Sterling's Snippets: Stamina Galore!

Has your child come home from school talking about Stamina or Daily 5? Well if they haven't, ask them about how amazing our class is doing! Each year I introduce Daily 5, a teaching model that allows me to work with students in small groups or even one on one while the other students work independently and quietly. We use the Daily 5 model for both reading and math in our classroom. When you think of 1st graders, you probably don't think of independent or quiet, but if you could observe our class during Daily 5, you would be amazed! Students have learned that during Daily 5 they read, listen to reading, write or complete purposeful phonics activities the "whole time." They are quiet, still, hard working and very independent. Each year I begin building stamina with my students, one minute at a time. Our class has already built 15 minutes of stamina, and they know that when we reach 20 minutes, the fun will really begin as I will introduce our classroom iPads, computers and some hands on activities. For now the excitement is enough to keep us energized!

Anchor Chart from Mr. Carlson's Lesson

A few assessments took place this week. On Thursday, students completed AIMSweb assessments with the Fargo Public Schools assessment team. This assessment provides classroom teachers with information about students letter knowledge, phonemic awareness and decoding strategies. I will use the assessments to better help me instruct students. Students also were assessed on the kindergarten sight words that they learned last year. A copy of their assessment was sent home to practice only if they did not know 100% of the words. Please work with your child on these words at home. Some fun ideas to try would be making the words with play-dough, clay, beads, shaving cream, or other household objects. Try to make the practice fun and engaging for your child and limit practice to 10 minute per night.

A Peek at Our Week

Reading: This week in reading we continued to work with Stellaluna. Students have been practicing identifying story elements (characters, setting and events) as well as exploring complex vocabulary. We also spent time exploring Dragons and Giants, an excerpt from Frog and Toad's Adventures. Students worked collaboratively with their table pods to respond to questions in their Reader's Notebooks. They used tables and charts to organize their thoughts and ideas as well as practiced appropriate speaking and listening strategies while working in groups. In phonics we reviewed the consonants c, p and t as well as the short vowel a.

We studied illustrations to describe the Bird's Nest.

Writing: In writer's workshop students learned that illustrations play an important role in a story. These illustrations help provide details to the reader. Students are also working hard to stretch words to spell them. Revisions will come later in writing. Right now, the story is the most important piece to student writing. We had our first author share her story on Friday! After your child shares his or her story, I will send it home so you can enjoy their piece!

Math: This week in math students were able to put their tool kits to work. They used their pennies, dice, number lines, hundreds charts and numeral cards for several activities. Additionally, students learned three new math games: Bunny Hop, Top It, and Roll and Color.