Monday, September 30, 2013
Unit 2, Week 1 - Listen, Listen / My Five Senses
This week our Focus Stories will help us to answer the question, "How do our senses help us learn about the world?" The first story we will read is Listen, Listen by Phillis Gershator, illustrated by Allison Jay. The author uses rhyme and rhythm in this informational text to celebrate the sounds of the seasons, from summer to autumn, and winter to spring.Our second story, also an informational text, is My Five Senses by Aliki. The author/illustrator show us how we can use our five senses to learn about the world, how each sound, taste, smell, sight, and touch help us to discover something new.
Our Target Skills for this week are blending onsets and rimes, pausing for punctuation, using context clues to discover the meaning of words, and comparing and contrasting. We will also be focusing on the letter 'Aa' and its corresponding short vowel phoneme /a/. Letter: Aa
High-Frequency Word: see (Please continue to practice I, like, the, and and at home!)
Oral Vocabulary (Listen, Listen): drift, ripen, scurry, sizzle, whisper, whistle
Selection Vocabulary (My Five Senses): aware, senses, sight, touch
Thank you to www.amazon.com for the cover images!
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Unit 1, Week 5 - The Little Red Hen / The Handiest Things in the World
This week our Focus Stories will help us to answer the question, "How do tools help us do things with our hands?" We will begin with the Traditional Tale, The Little Red Hen, retold by Heather Forest, and illustrated by Susan Gaber. In this rhyming version of the workhorse story, a black-and-white kitten, corgi pup, and shiny-eyed mouse are the reluctant friends of Little Red Hen. While cat is distracted by a yarn ball, dog wrestles with a blue blanket, and mouse surveys a sort of scrapbook of mice of many lands (complete with tags in German, Korean, Hebrew, and French, among other languages), Hen goes about her business, planting, cutting, grinding, and baking all by herself. But here, unlike most accounts, there's a twist: the lazy animals learn their lesson and are given a chance to redeem themselves: For after all is said and done, working together makes working fun.Our Informational Text this week will be The Handiest Things in the World, by Andrew Clements. This fresh take on an often-overlooked appendage compares hands with everyday tools. Eating with fingers and then with chopsticks, walking a dog off a leash and then on, catching an insect with bare hands and then in a net, and digging with and without a trowel are a few of the 17 varied, engaging, and child-centered activities included.
Our Focus Skills this week will be Beginning Sounds, Words in Oral Sentences, Pausing for Punctuation (when reading), Identifying Cause and Effect, Questioning, Synonyms, and Action Verbs. We will also be focusing on the letter Ss and its corresponding phoneme, /s/.
High-Frequency Words: Review I, like, the, and
Letter: Ss
Oral Vocabulary (The Little Red Hen): admired, delicious, delight, doubt, fable, sigh
Selection Vocabulary (The Handiest Things in the World): appears, future, handy, stray
Thank you to www.amazon.com for the cover images and story synopsis!
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Unit 1, Week 4 - Pizza at Sally's / Everybody Works
This week our focus stories will help us to answer the question, "What kinds of work do people do?". We will begin with realistic fiction book entitled Pizza at Sally's by Monica Wellington. Sally the pizza maker makes pizza. She grows tomatoes in the community garden for the sauce. She gets cheese in the shop down the street. She buys flour from the mill for the dough. We will follow Sally throughout all of her tasks as Sally prepares, mixes, and bakes delicious pizzas. 
We will also work with an informational text--Everybody Works by Shelley Rotner and Ken Kreisler. The photographs and simple text show us the many ways in which work can be accomplished.Through these stories we will be focusing on the following skills: identifying beginning sounds, recognizing words in oral sentences, pausing for punctuation, action verbs, and learning to use the text and pictures together to develop meaning.
High-Frequency Word: and (Please continue to practice I, like, and the at home as well!)
Selection Vocabulary (Pizza at Sally's): customers, dough, famous, perfect, sprinkled, stretchy
Oral Vocabulary (Everybody Works): creating, delivering, hobby, and protecting
Thank you to www.amazon.com for the cover images!
Saturday, September 14, 2013
New Student Welcome!
We welcomed another new student to our class this week! Say hello to Broynson! We've truly enjoyed getting to know him this week!
Intro to Nouns
This week we learned that nouns are words for people, animals, places, and things. In this activity, the students were having to complete the sentence "I see the __________." by drawing the type of noun that I called out on their dry erase boards.
Wikki Stix Sight Words
I've gotten a little behind posting pictures from the last 2 weeks--sorry! Here's a quick look into what we've been up to!
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Unit 1, Week 3 - I Have a Pet! / Please, Puppy, Please
This week we will be focusing on two realistic fiction stories that will help us to answer the question, "Why do people have to take care of their pets?" The first such story is I Have a Pet! by Shari Halpern. In this story, five children enter their pets in a show, and each takes a turn explaining the merits of his or her contestant, be it dog, cat, bird, hamster or lizard. Information on animal behavior, as well as care and feeding, are woven throughout. All the entrants give such swell presentations that the judge has no choice but to award everyone some kind of prize.Our second focus story this week will be Please, Puppy, Please, written by Spike and Tonya Lewis Lee and illustrated by Kadir Nelson. Through this story, we are introduced to two young children who are celebrating the joys and challenges of life with their new pet. Puppy is exuberant, energetic, and as undisciplined as can be. The kids are thrilled with their
uncontrollable new friend, chasing him, playing with him, and trying to get him to behave.
With these texts, we will be focusing on the following skills this week: beginning sounds, synonyms, story structure, and conclusions.
High-Frequency Word: the (Please continue to practice I and like at home, as well!)
Oral Vocabulary Words (I Have a Pet!): cooperate, curious, interesting, slimy, smooth, and vet
Selection Vocabulary Words (Please, Puppy, Please): fetch, outside, inside, and please
Thank you to www.amazon.com for the cover images!
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Unit 1, Week 2 - Friends at School / How Do Dinosaurs Go to School?
Our Informational Text this week will be Friends at School by Rochelle Bunnett, photographs by Matt Brown. With this story, we will spend a day at school with a classroom of boys and girls, two African spur tortoises, and a guinea pig named Mocha. We will join Annie, Ryan, and all of their classmates as they learn and have fun while engaged in an assortment of school activities. Sara and Luka feed a carrot to Mocha, while Ellie and Molly put on a puppet show. Zane mixes up a "moo-shake" with bananas and strawberries at snack time, and Dash wears a fireman's coat during a field trip to a fire station.Our Big Book this week will be the fantasy story, How Do Dinosaurs Go to School?, by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague. We will join the fun as dinosaurs ride the bus, read their favorite books, and have fun on the playground with all their friends.
Through these texts and small groups, we will work on the following skills this week: identifying beginning sounds, pausing for punctuation to enhance fluency, understanding characters and author's purpose, and making inferences/predictions.
High-Frequency Word: like (Please continue to review the word "I" at home, as well!)
Oral Vocabulary (Friends at School): busy, company, container, job, scoop, and tortoises
Selection Vocabulary (How Do Dinosaurs Go to School?): bullying, tidies, fidget, and interrupt
Thank you to www.biblio.com and www.scholastic.com for the cover images!
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