Busy Days in First Grade

The past 2 weeks have been super busy in class.  We had much success with the Spell-A-Thon fundraiser.  Everyone tried their very best and we had several classmates get all 25 words correct.  Thank you for the support the PTG gives to our classrooms.  Your children benefit from things provided by them on a daily basis.

In reading, we have been practicing retelling the stories we read.  Please practice this at home after your first grader reads to you.  Here's the chart we made as a class about what I am looking for when I ask them to retell...

We have our guided reading groups up & running.  While I am meeting with small groups of students, everyone else is busy with read to self, read to a buddy, work on writing, and an iPad center.  The class is doing a fantastic job working independently as I individualize instruction for everyone.

Through the small group instruction, it became very clear I needed to teach everyone about Super E! (You may have learned about him as silent E.)  After reviewing the short vowel sounds, we also noticed that sometimes the vowels say their own name.  This video helped us understand the job of Super E:

I can hardly believe what wonderful things the students are writing during writer's workshop! The class has been learning how to write a small moment narrative story.  We began by learning how to write a story by adding to this chart over several days:

Later, we more clearly defined the difference between a small moment story and other types of stories here:

Everyone is able to write a story with a beginning, middle, and end.  Some children are working on putting spaces between each word.  Others are working on spelling the high frequency words we have taught the correct way in the context of their writing.  While other first graders are working on getting capital letters out of their sentences with the exception of the word "I", the first letter in a sentence, and at the beginning of a name.   This week, we also learned that having a writing partner helps you to tell your story more clearly, because it's like having a coach right there beside you.  

What's coming next week?

Red Ribbon Week! 

10/14:  Wear Red, Happy Birthday C.T., Spell-A-Thon pledges due, PTG Meeting 6pm

10/15: Wear NEON or bright colors, turn in Red Ribbon Week paper human by today

10/16: Wear a hat or crazy hair, donate boxed noodles to Family Sharing

10/17: Backwards clothes day, Pot-Luck dinner at 5:30, visit from Tedd Arnold

10/18: Wear team sports apparel

Next week's word study page:

Click HERE to make a copy.

Enjoy a little video I put together from our Culture Celebration 2 weeks ago.