Penguin Video!

We are learning so much about penguins in class. Today we read nonfiction books about the Emperor Penguin and learned all about how the father cares for the egg and deals with the brutal cold while the mother heads to sea to feed. I told the students I would post an amazing video that shows this! I hope they enjoy! It's wonderful.

 

Nonfiction Discussion

These clips are a little hard to make out but the kids are discussing their nonfiction reading and reactions with reading partners. It makes me so happy to just listen in to their thinking and talking about the books!

 

 

 

Valentine's Day!

I will be sending home a notice regarding Valentine's Day but for those of you that like to prepare early, just a reminder that we are reinforcing the "no food" policy with valentines as well. Please do not send valentines that have candy/food included. I have seen some really cute ideas with things like stickers or pencils. I know it is tough but if you can please help to follow this policy, that would be great. Also, students will each need one gallon sized milk jug for our valentines! Anytime that you have an empty one, please clean it and send it in with your child. I can start to collect these anytime and would love extras for those that may not have them. Thank you!

Our Class Was Videotaped!

Our class made an appearance on the district's website. If you go to www.plymouthschools.com you can see the video clip on the home page and our class will be featured at different points throughout the video. I am not sure how long this will stay up so check it out!

Word Study Homework/A few pictures

 

Next week the students will be coming home with their weekly word sorts as well as Word Study Homework to go along with their sorts. I will send home a letter explaining how the homework should be done and explain the routine. The students are all familiar with the various sort activities that we do. Basically the students will be given a menu for their Word Study Homework and should choose at least two activities to complete that week. Below is a picture that shows the routine posters we refer to in class (I point the arrow to the one we will do that morning). The students are doing a great job! They should be able to explain to you about each kind of sort activity when it comes time for their homework.

Here is an anchor chart we are reading to review mini lessons that have been taught to learn reading nonfiction!

We are always looking for adjectives in our reading! When students find an adjective they are encouraged to write it down and add it to our chart!

Here are a few pictures of some students working on finding combinations for numbers with pennies and finding facts in nonfiction books.

 

 

 

 







Parent Notebooks

Hi everyone!
Today I began a new Friday routine with something called Parent Notebooks. Each Friday the students will take some time to write a short letter to someone at home telling them about 1 or more things that they learned or did at school that week. This is just another way to practice writing our sentences as well as review our weekly learning!  I do not always check these before they go home, though I do walk around and check in with students. I do not correct these before though may remind someone "Don't forget your punctuation!". I hope you enjoy reading their notes each week. There is a catch. You have a job as well! Students that have a family member reply in the notebook (on the next page or if there is room you can do it right under the letter), will earn a sticker for the cover of their notebook. I will also at times award "bonus" stickers that week for handwriting that I feel has had a lot of effort put into it. I hope to see notebooks full of stickers by the end of the year! Have a great long weekend everyone.

Martin Luther King, Nonfiction, How-To Writing and a Challenge!

This week we started new units in both Reading Workshop and Writing Workshop. In Reading Workshop we are learning how to read nonfiction and to use the text features to help us with our reading. We are learning that text features have different purposes in the book and we can use them to learn new information. We are also learning that we can get our minds ready to read nonfiction just as we do with fiction - by previewing the book and photographs as well as thinking what words we may come across in the book. Students are really enjoying checking out nonfiction books and noticing the different features through their reading.

In Writing Workshop we are learning how to write "How-To" books! The students are learning that they are all experts at something and can put their knowledge into a book to teach someone how to do something. It can be something as simple as making toast, brushing teeth, or blowing a bubble with bubble gum! The kids got to work thinking of possible topics and have now chosen a topic and have written down the steps in order. Today we practiced sharing these steps with a partner to see if we were clear enough or if we needed to do some revising! Ask your child what their first "How-To" book is about! Next we will put these steps into a booklet.  Here is a video clip of one student telling some beginning steps for "How To Make a Snowman".

Writing steps for our How-To books

We learned a lot about Martin Luther King, Jr. this week and why he is so important to our country. We read several nonfiction books and wrote short thank you notes to him to thank him for what he has done. They made a cute little MLK, Jr. person to go with it. They are all hung in the hallway for now.  Here are a few pictures!

Here is a challenge! Please email me your child's answers. If they get 2/3 correct they will get a little prize!
1. When others said "seperate", Martin said _____________.
2.  Name two features of nonfiction text.
3. Where did Martin give his famous "I have a dream" speech?
Good luck!

 

Reading Workshop

Here are a few pictures of some reading buddies doing some retelling or discussing character feelings. 

 

 

 

Writing Workshop and Video Clips!

In Writing Workshop we are working on revising and editing a piece of writing. We met with our writing partners today and one partner read while the other had a job as "editor". We will continue to work on editing tomorrow and then add a cover page and title. We hope to share the stories with our Big Friends as well! Here are some pictures and video clips. This is my first attempt to post video clips even though I have been trying for months! I think I *finally* figured out how to do it! Feel free to post comments as well!

 

 

 

 

 

Updates

Hi families!
We are wrapping up our unit in Reading Workshop where we really study characters and character feelings. We read some great stories with good messages. Ask your students about them! (Giraffes Can't Dance, Jamaica's Find, and Frog and Toad are just a few of them).

Once we finish up with character study, we will move into our next unit which is reading nonfiction!

I have also started Math Workshop in my classroom and it is going smoothly so far. I am still very interested in having a volunteer each day at this time but I will take even one day a week if there is anyone out there that could do so. Send me an email!

During Math Workshop the students are grouped in groups of similar ability. This is done so that I can meet with these groups and have more direct instruction at their level. We are all working on the same skills, however, I can modify the lessons within each group. They will typically meet with me, work at their seat on their practice pages, and then do hands on activities usually around that particular focus skill for the day. One or two days a week I may opt to not run the workshop and instead teach a Math lesson to the whole class.

We are also working on nouns, verbs and adjectives! Here is our next challenge-
Please have your child name 2 nouns, 2 verbs and 2 adjectives! Please email me their answers and please email me exactly what they say! I am going by the honor system here. Have a great day! :)
-Mrs. Morgan

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday/New Year!  I went into school over the break to scrub tables and write out brand new name tags. The students came back to new table groups. They were very excited.

There is no new gumball fact quiz this week, nor are there new sight words. We will start fresh next week when we have a full week.

I will be starting "Math Workshop" soon during our Math time and am looking for any willing and able parents to come in and help out during this time. Math Workshop will be during our regular Math time (2:05-3:05).  I will be teaching math lessons to small groups and similar to literacy centers, students will be working in groups doing hands on activities or written math work.

I will be back to post some recent pictures soon!