Read Aloud

Today students assembled their Literacy Binders.  Literacy Binders will stay in the classroom; however, students are allowed to take home their notebooks, if they want.  Each Literacy Binder contains a reader's notebook, writer's notebook, and Word Study lessons.  Ask your child tonight how we treat our Literacy Binders. (Answer: We treat them like gold because they contain so much thinking and learning.)

In Readers' Workshop, we created and practiced (a lot!) our Readers' Workshop norms.  Tomorrow we will start learning specific comprehension strategies to help us build our reading stamina.

In Writers' Workshop, students used everything they know about effective writing to write a personal narrative.  This is the first writing sample I will collect from students, and will be used as a gauge for growth and next instructional steps.  Very importantly, this will not be graded; it is simply to show me what students know and may not know yet, so I can support their growth in writing this year.

In Read Aloud, students learned to pay close attention to illustrations to help them learn and grow ideas about characters.  Often I will use picture books to model and teach specific elements of writers' craft or comprehension strategies.  It is important for students to understand that writers are very purposeful in the words and illustrations they include (or don't include) in their books.  Furthermore, it is our job as readers to closely read these texts and infer ideas about characters, plot, theme, etc. in order to critically think about texts.

In Word Study, we used the Frayer Model to help us define the word "accept", and think about this word in real terms.  We use the Frayer Model to help us make meaning of unknown or unfamiliar words and expand our vocabulary. I will post some examples tomorrow!

In Math Workshop, students took a pretest on Unit 1: Routines, Review, and Assessment. Tomorrow we will begin digging in to math concepts.

In Social Studies, students defined and explained why rules were important through writing and productive dialogue.  Ask your child to tell you a "talk move" that we use in the classroom.

Homework:

• Read 20 minutes.

Reminders:

• Student Information Cards due Friday, August 29.
• Parent Survey due Friday, August 29.
• If you missed Open House night, please check your child's Beaver Folder for important information about this year.

Classroom Supplies:

• Please aim to have all back to school supplies by this Friday.

Thank you,

Ms. Smith