Friday, December 23, 2011

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Art in Action!!

The H brothers

This poem helps us remember the sounds of the H Brothers Sh, Wh, Th and Ch!

Raz Kids

Today in folders you received an informational sheet about Raz-Kids. The PTO was extremely generous in buying a subscription for Bates school. This is an online library of exciting reading material. KC teacher's username is mclancye each child had picked a picture password which is on the newsletter. Happy Reading!

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Art Project Calendar

We were excited to bring home our calendars today! Everyone did a beautiful job with this project. We hope you enjoy. Happy 2012!

Mexico

What we think we know about Mexico and questions we have about Mexico.

Sign To Me

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E...is for Emily

Monday, December 19, 2011

Thumpity, Thump Thump

We learned an easy song that starts with the th, sh, ch and wh sounds. This quick chant goes to the tune of Frosty the Snow.

Art Snow Globes

The children are making BEAUTIFUL snowglobes with Mrs. Martell. She will be hanging them on display soon!

Saturday, December 17, 2011

David Shannon

We are reading books by David Shannon. Many kids are familiar with this author and think his books are very funny!

Voice Thread About Grace Lin

Pictures of Grace Lin

The Queen of Ten

The Queen of Ten came for a visit this week...we can't believe it is the 70th day of school!

Writing Workshop

At writing workshop we have been using the 5 finger planner to help us write our stories. We use the palm of our hand for the topic, each finger represents one detail and the thumb tells us how we feel. This helps us to think about writing something different on each page.

Holiday Alphabet

It Snowed A Heap

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Daily 5

I am sure many of you have heard your child talking about "The Daily 5". The Daily 5 is a way of structuring the reading block so every student is independently engaged in meaningful literacy tasks. These research-based tasks are ones that will have the biggest effect on student reading and writing achievement, as well as help encourage children who love to read and write. Student receive explicit whole group instruction and then are given independent practice time to read and write independently while I provide focused, instruction to individuals and small groups of students.
Our classroom has a Literacy CAFE Menu posted that contains strategies good readers use when reading. In class, we compared our Literacy CAFE menu to a menu at a restaurant. We discussed how the food we order at a restaurant depends on the time of day, how hungry we are, and what we like to eat. This compares to our classroom CAFE menu because as readers we use the strategies we need at the time to help us successfully read and comprehend. CAFE is an acronym that stands for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expanding vocabulary. These become our goals and the strategies we use to be successful with our goals are posted below them. Each child has goals and strategies specific to his/her needs and therefore will get the direct instruction needed to move forward and become a successful reader.

Holiday Alphabet Song Book

Deck the halls with letters and sounds fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la. I will post the whole alphabet this weekend!