Word Study

Every day, we have a half hour of word study time. This is a time when students work with words to build their spelling and word recognition skills.

This week, I introduced the students to word sorts. Word sorts are a great way for students to work with words that have similar spelling patterns. Here are some things we have been doing:

Picture and Word Sort:

On the first day with a new sort, I introduce the students to the spelling patterns we will working with and we complete the sort together, discussing patterns we notice about families of words. Then, each student cuts out their own set of cards to work with for the week. They get familiar with the words by sorting individually at their seats.

Buddy Sort:

The next day, students engage in a buddy sort. They work together to sort their cards and discuss patterns they notice. Buddies can also engage in a blind sort, which involves one buddy reading the word secretly and the other buddy telling where the sort card belongs without peeking.

Written Sort:

Each student has a word sort notebook to complete word sort activities in. A written sort is just like it sounds! Students use their word sort cards to write their words into their word study notebook. They organized them by spelling patterns and write them according to which family each words belongs in. 

Draw and Label:

This is another activity done in the word sort notebooks. Students draw their picture cards and then write the word underneath it. 

Glue Sort:

On the last day of a sort, I have the students glue their word cards into their notebooks. Now their bags are empty and ready for a new sort the following week. For now, we will work as a class on one word sort together to establish the routines of sorting. Eventually, students will be given individual sorts that focus specifically on their own needs as a speller. 

Buddy Reading

In Reader's Workshop, we have been doing a lot of work with buddy reading. Our mini lessons have been centered around the expectations of buddy reading as well as how to be a good "reading coach". We talked about how it is important to help a buddy by coaching them through strategies they can use when they get to a tricky word or part, rather than just giving them the word or answer. This takes some practice but with time they really will get good at it! We also discussed effective ways to turn and talk with a partner about what they are reading together. Here's some pictures of buddy reading in action!

What Does Reader's and Writer's Workshop Look Like?

Each day, the students spend the morning engaged in writer's workshop and then reader's workshop. Workshop time involves a two hour long block (one hour for reading and one hour for writing) in which the students are working on developing their literacy skills. Each workshop time is broken down like this:

Mini Lesson: I bring the kids to the rug for 10-15 minutes to explicitly teach a skill or strategy to them within the unit we are working on. For example, we are still in the "Launching" unit which is centered around establishing reading and writing routines. Typically, I model the strategy and show students how they can use the strategy in their reading or writing. I incorporate turn and talks so the students can reflect on what they saw me do or what I was teaching them. 

Independent Practice: Students spend time reading or writing to practice the skill taught. During this time, students are either independently reading/writing, working with a partner, or meeting in a small group with me to develop reading and writing skills. For reading, each student has their own book bag filled with "just right" books at their level. For writing, each student has their own writing folder that houses pieces of writing they are working on about events that have happened in their own lives.

Share: Students are given the opportunity to share with a partner or group to reflect what they worked on as a reader or writer. Share time can happen in a variety of ways. Sometimes, I let students share with a partner or small group. Other times, I may ask a few students to share their work to the whole class so I can highlight something they did as a reader or writer that I want everyone else to see. It's also a great way for the kids to give positive feedback to one another!

The structure of reader's workshop and writer's workshop will always stay the same. We will always do a mini lesson, independent practice and a share time every time. What changes is the units of reading and writing we are working on. For example, in reading our next unit will be centered around "Tackling Tricky Words". In writing, we will start our "Journaling" unit. This structure is great because once the routine is in place, it gives me ample time to conference with students and pull small groups to meet all the individual needs of your little learners!

Pictures!

It was wonderful to meet so many of you last night at our Back to School event. For parents that were unable to make it, please be on the look out for a folder of information coming home to you today. If you have any questions about anything in it, do not hesitate to email me!

Thank you to everyone for returning the permission slips to post pictures on our classroom blog. I have been eagerly waiting to post these gems from the first day of school. Be sure to save these on your computer to look at in years to come. :)

Our Favorite Books

Yesterday in Reader's Workshop, we talked about "advertising" the books we love. Everyone got the chance to share their favorite book and explain why they love it. We talked about how our favorite books can tell a lot about our identities as readers. It was great to hear everyone so excited to tell a partner why their favorite book is so important to them. I listened in and learned a lot about your little ones as readers during this time too. I found out which students like funny books, which like reading about cars, and I discovered that many students love Dr. Seuss books!

What We've Been Up To...

Hi everyone!

I hope you enjoyed your beautiful fall weekend. I just wanted to remind everyone that our Back to School night is this Thursday for parents from 7-9 p.m. I will be going over lots of important information and hope that you will be able to make it!

Here is what we have been up to...

Writer's Workshop: The students have been exploring writing by trying out different ways to write and draw about stories they want to tell. We have been doing a lot of work around making topic lists of stories we want to tell. We have been generating ideas for stories and sharing them with a turn and talk partner. The next few weeks will give students the opportunity to explore writing before we dive into more directed lessons and writing objectives when we start our journaling unit in October.

Reader's Workshop: We are continuing to establish our routines for Reader's Workshop. The students have been working hard to read independently and build their reading stamina. We are learning the three ways to read a book (read the pictures, read the words, retell the story in your head) and have discussed how it is important to stay strong even when we feel tired or don't think we can focus anymore. These lessons are critical to set the expectations of reading time for the rest of the year. I am so impressed to see how well everyone is doing with this!

Math: We have been solving a variety of problems using different manipulatives. I have been using the Promethean board to discuss problem solving strategies with the students. We are working to build our "math talk" with each other. We will continue working on this into the beginning of this week.

Word Study: The students have been working on different color word activities and learning to identify, spell, and read the color words of the day. We also did some work with rhyming words and simple word families.

Second Step: Our social lessons are centered around using good manners and school and being respective to others.

Don't forget our color unit is continuing into this week. Tomorrow is pink/purple day!

BBQ

Don't forget that tomorrow afternoon is the Back to School Barbecue from 4:30-6:30! I will be there with many other teachers. We are looking forward to seeing so many of our Hajjar families there!! :)

Red Day Tomorrow!

Happy Sunday everyone! I hope you are enjoying the weekend!

I am really looking forward to this upcoming week at school. We are going to start digging in and launching reader's workshop, writer's workshop, and math. Last week, we continued discussing classroom behavior, established more classroom routines, and completed some mandatory math and reading assessments to help me get to know your child better as a learner. We discussed what it means to be a good listener and practiced how to turn and talk to a partner.

We also did a lot of work with our names. After discussing what a "word" is and determining that every word must have a vowel, we did some work centered around the vowels in our own name. We also charted how many letters our names have in all. 

I am very excited for us to start our color unit this week. Don't forget tomorrow is red day! Please remind your first grader to wear something red if he/she wants to. I am going to go through the picture forms tonight too so that I can start getting some pictures up of the kids in action this week! If you haven't done so, please return the picture form to me as soon as possible. Thanks so much!

Our First Day!

We had a great first day of school today! I am sure your little one came home very tired. It was a long day for everyone, not to mention a very hot and humid one. Your child may come home saying they are exhausted, bored, or don't want to come back to school. This is very typical in the first few weeks so please don't worry at all! As students get used to the daily routine and build their stamina for going to school all day, it will get better!

Today, we started our morning with our first morning meeting where we got to know each others names. We went over our classroom rules and talked about why rules are important (to keep us safe and happy). We also read one of my favorite Kevin Henkes books, Wemberly Worried, and charted our feelings about coming to school today. We took a tour of the building and discussed hallway manners. 

After lunch and recess, we read a book about the night before first grade and shared things we did to get ready for school. Then, we went to our first Health class. We ended the day by doing our first calendar math lesson and charting how we got to school today. 

We do have our snack in the afternoon so please be sure to pack a separate snack or remind students to leave something from their lunch to eat later. The kids did a great job with this today but it may help to pack something separately. It is also going to be very warm this week so you may want to send your little one with a water bottle. I will let the kids have several water breaks throughout the day to stay hydrated. 

Have a good night!

Important: Change in Email Address

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to update you that my email address is now different than the one I originally put on our welcome letter. It is now: acwaterman@billerica.k12.ma.us. There is "c"between the "a"and the "w". If anyone tried to email me this past week and it bounced back, this may have been why! Please resend anything important given that I wasn't receiving emails sent to the old address.

I hope that your little one is as excited as I am for tomorrow! We are going to have a great day! :)