November Update

I cannot believe it is already mid-November!   Time certainly flies.

This month during Reader's Workshop readers are reading pattern books and learning that good readers have super powers. These special powers help readers when they are stuck on a word.  The first super power I introduced is called "owl eyes."  Readers use their owl eyes to look at pictures for clues.  Readers also use "Lips the Fish"  and get their mouth ready to say the first sound.  Next up will be Stretchy Snake.

During Writer's Workshop writers are writing their own pattern books.  Students are beginning to write simple sentences.  We started the unit by writing a class pattern book about the playground. We wrote the book together and the students worked in pairs to illustrate it.  Now they are all working on their own books.  

Mathematicians have continued to work on a variety of skills during math time. Our activities included comparing and describing objects of different lengths, creating an obstacle courses to practice positional words and sequencing numbers.  We also played Spin a Number to practice counting and one to one correspondence.  
The students have been introduced to the correct formation of all the digits 0-9. We will continue to practice as reversals are still common.  

We now have first grade reading buddies.  Students from Mrs. Warren's class come and read with us each Thursday afternoon for about 15-20 minutes.  The students take turns reading to each other in a pair or triad.

No Turkeys Here!

Thank you families for helping us to disguise all our turkeys!  I am confident the farmer will not be able to find them.  If you are at Rowe School be sure to take a walk down the hallway to see all the clever disguises.

Here is a preview.

We Are Bucket Fillers

Here is a short movie we made for Community Meeting.  Enjoy!

Week of October 26

Reading with Second Grade Buddies

As you know there was no power at Rowe School on Thursday.  The students did a great job on our adventure to Yarmouth Elementary School.  After our community meeting in the YES gym, we visited Mrs. Tate's second grade classroom.   Mrs. Tate did a read aloud.  Then kindergarteners and second graders paired up and read books together.  We also played a game called "Just Like Me." 


This week was our final week of Looking Closely.  One of our final activities was to cut open a pumpkin and draw and write about what we saw.  We also made replicas using string as the pulp and real pumpkin seeds.   We will be starting pattern books soon.

Solving Number Stories 

We did a variety of activities during math this week.  Students learned about number stories and strategies to solve them.  They sorted pattern blocks and created a graph to record how many of each block.  We practiced counting by tens.  We played a game called Roll and Record to practice counting and number writing and to explore probability.

We also did pumpkin math.  After cutting open the pumpkins we estimated how many seeds there were.  The children worked together to make groups of tens.  Once we sorted we were able to count by tens to find out how many there were.  There were 403 seeds!

During Reader's Workshop we continued to practice one to one correspondence while reading.  We learned a new sight word, and.   We also discussed characters.

A Pumpkin Art Project