Author's Chair

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone is enjoying spending time with their families and taking time to give thanks for our many blessings in life.

This past week, our class has been busy becoming authors. We have been writing stories about what we like to do. The students started with a word web to organize their thoughts and then put their ideas into sentences. When the students were finished writing the sentences, they checked for capitals and punctuation, and then made sure all the word wall words were spelled correctly. I then asked them to pick two words for me to help them spell that were not on the word wall. When students were finished editing and conferencing with me, they turned in their papers to be published. We have a 5th grade student that is the publisher. Kelsey types up the story and we bind it together. The book is then returned to the student to illustrate it. When this entire process is completed, the student get to do author's chair to share their published story. There are a few more stories that are being illustrated and many more that are being published. This does take time. I do ask the students to be patient because an author and publisher do not publish a story overnight. It is a process that takes time.

In this video, Kenzie shares her story--What I Like--during author's chair. Please continue to check the blog because other students are in the publishing process. I do not require students to publish. This is a choice in my room. Everyone writes during writing time, but not every child will get through this process. Every student works at writing at where they are at developmentally. I will conference with each student and encourage them to work towards a published story. If you do not see your students story on the blog please encourage them to publish.

4 In-a-Row

The month of November is going by fast. Next week is a short week and the students get out for the Thanksgiving holiday at 12:00 on Tuesday. I can't believe we are so close to holiday season!

We will be very busy over the next month learning many math games to help us with our addition and subtraction facts, writing stories and publishing them as authors, and learning many Christmas songs and poems. I plan on videoing the students playing math games, reading their stories to the class and performing the Christmas songs and poems. Continue to check out our blog so that you can keep up with all the learning and fun activities going on in our room!

In math, our class has moved on to subtraction. The students are learning about comparing numbers to find the difference and about words that tell us to subtract (ie. how many many more than, how many are left, how many are not). Students are learning that subtracting is the opposite of addition--start with the whole and take away part and the other part is left.

In the video, Diago and Kenzie play 4 In-a-Row. Watch out Kenzie! Diago knows how to block!

Last week went by quickly. Thank you for taking the time to come in and meet with me. I enjoyed getting to talk to my students' parents. I know that you are all enjoying getting to see video of your children on our classroom blog. I want to thank PTA for purchasing the flip video camera to make watching your children in learning activities possible.

I encourage anyone that is reading the blog to make comments on what the students are learning, even if it is a "I really like..." We try to view the blog in the classroom every few weeks and it is exciting for the students to get to see if anyone is commenting. Also, please, please "follow this blog." This allows me and my students to see who is watching us. The more there are the more excited we get!

We have been busy learning about pilgrim boys and girls for Thanksgiving. We have been comparing and contrasting how two pilgrim children, Samuel and Sara Eaton live compared to the way the students in our class live today. We have been listing similarities and differences for clothing, housing, chores, and food and putting the ideas into a Venn Diagram. We are finding that there are many differences. However, as strangely as it may seem, there are some similarities!

This Friday, we will be making an art project that uses a soup can. Please send a soup can (or two) to school that has been emptied, washed and cleaned by Friday.

I hope everyone has a great week and don't forget the PTA meeting this Tuesday at 7:00pm!

Last week was quite a busy week for our class. We were busy learning about spiders and trying to do a few fun activities for Halloween. On Friday we read the story The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. The students made scarecrows and then performed a little readers' theater. The students recite the repetitive part of the story:

One pair of shoes go CLOMP, CLOMP!
One pair of pants go WIGGLE, WIGGLE!
One shirt goes SHAKE, SHAKE!
Two gloves go CLAP, CLAP!
One hat goes NOD, NOD!
And one scary pumpkin head goes BOO, BOO!

And scares all the crows away!

We also had a mystery reader. Kenzie's grandpa, Tom, surprised our class on Friday afternoon. I gave the class clues about our mystery reader, but no one could figure out who he might be. He read Bony Legs. The students loved listening to him read and thought it was quite a treat. If you or someone you know would like to be a mystery reader in our classroom and surprise your child, please email me. We have many openings available now until Christmas. The time I have set aside is on Fridays at 12:45-1:15.