We Are Active Readers!

This week for Reader's Workshop students in room 101 learned how good readers activate their schema to understand what they read.  Students activated their schema by thinking of places they have been, things they have done and books they have read.  We brainstormed the question "what do active reader's do?" and monitored comprehension by practicing independently and in small groups.  The goal of active reader's will come with time and students are only expected to demonstrate beginning understanding of this idea at this point in the year.   Here are some things to keep in mind when reading with your child at home:

Before Reading:

- Read (or find out) the 

  title and the author of the 

  book

- Look and think about what I

  notice on the cover and back

   of the book

- Ask: What do I know about 

  this type of text? This story? 

  This topic? What is my 

  schema?

- Take a thoughtful peek inside

  and predict what the story

  might be about

During Reading

- Read the 

  pictures

- Read the words 

  I know

- Think about what I 

   am reading

After Reading

- Ask: What was this    

  book about?

- Ask: What did I learn?

- Ask: What do I   

  understand now that I 

  didn't understand 

  before?

- Ask: What did I learn 

  about myself as a 

  reader?

Students were extremely motivated by the non-fiction text about Christian the Lion and this lead to many meaningful learning experiences. Students participated in small discussion groups talking about questions that required them to think beyond the text and have differing opinions.  Students then took their classmates opinions into account and responded to the questions through writing.  Many students shared they went home and did additional research on the internet about the story!

                                                

For Writer's Workshop students practiced various strategies to spell unknown words such as stretching out the sounds, using the word wall and using a resource folder (tool box).  

                                      
                                     
For Fundations students learned three trick words; trick words are words that you cannot stretch out the sounds. In kindergarten students used the term popcorn words.   Students also practiced tapping, building and writing CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant) for both reading and spelling.  Ask your child to teach you how to tap a CVC word (say a CVC word such as "pug" and ask them to tap the sounds.)

We further discussed  the book  Whole-Body Listening Larry at School by Kristen Wilson and Elizabeth Sautter.  This book teaches students self-regulation by encouraging them to listen with their: Eyes· Ears· Mouth· Hands· Feet· Body· Brain· Heart.  Your child may speak about Whole-Body Listening in our classroom.  Ask him/her to demonstrate what this looks like when sitting on the rug, at a desk or table, and in line.

   Students in room 101 continued the topic of Understanding Addition.  Students are learning how to see the many possible interpretations of an addition equation and parts of numbers. This is achieved by experiencing numerous hands-on and visually appealing lessons focused on interpreting equations in different ways.  They learned how to represent word problems using various manipulatives and approaches.  Although it was a challenging skill to  grasp, students now understand that the addends in addition problems can be flipped and the sum remains the same.  Students had fun playing math games practicing the targeted objectives and working in small skill focused groups with me.

Here are some websites if you are interested in reinforcing these skills at home:

 - http://www.coolmath4kids.com/
-  http://www.mathplayground.com/games.html
-  http://www.ixl.com

-  http://www.funbrain.com/numbers.html

We did a special spider web greeting for Emma's birthday!

The students all looked so nice for picture day!