Every Wednesday morning the K/1/2/3s buddy read with the students in the grade 4/5/6/7 class. The students look forward to sharing their books with their big buddies!
Buddy Reading
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Category Archives: Language Arts
Word Work
Another part of Daily 5 is Word Work. During Word Work the students work on letters, sounds, spelling patterns, and high-frequency words. By playing with letters, words, word patterns, word families, and so on, students increase their word knowledge and their speaking and writing skills. This week the students got an opportunity to try out some of the new Word Work stations. Learning sure is fun!
Student Bloggers Coming Soon!
Next week the grade 2/3/4s will be starting their own blogs. There has been a lot to do to get ready. We started by looking at blog posts and brainstorming what makes a good post. Here is the criteria we came up with:
We will use this criteria as we work on our own blogs to make sure we are writing quality posts.
Next we talked about commenting and constructed criteria for a good comment. We discussed Dead End comments (those that end the conversation, like “I like your post.”) and Highway comments (those that keep the conversation going). Here is the criteria we came up with for a quality comment:
We also spent time discussing internet safety. The students know that they should never share their YAPPY.
Y-your full name
A-address
P-phone number
P-passwords
Y-your plans
So that we could practice our blogging skills we started with paper blogging. Each student wrote a blog post on paper and then we used post-it notes to leave “Highway” comments for each other.
Tomorrow we will begin setting up our blogs and you should see posts in the very near future! Do you have a blog?
We Love Reading!
On Monday mornings the K-3s enjoy reading books together. We can read the pictures or the words and we remember to sit elbow to elbow and knee to knee so both partners can see the pictures.
Here are some of our favourite books:
Mya-My favourite book in the entire world is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!
Caleb-My favourite book is Marvel Super Heroes because it has Spiderman in it.
Kaleigh-My favourite, favourite book is Frozen.
Joey-The Book with No Pictures is really, really funny!
Storm-I love to read with friends. I like the Rainbow Fairy book.
Star-My favourite book is Cinderella.
Eli-My favourite book is Star Wars.
Alexandra-My favourite book in the whole entire world is La La Loopsy.
Cherish-My favourite book is Puppy Place because my favourite animal is in it.
Mackenzie-My favourite is the dolphin book I was reading today. The dolphins save people and it is kind of a challenge.
Owen-Magic Treehouse is my favourite because Dad and I read it at home. It is the desert one.
Hilary-My favourite is the book about dogs.
Sierra-I like Curious George. I really like that one!
What is your favourite book?
Book Shopping!
This morning we filled our book baskets with “Good Fit” books. The first day of book shopping in a new school year is always so much fun!
Before we shopped, we talked about what makes a book a good fit. We use the, “I Pick” strategy to make sure we are picking great books that will help us become better readers. You can use “I Pick” at home too!
Screenshot from: “The Daily Cafe” by Bouchey and Moser
Do you have a favourite book?
Summer Fun!
This morning we talked about our summer holidays while learning about a Web 2.0 tool called Padlet. We would love if you clicked on the Padlet below and added a bubble about your summer!
Rocking in My School Shoes!
Do you know Pete the Cat? Pete is one cool cat. He is the main character in the very popular books written by Eric Litwin and illustrated by Kimberly and James Dean.
We love Pete the Cat because he loves to groove and never loses his cool. In one of the books, Pete’s white shoes are constantly changing colours as he accidentally steps in one thing after another, but does Pete get upset? “Goodness no.”
We love Pete so much, we made Pete’s of our own!
What is Daily Five ?
In our classroom we use Daily 5 for our Literacy time. The Daily 5 is a framework which provides large chunks of focused time for reading, writing, and word study; increased student independence and responsibility; student choice; and goal setting.
Each day students select from five choices while working towards their personalized reading and writing goals. Individual student needs are met through whole-group and small-group focus lessons, as well as one-on-one conferring sessions.
The choices are introduced one at a time, and as the students’ stamina and independence increase, additional choices are added. The five choices are:
Read to Self,
Work on Writing,
Read to Someone,
Listen to Reading, and
Word Work.
This week we launched Read to Self and after only two days of practice we have already built almost 8 minutes of stamina. We learned that there are different ways to read a book (read the pictures, read the words, or retell a familiar story) and we also met our first Reading Buddy, Eagle Eye.
Here’s a look at Read to Self in our classroom:
First Day of School
We had a wonderful first day of school in K/1/2/3. We began our morning with a familiar fairytale retold by author Jan Brett and then we went on a Bear Hunt. Be sure to ask your child what their favourite part of the story was and go on a Bear Hunt of your own!
Next we made self portraits to add to our coconut tree in the hallway. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, look who’s in our classroom!
After a tour around the school we finished our first day with a game of Hands Up tag and Go Go Go Stop in the gym. Our K/1/2/3s are amazing at freezing like statues!
We can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!
Watch Out Wallace and Gromit!
The next claymation movie makers may just be in our class! Today during tech time the K/1/2/3s began work on their stop motion animation projects. We learned about an app called iStopMotion and tried out some simple animations using plasticine. The students learned that you need to make small movements so that your video will look smooth and that it is very important to keep the camera still. This week was a time to practice and experiment. Next week we will begin work on our masterpieces!
