Day 10

We were busy today! Homework was due, Spelling tests were taken, and Word Wall Word Evaluations were given. Phew!

The First Graders had their first Spelling test. The top scores were:

100% Megan

92% Anthony

All homework has been checked and top homework scores belong to:

96% Dakota (K)

83% Sammy (K)

86% Nora (K)

Some of the Word Wall Evaluations were very impressive. The top 5 scores were:

100% Anthony (F)

100% Megan (F)

100% Dakota (K)

100% Liliana (K)

83% Sammy (K)

In our gathering place; we completed our morning calendar and then talked about rainbows.  We read The Rainbow Book. This is beautifully made book, with intricate patterns cut into each page. Unfortunately, this book does not represent the colours of the rainbow. Pink is NOT a colour in a rainbow. But this "error" gave us the opportunity to discuss that we cannot always believe what we read :-)

The students were introduced to Roy G. Biv - Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet

We watched the Cat in the Hat sing a song about the colours of a rainbow. And then we watched it again :-)

We took a well deserved Brain Break and walked around the room twice using BIG, GIANT steps. That was fun!

After recess, the students made their own Roy G. Biv.

Megan, Anthony, J'Shawn, and Tyler

Isaiah, Dakota, and Nora

Izabella, Nathan, Taniya, and Liliana

We ended the day with a Dr. Seuss request. Megan wanted me to read Gustav, the Goldfish (from The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories) which to me is the Seuss equivalent to Goonies ("do not feed after midnight"). In this case, Gustav can only be fed a "spot" of fish food or he grows, and grows, and grows.

REMINDERS: 

• We are closed, on Monday, for Labour Day. 
• The next homework packets are posted on the Homework page, and have been place in your child's School-to Home Pocket.

Have a safe holiday!

Day 9

Can you see the wind? No, but you can see the wind move things -- water, trees, kites, etc. We can hear the wind. We can feel the wind too.

This morning, in our gathering place, we read Feel the Wind. This book does a good job explaining the causes of wind, where is comes from, and how we can use wind to our benefit.

We discussed the affect that wind has on trees and the students took turns demonstrating how trees move and in what direction they move when wind is coming from the north and the south.

Next we read an abbreviated version of the Princess an the Pea. We discussed why the Prince's mother, the Queen, was skeptical of the Princess' true lineage and how she found out that the visitor was indeed a princess.

Then it was the time for a project.

The students assembles a bed and placed 7 patterned and coloured  mattress on the bed frame.

Megan, Anthony, and Dakota

Izabella, J'Shawn, Nora, and Isaiah

Nathan, Liliana, Tyler, and Taniya

We completed 2 Daily 5 rotations. The First Graders took a Spelling pre-test and played a few games, students Read to Self, and met me at the conference table for various individualized activities.

Nathan

Isaiah

After recess, in anticipation of the Word Wall Word evaluation, on Friday, the students got to cheer the words -- clapping and yelling the spelling for each word.

Anthony

Tyler

Izabella

Taniya

All Together Now!

We finished the day with And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street by Dr. Suess. Here is a puppet rendition of the story from Paramount (c.1944). Funny :-)

REMINDER! Homework is due tomorrow! How good did you do this week? There is still time to log your reading on Reading Rewards, complete math drills on XtraMath, and do some Language activities on MobyMax!

Day 8

Wednesday began much differently than the other days. We stayed outside for a bit so that the air conditioning man could arrive and fix our air.

Once we got inside we needed to forgo our Morning Calendar, because of time, but we did have time to read a (sort of) weather book.

Tuesday contains mostly pictures, so we read the pictures. The frogs begin to rise on their lily pads and travel toward the town for some excitement. In the beginning of their journey; they are a bit scared but as time passes they appear as if they are having lots of fun, especially when they are chasing the dog en masse!

After reading the wonderful pictures; we discussed if floating frogs were possible and the students came up with some inventive ways that the frogs and lily pads could rise and float.

We began our Daily 5 rotations after the story and discussion.

During our rotations, students Read to Self, continued patterns with me, and the First Graders went on the computers to work on their Spelling.

Tyler and J'Shawn

Megan and Isaiah

With a ring of the chime, the students were called back to our meeting place. Here we celebrated the longest rotation that they have had to date. Twenty-five minutes!

After recess, we had one last rotation for the day, where students worked on the computers, Read to Self, and completed a Word Work activity with beginning sounds.

Dakota

Liliana

As the day ended, we were back in our gathering place reading one of my favourite Dr. Seuss books --  Yertle the Turtle.

Here is the classic story on YouTube narrated by John Lithgow.  Enjoy!

Day 7

After our morning calendar we read the book Hurricane by David Wiesner. In Hurricane, two brothers David and George go through a hurricane and when a tree falls during the storm; the boys use the downed tree in their imaginary adventures.

We took a closer look at each other in a graphing exercise called: Look Who Lives in My House.

The students chose coloured squares to represent the people and pets in their homes.

Taniya, Liliana, and Nathan

Dakota, Tyler, J'Shawn, and Isaiah

Xxxxxx, Izabella, Anthony, and Megan

During Daily 5 rotations, students Read to Self, First Graders worked with Spelling words on the computers, and other students did some patterning as a small group.

Dakota

Izabella

Liliana

Day 6

We, again, began our day in our gathering place to continue our study of weather. We read a book about rain. Bumpa Rumpus and the Rainy Day contains fun rhyming and silly sound effect words.

I asked the question, "Do you like Puddle Jumping?"

Each of the students wrote their name, either under YES or NO. Ten students (and 1 teacher) are puddle jumpers while 2 students are not.

We had a long, 14 minute, Daily 5 rotation that consisted of Read to Self, but also included work on the computer and the tablets I bought for the classroom.

Dakota

Liliana

Also, during this time, I read with a first grader.

Megan reading Pet Wash

In our second rotation (19.5 minutes) a few more students went on the computer while a few worked on alphabetical order and Word Wall Words. Another First Grader got to read one-on-one with me also.

Dakota

Anthony

After lunch, we started reading Charlotte's Web, a chapter book. Chapter books are especially important to read to young students because, over time, it lengthens their attention span and it allows students to gain interest in all the varied characters and become acquainted with different personality traits.

The students returned from recess and we completed another rotation of Daily 5 (18.5 minutes). Some students Read to Self, others were on the computer, and a few worked with me. 

J'Shawn played a Word Wall Word game.

J'Shawn

And Liliana put the weekly Word Wall Words is alphabetical order.

Liliana

The final activity of the day was reviewing Bumpa Rumpus by either retelling or reading the pictures. J'Shawn was excited to read the pictures to the class.

Blog Addition

Reading is important and we do a lot of it in the classroom.

On the sidebar, I have added our Classroom Bookshelf, below the Label Cloud.

New books will be added to this list as we read them in the classroom and you can keep track of those books.

Check it out!

Day 5

We began our first Science lesson with a Weather Study and the book Professor Fergus Fahrenheit and His Wonderful Weather Machine. This book is captivating with it's weather vocabulary and the interesting, Peter Max-like illustrations.

The students were asked to close their eyes and image a specific type of weather that was either in the book or that they have experienced.

From the book and their imagination, they came up with enough weather words (some with a little prompting) to fill in our Weather poster.

Students completed their own Weather posters.

We finished 4 Daily-5 rotations and practiced STAMINA! By the last try; the students successfully completed 22 minutes of Read to Self while I worked one-on-one with some students.

Do you think that they were thrilled with their success? LOL

With this success, we were able to watch another successful Daily-5 classroom for entertainment.

This afternoon, we were able to try the song for ourselves with Miss Osberg's class. I cannot post the video on the blog until we get all the permission slips returned.

We finished the day with Megan reading the pictures and Liliana retelling Professor Fergus Fahrenheit and His Wonderful Weather Machine.

Reading the Pictures

Megan

Retelling the Story

Liliana

P.S. Homework was distributed via the School-to-Home Pocket, today. Completed homework is due back to the classroom on Friday, August 29th. If you need an additional copy; you will find PDF files in the Homework section on this site.