Hi Families!
I wanted to let you know about some of the learning that happened this week in the Dragonfly class! We had a jam packed week and the students worked so hard! Along with our lessons and activities, the students also had to work so hard, as it has been our first grade assessment window. This means that students were working one on one with myself, Mrs. Larkin, and our reading and math support teachers! I'm so excited to share this data with you as we are working on tailoring our instruction to your child's specific needs! It's been so great having one on one time with each dragonfly and getting to know them even better through this time!
In reading this week we were working on retelling our stories after we read them. We talked about how good retells are in our own words and they give enough detail to show that we read the book but not too much! We've also talked about the importance of the order of a story when we are retelling it! This week we also partner-read and talked about what it means to be a good partner and support each other in our reading. We continue to read just right books for our own reading levels and collect tricky words that we need to solve!
This week we introduced "Brave Spellers" during writing time. We've been talking a lot about stretching out words as we write and making our best guesses on the sounds we hear. Our current class goal is to be happy and brave writers! We want students to feel brave and that they are capable of writing stories and expressing their creative ideas. Of course we know that first graders are still working on physically writing and on top of that, spelling words correctly can be exhausting and sometimes frustrating as a new writer- so we introduced the idea of Brave Spellers. This is a time where writers can put a word up on our "parking lot chart" that they would like to know how to spell correctly. Myself or Mrs. Larkin will then write the correct spelling of the word and have a mini conferring session with that writer to talk about the connection between the invented spelling they used and the conventional spelling- often-times they are pretty close! We then keep the words up for other writers to be inspired by and try in their own writing! This is a great way for writers to take risks in their writing and be proud of the hard work they are doing during writing time!
In math we are introducing weekly math menus. Students will independently work through a menu during our math block when they are not meeting with a teacher, working on a specific math goal, or learning a new concept in a small group. The menus allow students to have choice and be in control of their own math time. We are working on independence right now and this is a great way for the students to take charge of their math learning! They have their choice between many fun games, skill sheets, and math groups to attend! I will attach a picture of a math menu on our blog for reference!
We took a tour of the amazing Zen Den we have here at school! The students were able to see a space in our school that is so special. This is a space that is offered to all students if they need a quick break or recharge from the classroom. There are quiet, sensory, and social/emotional encouraged mini breaks offered there. The purpose of the zen den is to process feelings, whether it is feeling down that a parent is away on a quick business trip or a difficult task in the classroom, or to just get a quick and quiet break in a different setting! The students loved what the Zen Den had to offer and we will be utilizing this space if we see it would benefit a student. We did explain to the students that although this place looks super intriguing, it is a teacher directed visit, as students would want to be going all of the time! We want this time to be productive, quick, special, and better their time in the classroom when they return!
Fire safety was this week and we had the amazing staff of the Stratham Fire Department guiding us in our fire safety lessons! We learned so much about what to do if there is a fire at home, school, or even being around a campfire. The students loved this time with the firefighters and we learned so many helpful tips from them! We joined the kindergartens and second grades for this! We also got some pretty cool hats!
A Fall Family Conference sign up will be heading your way this weekend! Be on the lookout for that, as it will come in addition to this update! I can't wait to meet with all of you at the end of this month and the beginning of November! Time is truly flying by!
