Hello Families!  My plan is to publish to this blog every Friday with the children's help.  I will take pictures throughout the week and then post them on Fridays and the children will help me to attach the captions for each picture.  It's a great way for us to review the week and for me to see what stuck with them.  I will color code the captions this way.  If it is in blue then the writing is from me.  If the text is in green then the text is from the children and they've told me what to type:).  Sorry that this post is so picture heavy but it encompasses two weeks worth of great learning!

This is our related arts schedule for next week:  Monday - Library   Tuesday - P.E.  Wednesday - Art  Thursday - Music   Friday - Library again

We are doing really good!  They are speed-sorting their word study words.  We try to sort our words as fast as we can and we put them in rows.  
Our word study teams are now underway!  I've met with two teams already this week and will meet with the other two next week.  It is on an eight-day rotation with each of the four teams working on letter/sound features that they need based upon an assessment I gave them at the beginning of the year.  Formal spelling lists will not be coming home but you will see weekly evidence of the feature your child will be working on.  For instance, blue team is working on beginning consonants while red team is working on the digraph /sh/.  

This was on Talk Like a Pirate Day!  We were dressed up like pirates.  It was really fun!  Some didn't dress like pirates but they could still talk like one.  We got funny pirate names.  We went up to the fourth grade classroom and watched Mr. Keefer and Mrs. Brothers act out the story How I Became A Pirate.  Blackbeard left us a treasure map and we searched for the treasure.  We found it in the laptop case.  We ate chocolate coins, popcorn, fruit snacks shaped like sharks, and cheese puffs.  We had so much fun on this National holiday:)  

These girls got their picture taken as pirates!

One of the boys in this picture is holding a bag of pirate booty!

These girls were playing a pirate game!

One of the boys is doing a peace sign on Pirate day!  

We are making applesauce.  It was fun!  It was Johnny Appleseed's birthday.  The applesauce was yummy!  We were making apple trees with shredded colored paper.  Johnny Appleseed would have been 240 years old on his birthday.  We learned from one of our students that he never wore a pot on his head.  People told tall tales about him and his life.  One was that a rattlesnake tried to bite his bare foot but the skin was so tough the fangs couldn't get through.  There were even a couple of students that are working on writing their own tall tales.  One is even being written about me!!  

Two days ago we got our books in a bag!  One of us read for twenty minutes.  On Monday we bring our books back and get new ones.  We read the same books over and over until the next Monday.  The children have been asking me for weeks when they would get to take books home from our classroom and when the day came on Tuesday they were so excited!  The children self-selected five "warm-up" books from their book baskets.  We talked about how I need to stretch out my muscles and warm them up before I do my heavy lifting and their "warm-up" books serve the same purpose.  They get their brains ready for the hard work of applying reading strategies to familiar and new texts.  The children will choose new books every Monday so they need to return their bags every Monday in order to select new ones for the week.  A great way to build fluency  and increase comprehension is to reread the same texts over and over.  For their nightly reading, record the minutes they read to you and/or you read to them.  They can be from any books whether from the library or their own personal libraries but I'd like for them to always "warm up" with their practice books first.

She was reading really quietly and she was building stamina.  She is reading as hard as she can!  This is what we call "Read to Self" and it's part of our Reader's Workshop everyday.  We have practiced the right way as well as the wrong way to behave during this time and we had a blast acting out both ways.  Ask your child to share with you what happened when students modeled the wrong way:) 

She is reading Piggie and Gerald.  She was reading quietly.  She was building stamina.  She was staying in one spot.  She was reading the whole time.  I'm so proud of them for remembering the behaviors for reading during this time!

She is staying in one spot and she is building stamina.  She is starting right away.  

They are sitting EEKK!  This is called Read to Someone.  Here we are practicing the second part of our Daily Five.  The first part is "Read to Self" and this part is called "Read to Someone."  Ask you child to share with you what EEKK means.

This is our new friend reading with his book buddy.  They look cute sitting together.  I was so proud of all of the children and how they welcomed and embraced our newest student!  Our class is now complete!

We were making a village with the blocks.  The village looks good.  It has a bunch of parts.  It took us all of indoor recess.  It has a lot of details and only girls made it!  The kids loved indoor recess today!  So creative!

They were playing with Playdoh at indoor recess.