Wondering about Apples

We are learning about being a scientist, and one of the things we’ve learned is that scientists ask questions. So we wondered about apples. Here is a video to share our questions:

Writing

We start off most of our days with writing workshop.  Writing workshop starts with a mini-lesson and then we spend the rest of the workshop writing independently, conferencing with a teacher, working with a partner, or sharing with the whole class. 

First we started learning about what writers do and how to get a message across to a reader.  We've learned about writing the sounds we hear, using spaces between words, drawing pictures to help give information, and when to use capital or lower case letters.  One of the most important things we've been working on is reading our writing to see if it makes sense.  

We've learned that writers can write in different ways, too.  We have written both "All About" books and true stories about ourselves.  Currently we're are working on How-To books, and I'm thrilled to be learning all sorts of new things.  Maybe we'll write a how-to book on how to write like a kindergarten student!

What We've Been Doing in Reading

If you ask the students about one of their favorite times of the day, outside of lunch and recess of course, many would say reading.  We have reading throughout our day--we have a read aloud, we work on reading together, and we have a workshop time where we get to read by ourselves and then with a partner or small group.  I am so pleased with how much we have grown as readers!

We've learned so many things about reading--how a book works, how to bring a book to life, learning different vocabulary like non-fiction and character--but we've mostly worked on two really BIG things. We've learned how to use our super reader powers to help us figure out the words, and we have learned how to think and talk about books.  

Some of our super powers are things like using a pointer when reading so that we always know which word we're going to say.  We've developed picture power and sound power to help us figure out unknown words.  Sight word, or snap word power is another trick we have to help us read.  We're learning how to change the vowel sound, chuck big words into smaller parts, and we're predicting what words we might read when we preview a book.  Sometimes we have to super-size our super powers because words and books are getting harder! While we are reading, we are asking ourselves if what we are reading make sense, does it sound right, and does it look right.  

In addition to all of that, we're thinking while we read both so that we can understand the book better, but so that we can share what we're reading with others and talk about it.  We make connections with books by thinking of what we already know or what the book makes us think about while reading.  We make predictions both before and during reading and we check to see if we were right.  We wonder, we notice, and we think big!  Then we share with our partner or our class as a whole.

A big chunk of our reading time happens during our reading workshop where students read independently or with a partner.  But I do read to them daily, sometimes multiple times a day.  Sometimes I pick the book and sometimes the students do.  We work on figuring out what characters think, what big ideas the author wants us to learn, and we just enjoy it!  We read many poems, too, to help us practice our skills we're learning.  

Sometimes we get to read to special people like our principals and our first grade friends. 

We get to choose what we read and we get to choose a comfy spot to help us do all of this important work.  Parents often ask what they can do at home to help their child grow as a reader and the answer is simple.  Do what we do at school:  read to them, let them have some choices on what to read, and have them read to you.  Happy reading!

The Friday Five--Supersized

I've been away from keeping you updated as to what we've been up to--so sorry!  Here is what we've been learning about these past couple of weeks:

1.  Writing: We have been so busy writing about what we know!  We write books focusing on one topic.  We have a picture that teaches on each page, and we're attempting words by writing the sounds we hear.  In addition, we have partners who can help us, and we've learned that we can solve our own problems (like where to get paper, where to sit, what happens if our pencils break, etc.).  When we're looking for an idea, we reference our heart paper where we wrote about the things that we care about. We share what we've been working on at the end of our workshop. Writing time is how we start our day, and we love it!

2. Reading:  Oh my, have we been busy in reading.  Each day we work on various things.  We're working on reading the pictures, reading the words, and sounding like a teacher.  Lately we've been sounding like the characters when we read.  That's been a lot of fun!  We've been learning that characters are in fiction books, and that we can tell about characters by what they do and say.  Another thing we've been working on is retelling what is happening in the story from the beginning, to the middle, to the end with transition words.  We have both partner reading time and private reading time and it's hard to tell which one the class enjoys more. Reading is fun in itself, but especially when one can read to a favorite stuffed animal or a first grade friend!

3. Math:  What haven't we done in math lately?  We've worked on three shapes:  circles, triangles, and rectangles.  We created with just triangles and squares. Ask you child what attributes these shapes have.  Speaking of attributes, we have done a lot of sorting.  I'm especially excited to see how students can take the same objects and sort them in different ways. We have been working on counting, too. 

4. Leadership:  We have been learning about the seven habits of effective leaders.  We've learned all seven!  We've been working on teamwork using the habits.  One day we worked together to build a tower with just index cards and tape.  In addition to learning about the habits, we've been working on growth mindset, too.  We have learned that our brains can change and grow.  We used play-doh to help us learn that. We're working on the right words to use so we can have a growth mindset in our learning.

5. Fun!:  We done a lot of fun things like tasting apples, seeing how many apples we can fit on our heads (ask us about the book we read!), and observing sunflowers.  We've had a few indoor recesses as well.  Check out what we like to do!