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Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Wednesday Wonders!

Samantha, Jacob and Frank read to the class so far this week. It was wonderful to hear such fluent reading!!!!





We are finishing up our study of visualizing this week. We have learned that we use our senses to create a movie in our mind. We have also learned that by visualizing we can remember the details of the story.

We are working on organization in writing. We are learning different ways to make our stories clear. We have used graphic organizers to write a clear beginning, middle, and end. We have also learned that we can organize our stories using the ABC's!

In math we are working on problem solving, addition algorithms, estimating, and rounding. Ask your student what a roller coaster has to do with rounding. Ask them to draw you a picture to see if they can explain.

We will finish up visualizing this week and then will use the holidays to study traditions around the world, mapping, and more! It will be a busy last two weeks before break.

Hallway 3 sent home a note this week about parents coming in to share about different cultural traditions that families celebrate. Please consider visiting our classroom on Dec. 14 to share your families traditions and help us learn about different cultures.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Saturday, November 19, 2011

The Week Before Thanksgiving...

...and all through the school it was NOT quiet! The students worked very hard on learning about visualization, working on a readers' theater (The ABC's of Thanksgiving) to practice fluency, learning about organization, using patterns to solve problems, learning more about addition and subtraction strategies...just to name a few things we did. And don't forget...we even went to a play: A Christmas Carol at South Elgin High School. Phew....I bet they want a break!

I hope everyone finds time during the vacation week to read a book. READ everyday! I just finished one book today and I have a stack waiting for me to begin....not to mention my Kindle! So many books...so little time! I can't wait to hear what everyone read when we return.

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Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Monday and Tuesday

Ali was our child of the day on Monday and Branden on Tuesday. We are taking a break from videotaping as we work on fluency. In fact, students each have a part in the ABC's of Thanksgiving Readers' Theater as we work on reading with intonation.



Yesterday after specials, we worked on spelling strategies and then began our math workshop where we worked on problem solving.

Today we read about the 1st part of the Pilgrim's voyage and drew pictures to visualize what was happening. Then we worked on our readers' theater parts. After readers' workshop, we watched a video of the trip to build schema about the 1st Thanksgiving.

Our writing lesson today was "writers write with a clear beginning, middle, and end." We are earning about the writing trait of organization.

During math workshop we worked on problem solving again.

We also had a mystery reader: Ali's mother! Here are a few pictures!



Thursday, November 10, 2011

A Week in Review!

Enjoy!

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Monday, November 7, 2011

Monday Musings!

I'm trying to stay caught up as best I can, so here is today's real reader: Jake T.
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One of the reading strategies we continuously work on is reading with fluency.

From Reading Rockets:

Fluency is defined as the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. In order to understand what they read, children must be able to read fluently whether they are reading aloud or silently. When reading aloud, fluent readers read in phrases and add intonation appropriately. Their reading is smooth and has expression.

Children who do not read with fluency sound choppy and awkward. Those students may have difficulty with decoding skills or they may just need more practice with speed and smoothness in reading. Fluency is also important for motivation; children who find reading laborious tend not to want to read! As readers head into upper elementary grades, fluency becomes increasingly important. The volume of reading required in the upper elementary years escalates dramatically. Students whose reading is slow or labored will have trouble meeting the reading demands of their grade level.

What kids can do to help themselves:
Track the words with your finger as a parent or teacher reads a passage aloud. Then you read it. Have a parent or teacher read aloud to you. Then, match your voice to theirs. Read your favorite books and poems over and over again. Practice getting smoother and reading with expression.

What parents can do to help at home
Support and encourage your child. Realize that he or she is likely frustrated by reading. Check with your child's teachers to find out their assessment of your child's word decoding skills. If your child can decode words well, help him or her build speed and accuracy by: Reading aloud and having your child match his voice to yours. Having your child practice reading the same list of words, phrase, or short passages several times; Remind your child to pause between sentences and phrases;
Read aloud to your child to provide an example of how fluent reading sounds.
Give your child books with predictable vocabulary and clear rhythmic patterns so the child can "hear" the sound of fluent reading as he or she reads the book aloud.
Use books on tapes; have the child follow along in the print copy.

Click on the link to the right (Reading Rockets.org) for more ideas to help your child learn to read.

Today during our integration time with Mrs. Maha's class we learned about how the pictures in a book can help with comprehension. We also added to our vocabulary words: humble, radiate, overlook, prevail, confident, as we read The Strong One. IN math we took a pretest for unit 4. This will help me differentiate my instruction for the next unit.

Real Readers

I'm behind on my posts!!! Here are the readers from last week:

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We had a visit from the fire department last week to review fire safety. Here are a few pictures:






We continued to work on visualizing in reading and adding details to create a movie in the mind of the reader. We finished unit 3 in math and will be starting Unit 4 (addition and subtraction) this week.

Tuesday we will have an assembly about the Wright Brothers. We will also preview the book fair and on Wednesday we will be able to make purchases. A note went home today in the WOW binder.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Haunted Happenings at Liberty!

We participated in another online project: Pumpkin Math. We estimated, counted, and measured pumpkins. The largest amount was 505 seeds...most had over 400! On Tuesday, we analyzed the data.

Of course...in the afternoon we had our Fall Party. Enjoy a few pictures:

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