Hello! Phew! This past week was a "hard one", mainly due to the unusually summery temperatures we experienced on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (and in some ways Thursday, too, because the stone building that is our school retains heat for quite a while after it is no longer warm outside! My poor darlings did NOT want to be here!!! They wanted to go swimming, play in the shade in shorts and t-shirts, and cool off any way they could. It was difficult to keep school on their minds. Oh, well--hopefully the temps will stay under 70 for a while, and it will be easier to focus on what we are learning at school.
We started Reading Groups this past week, and some of the "bugs" needed to be worked out as we adjusted to the needs of all of the members of each reading groups. These children have come from three different classrooms, and while they might be at or near the same reading level as the rest of their "group", they are coming to me with different experiences with decoding words, and knowing different sight words. My job is to, as quickly as possible, give them similar experiences and information so that we can proceed forward as a cohesive "team" or "group". So, if your child is feeling unchallenged or TOO challenged, please know that I am working to "tweak" my instructions so that EVERYONE is feeling a little challenged without being overwhelmed. Tuesday through Friday, I try to provide a 10-15 minute WHOLE GROUP phonics instruction. Though I have some individuals who are already close to finishing the required first grade reading curriculum (and others who are trying to finish the KINDERGARTEN curriculum), my 30+ years of teaching experience have taught me that ALL children benefit from direct phonic instruction. Often, those kids who already can read (single or double-syllable) words don't know HOW they have figured out the words--they just know them. If they don't receive direct instruction in phonics at this stage, then when they get to multi-syllabic words, they don't have the background strategies to work on decoding those words they "don't just know". It's 10 - 15 minutes a day for 4 times a week, so EVERYBODY participates. Then I head right into my reading group time. While I am seeing one reading group, the other children are finishing up their morning seat work (reviews of skills we have acquired thus far), practicing reading and writing their sight words for the week, changing out their 5-6 books in their "book boxes" for 5-6 "new" books that they want to try reading (I do not assign books for silent reading time, though the children have MANY different genres and levels from which to make their own choices), listening to prerecorded stories, and/ or working on apps (selected by me for use on this particular day). Within my reading groups, we practice our 10 unique sight words for the week. (These words are ones these particular children did not know during their last sight word assessment.) On Mondays, I read the words to the children, pointing out any ways each word does not "play fair"--does not follow the phonics rules we are learning. Then we go through the words again, with the children "reading" them to me (I support, as needed). Then we get our book for the day, and do a "picture walk" to see what information we can get from the pictures on each page before we attempt to read the words. Then we read the story, sometimes together, sometimes in "round robin" turn-taking fashion. Once we are at a Level 6 or higher, the final step is to close the book and see if we can recall eight things that happened within the story (one per page) in their proper sequence without opening the book to look at the pictures (since the children can't open the book while retelling the story during their DRA assessments.) I teach the children to "take pictures" (with the camera in their minds) of the images within the book, as a means of helping them remember what is going on within the story. Recalling these pictures "anchors" the sequence of the story, and therefore makes retelling it easier. On Tuesdays, we flip through our sight words again, taking turns trying to come up with a sentence for each word. Many first graders have a hard time doing sentence construction, at first, and this sentence building gives them a small group in which to practice this skill. It is where we work on subject/verb agreement, pronoun agreement, and other language skills that they will eventually have to address in writing. I have found the more we practice building oral sentences, the easier a time they have building their own sentences when it comes time to write. After building sentences, we go into our story reading and retelling, like we did on Monday. On Wednesdays, we play "the Slapping Game". I spread the cards out on the table, and the kids have to rest their hands on the edge of the table so everyone starts fairly. I say a word, and the children try to be the first to put the fingers of his/her hand on the word card before the other children. But, unlike that which is indicated by the name, no one is supposed to experience any pain from an actual "slap". The kids enjoy the game, and it's a great way to get all pairs of eyes focused on those sight words. Plus the kids know that if they have been practicing their words at home, they have a better chance of slapping the word card called before anyone else! On Thursdays, we play "Zap" with 26 tongue depressors (with words on them) inside a large tumbler. Each child picks a stick when it is their turn, and try to read the word on the bottom of the stick. Since some of them are sight words we have already learned, and some of them are sight words we haven't covered yet, it can be a tricky game. If a child can read the word, he or she keeps the stick for the duration of the game. If he cannot read the word within a short period, another child can "steal" the word by raising his hand. When I feel a sufficient time has passed, I call on the first hand I saw, and that child tries to read the word. If he or she is correct, THEY keep the stick, and play continues around the circle. It's amazing how motivated the children become to learn the words so they can "steal" each other's unknown words. We don't really keep track of who wins, and who loses (we often even forget to count the sticks) because we focus on the fun of playing. When someone picks the stick that has ZAP written on it, the game is over. The children all seem to enjoy reading groups, and the many different ways of "playing" with words and literacy.
This past week, Math class consisted of our learning to use the rekenrek, the ten frame, and tally marks as preparation for beginning addition. Next week, we are going to spend a few days firming up our understanding of "odd", "even", and "more" and "less", and then we will dive right into addition. Beginning the third week of October, the children need to start taking timed addition tests, and then timed subtraction tests, once a week until they are able to complete both an addition test with sums to 10, and a subtraction test with differences from 10 with at least 90% accuracy. The easiest way to help the kids achieve these goals is to provide them with LOTS of opportunities to practice, so they get to the point when they know the number facts without really having to "figure" the answers out. Practice is most successful when it feels like play, so we will learn strategies to use when adding, and then practice adding by playing many different games.
We've been learning about the "Scientific Method" this past week in science class. This method encourages us to 1) Choose a subject to investigate 2) Form a hypothesis or question we wish to investigate, and make a prediction of what we think the answer will be 3) Test our hypothesis by doing an experiment 4) Collect and analyze the data and 5) Report our results. On Friday, the children formed the hypothesis that keeping a banana in the frig will make it stay fresher (yellow) for more days than any other means. I brought in 5 identical green bananas on Friday, and we put each banana in a different environment: we kept one in the frig; we put one on a table in the classroom; we put another in a ziploc bag with the air removed on the table in the classroom; we put the fourth one behind a curtain (away from sunlight) in a cabinet within the classroom; and we put the last one in a plastic ziploc bag with the air removed as much as possible, and then put it in a dark cabinet in a corner of the room. We will look at, draw and write about what we see happening to each of the bananas during the course of the next week. Then we will review our data, and see if we can determine a conclusion about the best way to keep a banana fresh for the longest period of time. Then the kids asked me to take the bananas home and make banana bread for them so we don't waste the food! I'll see what I can do about that over the long weekend!
That's all for this week. Please remember that there is no school on Friday of this coming week--we are having a Teachers' Workshop day to review and interpret testing data gathered in September. There is also no school on the following Monday because it is Columbus Day. Therefore, starting Thursday afternoon, the children will have four days off from school. Please remember to keep the sight word cards and fluency sentences I sent home day for continued practice during this week AND the four days of the next school week. When you practice the fluency sentences with your child, please practice them in randomized order. I will be testing them in random order on the 13th of October. Have a great week, and a wonderful weekend! I will not be in touch again until after the 13th.
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