I would like to officially welcome the students back. I hope that everyone had a restful break and are excited to be back in familiar territory. We will continue to put learning at the forefront as we begin 2011. Our return back to school brought back familiar routines and procedures. On Wednesday, we took some much needed time to discuss good listening. We had an in depth discussion about what good listening looks like and what it does not look like. We also talked about the fact that there are consequences when we choose to not follow the classroom rules. These consequences will serve as a tool to help students learn from their mistakes and, hopefully, make better choices in the future.
After this discussion, we were ready for learning to begin. Students are up and running in all academic areas. During Guided Reading, students learned about the importance of being a voracious reader and understood that it is important that they take every opportunity they have to read. We read the books Library Lion and Wild About Books. These books helped us to understand how important it is to choose various books that fit our purpose as readers. We also took some time to organize our library because we came to understand that if we are unable to access books easily, it will make it much harder for us to become voracious readers.
During Shared Reading, we introduced new vocabulary for the story Mr. Putter and Tabby Fly the Plane. We also built our background knowledge about toys in the past and made some comparisons with the toys that we play with today. We found out that sock monkeys were actually a toy that was played with in the past, and they have made a triumphant return for children to play with and enjoy today.
We are continuing to focus on nutrition in Science. We learned about foods that are not found in the 5 food groups. We referred to these foods as "Others". Students were made aware of the fact that eating too much of these types of foods will not enable them to grow up strong and healthy. However, it is o.k. to eat these types of foods every once and awhile. We discussed the meaning of the word snack and we identified healthy snacks (i.e." Smart Snacks") and those that were unhealthy (i.e "Others"). Some students thought that sugary snacks were healthy. We quickly cleared up this misconception.
In Math, we have begun Unit 6 and have delved back into Guided Math. We also took our first math benchmark which assessed the students' knowledge of math facts. Overall, students did very well. Next week, they will be assessed over their knowledge of mathematical skills. Students are always encouraged to do their personal best. I would like to encourage all students to make sure that they complete all math assignments in a timely manner. It is a new year and some students need to make improvements in this area.
We are continuing with Slice of Life in writing and are discussing different types of leads. We are using well known authors like E.B. White, Eve Bunting and Cynthia Rylant to help us to understand how experts create exciting leads. Our goal is to mimic their ideas when creating our own leads. Next week we will move full steam ahead with paragraph writing. I will be modeling the important parts of a paragraph, and students will be required to use this information to write each component of their own paragraph. The use of conferences will help to ensure that each child is on the right track as they attempt each stage of their writing.
Finally, with a new year upon us, we have had great discussions about what the meaning of a resolution is. Our goal is that every student be able to appropriately focus during learning time in order to achieve their personal goals. We have begun something new in 2F...Brain Breaks! This is an active time where students are allowed to move around and release excess energy before learning takes place. This is used in the afternoon before Writer's Workshop. I have already seen benefits and am hoping that they will continue. Here is to a new year and to all of the new and exciting opportunities it will bring!
