Thank You Tari Shattuck!

Greetings everyone!

This week I am very excited to share that we received and set up our listening center. In the fall I applied to the Tari Shattuck foundation, they grant money to teachers throughout the district in memory of educator Tari Shattuck. Shattuck was an educator in Bristol Elementary School who passed away in 1993 after a six year battle with a rare form of Leukemia.

The organization granted my request and we have received a listening center for our classroom. This enables up to 8 students at a time to listen to a story on CD or tape while following along in a book. We are very fortunate at our school because we have MANY wonderful stories such as William Steig's Dr. Desoto and Bill Martin's Chika Chika Boom Boom. Additionally, the foundation granted my request for a starter pack of books on CD for our classroom. Students were very excited to have class favorites such as Piggy Pie and Five Little Monkeys become part of our collection.

Thank you so much to the Tari Shattuck Education Foundation for supporting our learning and providing these wonderful tools!

Study Buddies

Greetings!

I am very excited to share with you all that we had our first study buddies meeting on Friday. Our class will now be meeting with Ms. Yerrick's 1/2 class on Friday afternoon to read and share writing with one another. Students got to know one another on Friday and Ms. Yerrick's class had some stories prepared to share with us. This coming Friday Ms. Yerrick's class will be coming to see us and we will be reading to them!

Students really enjoyed the opportunity to explore another classroom and make connections with some (slightly) older students. We are very excited to be working together. As a class we are noticing that no matter a persons age there is always something new you can learn from friends, both old and new!

Young Yogis

Happy New Year!



I hope you have all had a restful and rejuvenating break. Before the break we were beginning to become a little antsy at school, so we decided to take a break one afternoon and re-focus. One of the ways we did this was to practice some yoga exercises and songs. Students used yoga mats from our very own gymnasium to put some of the moves we have been learning to good use. Enjoy the snapshots!

Character Interviews

Welcome back! Students have been doing an awesome job with their Three Little Pigs interpretations. In preparing for their performances students gave character interviews, the students and I discussed the job of an actor in a play. We learned that when an actor is portraying a character they are "someone else". Students were asked a series of questions and were asked to answer as if they were not themselves, but that they were the pig or wolf they will be portraying this week. Not all of the interviews are uploaded yet, they are taking about 30 minutes per one minute video! I have included an image of all students enjoying the interviews yesterday. Enjoy the clips we have so far, the rest will be up by the weeks end. 

Teamwork

Hello everyone,

This week there has been a large emphasis on teamwork. Students have been working to create their interpretations of the Three Little Pigs, and have so far produced some wonderful ideas. Students were asked to work together to create one sequencing chart for their group and one set of backgrounds for their play. This required students to take turns with a recorder of ideas and for the remainder of the group to lead an equal discussion in which all members ideas were heard and applied to the final product.

This posed a very challenging task for students. They realized they had to work together to represent their ideas or nothing would get done! Students finished their sequencing charts yesterday and collaborated on set backgrounds today.

We had a class discussion that outlined what an actor is, why they are important and how they could practice this skill. Students were asked to imagine themselves as the wolf or pig they were portraying and we then conducted character interviews. Students were asked to share a few ideas or answer questions as if they were the little pig or big bad wolf. We look forward to sharing all of this work with you via our blog soon!

Retelling Stories and Beyond

Hello everyone,

This has been a great week of learning in our classroom. Students have been reexamining a popular fairy tale known as The Three Little Pigs. We read three different versions of the story this week and practiced the skill of identifying scenes in a story and summarizing them in a sensible sequence.

Students were read Eugene Triviza's The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig, James Marshall's The Three Little Pigs, and John Scieszka's The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. Students sequenced each story through writing, illustration and discussion. Students were given a writing prompt this week that asked them to identify their favorite version of the story and to support their opinion with reasoning. Students did a wonderful job identifying different things that interested them. Some opinions included "I liked when the pig used a sledge hammer!" "Because the wolves were in place of the pigs!"

Next week students will be placed in groups and asked to reenact the story using felt puppets we are making this afternoon. Students will practice and perform the story in our reading workshop time. Mr. Grace will be helping us to record our performances on the school flip cameras so that we can upload them for you all to enjoy on our blog!

Math Update

Hello everyone,

This week in math we are continuing our work in counting. Students are striving to master counting by 2's, and the practice at home really helps to support this learning! Some students are struggling with the "tricky teens," which go from numbers 12-19. Practicing recognizing, writing and reciting these is another great way to support our math work at home. Students really enjoy practicing through songs and noticing objects throughout the room that can be counted and grouped in different ways.



We are also taking time this week to focus on patterns. Students have been working on creating AB patterns such as blue, red, blue, red or more complex patterns such as white, white, green, yellow, white, white, white, green yellow. Students will continue to work on this skill throughout the week as well as in upcoming math units. Students are working to recognize that patterning exists in all facets of math, and that knowing these patterns can help to make us stronger mathematicians.