding with my cousins.
After reading A Different Kind of Campout, a small moment story about camping inside a house, the students discussed essential features of small moment writing (i.e. personal narratives). The students discovered great personal narratives:
After reading A Different Kind of Campout, a small moment story about camping inside a house, the students discussed essential features of small moment writing (i.e. personal narratives). The students discovered great personal narratives:
- tell a story abut something that happened to you
- use words such as I, me, we, us
- describe who, what, where, and when
- include a beginning, middle, and end
- retell the story events in the correct order (clear sequence)
Reading Workshop
In reading workshop we have been hard at work practicing and strengthening our retelling skills. A retelling usually includes characters, setting, problems, and solutions or the main ideas of the text. It involves telling what is important in the story without telling too much. Retelling helps readers recall what is happening in the story, develop a sense of story structure, and become more accurate in monitoring their understanding. Students are able to transfer this knowledge of story structure to their own story writing. To help students retell a story, we use a Retell Rope. Each knot in the rope represents one thought from the story. When we come to each knot, it reminds us to state the next event from the story. We will continue to use the Retell Rope throughout the school year to check for understanding after reading. |
The students have also added to their repertoire of skills for reading words in a text by utilizing a strategy known as cross checking. Students must be able to check for meaning as they are reading. The students are learning to recognize when a word doesn't look right, sound right, or make sense. When this occurs, they need to pause and fix up the meaning. Cross checking is a strategy in which students ask themselves a series of questions including: Does it match the pictures? Does it match the letters? Does it sound right? Does it make sense? This enables the students to check for understanding and self-correct when need be. |
Phonics
In phonics, the students have been learning about consonant blends. A consonant blend is 2 or 3 consonants side by side in a word. Consonant blends can come at the beginning of a word (brush) or at the end of a word (must). Each consonant in a consonant blend makes its own sound. For example, the word flip has four sounds (/f/ /l/ /i/ /p/). The students have been learning how to read and write words with initial and final s, l, and r blends. |
Math
We have completed Topic 1: Understanding Addition! As a fun, hands on activity, the students pretended to be our "manipulatives" on our giant part-part-whole model to help us show the different ways a whole can be broken up into parts.
This upcoming week the students will begin Topic 2: Understanding Subtraction. Students will learn how to see the many possible interpretations of a subtraction equation. This is achieved by experiencing numerous hands-on and visually appealing lessons focused on interpreting an equation such as 8 - 5 = 3 in the following representations:
Students will later learn that addition and subtraction are inverse operations. The concept of inverse operations is used throughout mathematics in ways ranging from checking one’s answers to solving algebraic equations.
You may be interested in utilizing the following websites to help your child reinforce skills at home:
-http://www.coolmath4kids.com/
-http://www.mathplayground.com/games.html
-http://www.ixl.com
-http://www.funbrain.com/numbers.html
You may be interested in utilizing the following websites to help your child reinforce skills at home:
-http://www.coolmath4kids.com/
-http://www.mathplayground.com/games.html
-http://www.ixl.com
-http://www.funbrain.com/numbers.html
Second Step
In Second Step, the students have been practicing their skills for learning. In order to help ourselves listen to learn, we have discussed the importance of keeping our bodies still, our eyes watching, our ears listening, and our voices quiet. In addition, we have practiced focusing our attention by using our "attentoscopes". As a fun activity, ask your child to show you what their "attentoscope" is and how they use it. We have also learned how we can remember to follow directions by using self-talk in a quiet voice or inside our heads to repeat directions to ourselves to help remember them as well as to help focus and maintain our attention. In addition, we have been practicing how to use assertive communication to ask for help. Our next unit is focused on empathy. |