Five for Friday... A Day Late!

Well, I'm finally back with a post! I'm going to try to start posting more than once a month! :) Last week grades for first quarter were due, and that basically consumed my life... So now that that's over, there's a bit more time to take pictures, blog, and breathe.

I'm linking up with Five for Friday (a day late!) to share with you what we did this week!

1. We've been working hard in guided reading! We use the second half of our reader's notebooks to write about our reading during guided reading. With my below level students, we spend a LOT of time doing guided writing, where we work together to write a sentence or two about our text each time we meet. While I help model the writing, the students are sounding out and writing in their own notebooks. (Note: I have gotten VERY good at writing upside down!) I've also made little on-the-fly word family flip books with my students (within their notebooks), previewing a word they'll see a lot in the text. It's good reinforcement of a sight word, understanding how to use a chunk we know to figure out new words, and this is a quick tactile way for students to practice making words.

2. We've started learning about Pilgrims and Native Americans in social studies. I started the unit by providing students with photographs (from the Scholastic First Thanksgiving website) of a Pilgrim homesite and Wampanoag village (through their Virtual Field Trip resources) and artifacts from the Lakeshore Native American Resource Box. Students worked in groups to record their observations and inferences about what they saw. They didn't know we were going to be learning about Pilgrims and Native Americans before we did this, so I also had them guess what we'd be studying based on the photos and artifacts.

3. In reading, we focused a LOT on using schema when reading nonfiction books. I know a lot of people use a T-chart (What I Know/What I Learned) to track prior knowledge and new learning, but I really like using a web. It gives the opportunity for students to more easily notate corrected misconceptions (see the "have gills" part of the web in the upper right corner) and to add to schema by branching off of a part of the web (like the "have a blowhole on their back" portion on the left).

4. We are adding to our CRAFT menu with our new reading strategies! I used Ladybug's Teacher Files' CRAFT board as a modified version of the CAFE menu. I also reworded some of the strategies we've added to be more first grade friendly. (I wish my bulletin board was a bit wider... Those are too close together for my liking!)

5. I am FINALLY feeling better after a rough week with little to no voice. How cute is this letter from one of my sweeties?!

Have a great weekend!