Reader's Workshop

We are having so much fun in reader's workshop.  I love teaching reading! I enjoy watching my kiddos get as excited about reading new books as I do.  During reader's workshop each student has their own book box with books on their reading level as well as games that reinforce concepts that they need to work on to make themselves better readers. We begin with a mini-lesson to discuss a new book and what ever skill we are working on that week.  Then the students go back to their book boxes to complete the task the we discussed during the mini-lesson.  Once they finish that they go on to work on the games and activities that are in their box. The whole idea of the workshop model is that the students are reading books that are on their independent reading level so that they can become better readers.  Check out our great pictures from our work time.

Very Busy First Graders

Last week we read  The Busy Little Spider by Eric Carle 

We LOVED it.  We made spiders to hang on our door and wrote about what we are busy doing in first grade!  Here are some of our finished products: 

I love this one! I'm busy trying to listen to my teacher! 

We are very busy in first grade doing AR, Math, becoming good readers, being artists, working on stories and much more. 

Becoming Good Readers!

Fluent Readers read at the same rate that they speak.  As your reader grows, you will notice that they move from reading one...word...at......a.......time to reading groups of words or phrases. 

For example: Look......at......the.....big.....round.......moon.

Becomes: Look at.... the big... round moon.

One great way to develop fluency is to practice sight words in phrases.  Here is a list of sight word phrases that you can practice with your children. 

he had to	on a
she said that	for his
to the	of what
but she said	that was in
but they said	it was
they had to	I was on
it was for	you and I
for you	he had to

Another photo album by Smilebox

Weather Man

We had such a great time today visiting with Brian Smith from Channel 12 news. In Science we are studying the different types of weather. Mr. Smith had a very cool powerpoint presentation for us that showed us all kinds of weather! We learned that tornadoes and hurricanes are not the most dangerous types of weather! Flash flooding is. We also learned that the largest sized hail recorded was the size of a basketball!!!  We had a great time!  Check out our pictures. 

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Grandparents Night

We had such a wonderful time at Grandparents Night!  I enjoyed meeting all of the Nanas, Gigis, Grandmas, Papas, and Granddads.   Grandparents are such special people.  We had such a great turn out.  Thank you all for coming and supporting your grandchildren.   Check out our great slideshow from Grandparents Night!!