We have wrapped up our "How-To" unit are will begin our Persuasive/Opinion Writing!
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For writing, we will begin our "How To" unit. Students will be using transition words such as first, next, then, last, etc. to explain the steps in their process. We will continue to use our "How Writers Make Writing Easy to Read" anchor chart to work on finger spaces, capital letters at the beginning of a sentence, and a period at the end.
For reading, we will review our Reading Super Powers anchor chart. In phonics, we are diving into syllables, or "beats", in a word. Here are some videos you can watch at home to review : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S7DY2lgJlU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psUPYR235O8 This week, we will be writing about different winter holidays. Each day, we will talk about one winter holiday: Kwanzaa, Diwali, Chinese New Year, Christmas, and Hanukkah.
Students will write about the different customs and traditions they have learned for each holiday. We will be using our anchor chart "Writers Make Writing Easy to Read" to write. - Finger spaces between words -Capital letters at the beginning of sentences -Period at the end of sentences -Writing a letter for each sound -Draw a picture to match the words This week in writing, we will be reviewing our "Writers Make Writing Easy to Read" anchor chart.
- Using spaces between words -Writing a letter for each sound - Capital letters at the beginning of sentences - Drawing pictures that match the words - Using a period at the end of each sentence. Today we began writing a true story about something they did over Thanksgiving Break. What you can do at home: Say simple sentences and have your child write them down using capital letters at the beginning, spaces between words, and a period at the end. It is not important that they use conventional spelling for all words. This will just help them listen to the sounds and write the letters that they hear. For example: some children may write "crismis" rather than Christmas or "pensl" rather than pencil. Here are some sentences you can start with: - The hat is in the box. - My Dad can run. - I like to play with him. - We went to the game. - Pat and Bob like to jump. This week in writing, we are working on narrative stories. We read the book Turkey Trouble, and are coming up with creative ways to "diguise" our turkey. Students colored a picture of their disguised turkey and wrote about how they helped the turkey get away from Farmer Jake!
In reading, we are working on our Super Powers Unit. So far, we have learned about Pointer Power, Reread Power, and Partner Power. We are using these skills during Buddy Reading. Students are practicing pointing to each word as they read, rereading to check for understanding, and helping their partner when they are stuck on a word. This week during Writer's Workshop we are working on writing "Spooky Stories". I am letting them choose to write a true story or a made up story. Students will practice using finger spaces between their words, using a capital letter at the beginning of each sentence, and writing a letter for each sound they hear. They will also be using sight words in their writing!
How you can practice at home: Have your child write a few sentences about Halloween or October using the words: see, can, went, like. During Reading, we are working our of our book bins and making our voices sound like the characters'. Students are using their partner reading strategies and sharing "Wow Pages!" with their partner. We are also practicing pointing to each word as we read and using the pictures to help us with hard words. How you can practice at home: have your student find sight words in books and point follow along with their finger as you read. You can also ask comprehension questions to check for understanding: Why did the character do that? How does the character feel? What do you think will happen next? etc. -Please make sure students are practicing sight words daily Feel free to move ahead using the sight word lists on the tab above.
Sight words to review from last week: come, in, will, at, you, went, like What you can do at home: Write sight words on flashcards and have students identify them or make a memory game. Have students practice spelling and writing the words as well! - In writer’s workshop, we will continue our “Show and Tell’ unit by writing show and tell stories. We will continue to work on thinking of an idea, telling about all the parts, and beginning to write and draw all the parts. For example, if we are writing a show and tell book about the playground, the parts could be the monkey bars, the slide, and the tunnel. On the first page students would draw and write about the monkey bars, on the second page students would draw and write about the slide. The last page student would draw and write about the tunnel. To challenge students, I will have them begin working on an introduction page which grabs the readers attention and a conclusion page that sums everything up. An introduction page about the playground might say something like, “The playground at Heards Ferry is where students play at recess.” A conclusion page might say something like, “The playground is so much fun!” What you can do at home: have students practice sounding out words and writing down the sounds they hear on paper and draw pictures with details and label their pictures. You can also remind students that when writing, the first letter in a sentence is uppercase and the rest is lower case, there are finger spaces between words, and periods at the end of sentences. - In reading, we will continue our 2nd reading unit of study. We will continue to practice looking closely at familiar texts such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We will continue to pay attention to the character’s feelings by noticing what clues the author and illustrator gives. Students will then use this to label their books with a sticky note. If a student notices a character is happy, they can sound out the word happy on a sticky note and place it in the book. They can do the same things with other feelings. Students will also work labeling pictures in our books to match what we are working on in writing. For instance in our book The Three Billy Goats Gruff, students can label the animals, places and things they see such as the troll, bridge, goats, etc. using sticky notes. We will also practice identifying sight words in our books (also known as snap words) and use our sight words to retell a story with more and more detail. During reading groups, we will be reading instructional level texts and using strategies to help us decode words. What you can do at home: Read every night like you are working with a partner (sit side by side, have a book in the middle, read back and forth, etc.) and ask your child questions about what she/he is reading about. For students who need to work on letters and letter sounds, you can have students find letters around the house and ask them what sounds they make. -For phonics we will review all previously taught letters and sounds and discuss the letter and sound of r and f. You can practice these letters and sounds at home too. Here is a great letter/sound song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTeUONxZYAs - In reading, we will begin our 2nd reading unit of study. We will practice looking closely at familiar texts like Knuffle Bunny, Caps for Sale, and previous stories we have read. We will discuss that readers consider the feelings of the characters. They stop often and think about how characters say and do things in their books. These give readers clues to figure out how the characters feel. We will use how the characters are feeling to match our voices to those of the characters. We will discuss that readers can practice matching their voice to how the character feels by reading with a partner. They can take turns reading separate pages, or they can echo read (one student reads and then another student reads the same thing) to reread each page and make it better and better each time.
During reading groups, we will be reading instructional level texts and using strategies to help us decode words. We will take what we have learned from drawing pictures with details and labels to now writing a show and tell story. We will work on thinking of an idea, telling about all the parts, and beginning to write and draw all the parts. For example, if we are writing a show and tell book about the playground, the parts could be the monkey bars, the slide, and the tunnel. On the first page students would draw and write about the monkey bars, on the second page students would draw and write about the slide. The last page student would draw and write about the tunnel. To challenge students, I will have them begin working on an introduction page which grabs the readers attention and a conclusion page that sums everything up. An introduction page about the playground might say something like, “The playground at Heards Ferry is where students play at recess.” A conclusion page might say something like, “The playground is so much fun!” What you can do at home: have students practice sounding out words and writing down the sounds they hear on paper and draw pictures with details and label their pictures. You can also remind students that when writing, the first letter in a sentence is uppercase and the rest is lower case, there are finger spaces between words, and periods at the end of sentences. We will continue to work on this in class. In writer’s workshop, students will have a post assessment on our narrative writing unit. I am looking for them to have an introduction (begin with One dark night…One sunny day…etc.), the pictures and words talk about who, what, where, how they felt, and include speech bubbles.
Students will also have a pre assessment on our 2nd unit-show and tell. They will draw/write about something that is important to them. After our pre- assessment, students will get to bring in an item they want to draw and write about. We will be working on adding labels and details to our pictures as well. Here is what students will work on in this unit:
What you can do at home: have students practice sounding out words and writing down the sounds they hear on paper and draw pictures with details and label their pictures. You can also remind students that when writing, the first letter in a sentence is uppercase and the rest is lower case, there are finger spaces between words, and periods at the end of sentences. We will continue to work on this in class. - In reading, we will finish up our first unit of study. Students will continue reading fiction books from their book bins independently and with a partner and will also continue to read learn about the world books. We will focus on how “Readers Learn From Books, Too” and “We are Storybook Readers.”. Our minilessons will be about how we talk more and more like the characters, look at the pictures and words, etc. During reading groups, we will be reading instructional level texts and using strategies to help us decode words. Here are the strategies we are using: Hint: You can copy and paste this into a word document, make it bigger, and print it out for students to use at home. What you can do at home: Read every night like you are working with a partner (sit side by side, have a book in the middle, read back and forth, etc.) and ask your child questions about what she/he is reading about. For students who need to work on letters and letter sounds, you can have students find letters around the house and ask them what sounds they make. In writer’s workshop we will near the end of our narrative unit of study. We will discuss how to edit a piece that we plan on sharing with the class (students will share in a writing celebration in the next few weeks). We will learn how writers re-read their stories and think about what they can do from everything they know about good writing to make their work the best it can be.
We will also discuss how writers try to spell their words, they reread each word to make sure it looks right, then they may even need to change it to make it more readable. We will review “When we are done we have just begun” and how to write a TRUE story (see below). Partners will continue to practice working together and we will review how we can plan our book before we begin. We will focus on adding more details to our pictures-not just drawing pictures that are floating in the middle of the page. Students will be writing an introduction page to grab the readers attention such as “One dark night,” “One sunny day,” and thinking about the who, what, and where their story takes place to help with details in our pictures and writing. We will also continue to work on incorporating how they felt and add speech bubbles to our pictures too. What you can do at home: have students practice sounding out words and writing down the sounds they hear on paper and draw pictures with details and label their pictures. You can also remind students that when writing, the first letter in a sentence is uppercase and the rest is lower case, there are finger spaces between words, and periods at the end of sentences. We will continue to work on this in class. - Students will continue reading fiction (old favorite storybooks) books from their book bins independently and with a partner and will also continue to read learn about the world books. We will focus on how “Readers Learn From Books, Too” and “We are Storybook Readers.” (Please see below). Our minilessons will be about how we talk more and more like the characters, look at the pictures and words, etc. What you can do at home: Read every night like you are working with a partner (sit side by side, have a book in the middle, read back and forth, etc.) and ask your child questions about what she/he is reading about. For students who need to work on letters and letter sounds, you can have students find letters around the house and ask them what sounds they make. -For phonics we will review all previously taught letters and sounds (C, O, A, D, G, M) and discuss the letter/sounds of L and T. You can practice these letters and sounds at home too. Here is a great letter/sound song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTeUONxZYAs |
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