RFP! RFP!

I just saw, online, that three outstanding RF Pettigrew teachers were nominated by awesome families to be featured in Hood Magazine.

So cool! Go to this link to check it out :)
http://www.thehoodmagazine.com/2016/01/27/100499/teacher-of-the-year-other-outstanding-nominees

Happy Monday!

We will be sharing our published books with 1st graders tomorrow! You should have seen all of our friends rereading their books, making sure they are prepared :) 

Happy birthday to Skyler!! 

Thanks for donating a book for girls and for boys! 

Newsbooks is still a work in progress.....I do think our listening skills are improving! (and our storytelling skills)

We played True or False today with some math sentences. 

Happy Tuesday!

Here are some friends playing a quick and easy game called, Up the Ladder-Down the Ladder. You can play with words, letters, math facts or numbers! You read up the ladder and back down as fast as you can! 

Today we continued our revising during writing workshop. It is SO MUCH FUN! Lexie realized that she could not read all of her words, so you can tell by looking at her checklist, that she went back and worked on that until she could! 

Here is a great example of a revised paper! 

Wombats!

We've been reading these books for our read-aloud. These little furry creatures are SO cute and fun! The kids love these stories. There is a link below, if you'd like to see a National Geographic scientist show you a real wombat!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmW7y_Q3KLg

Happy Monday!

Look at us revising! Revising means that you are going to fancy up one of your favorite stories to get it ready for publishing. I've never done this much publishing before, but I'm really excited about it. I think it's a good chance to realize that writers DO go back and reread, they DO make their stories better, they DO care about making sure there isn't more to add or pictures they can add more details to. Kindergarten kids are often in a hurry to write and you might find unfinished books.

It also helps speed up those kids who takes DAYYYSsssss to write ONE story. If they have an end goal in sight (publishing!!!) they get their nose to the grindstone and are more motivated!
Just look how we used a sticky note to mark the story we'll work on this week.

We got a blue revision pen (lots of ooohs and ahhhs) to add words. We also can add details to our pictures. 

Happy End to the Week

Yesterday, some most FABULOUS 2nd graders came to gather data for their work on graphing on line plots! They asked us to write down how many teeth we have lost so far. I got to see two of the most wonderful students....Brody and Nora....I was so lucky to have had them in my class!!!! 

Look at them reading from their scripts! So cute! 

Playing a really great math game for learning the combinations of numbers. Some kiddos knew the facts while others had to count or use their fingers. It's called Snap It. You take a group of 5 or 10 cubes and put them behind your back. Break some off and show it. Ask, "how many do you see?" Then ask, "how many are hiding?"

Yay and congrats to our new er/ir/ur chunk expert! Good job Ariana! 

A big congrats to Braylee as well for beautifully counting from numbers other than 1 (through 112). WOW! 

Happy Wednesday :)

So this morning we were busy, busy, busy, making our MLK art project and we got a little inspiration for Martin's dress shirt from Keira's shirt! We gave him a bow tie instead of a traditional tie :) They are so cute!!! 

I happened to see how the kids, by themselves, had put away the glue. Of course we had a cheer for this kind of responsibility. It's so nice to see them do things like this, for no reason. Not because they're told or asked to. Do you see that at home?

We finally got Jace up on the How Did You Do It wall for math strategies! Way to go! This is a hard one...and I learned through SD Counts, that counting on (even though many 1st grade teachers will try to force it), is NOT necessarily developmentally appropriate for kiddos until the end of 1st and into 2nd grade. Your child MUST have had a lot of counting experience with concrete objects/a really well developed number sense and the ability to work/think flexibly with numbers before attempting this strategy.
EX: I have MANY kiddos who still count from 1 to do a lot of math activities

Happy Tuesday!

Look at Will read our survey today. There are so many skills we work on with survey. He is pointing to the words, making sure it matches, working on beg/mid/end sounds, and the list goes on! 

Just look at how our morning sentence has grown! We added a bold word today! Carson thought it would sound best if we made the word 'super' bold today.

We made reading mats to help us plan out which books to read and to help us stay organized!!! 

Happy Monday!

We read, I Like Myself and talked more about MLK! We listened to a beautiful song called My Two Hands and started talking about how we can use our own two hands to make the world a better place.

Organizing (and re-organizing) our 100's chart! 

Playing Build It during math. You can never really have your child counting with objects too much, before they move to symbols on paper. 

We talked about what a comma means and how you read with good expression when you see one! 

We took a look at 3 guided reading books and discussed what makes them easy, medium/hard or hard!!!! This was a great conversation! 

Happy Friday!!!

Today our new learning/vocab word was speech. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a famous speech. I bet your child knows some of it!
It's important to realize that expanding your child's vocabulary is probably, dare I say it, one of the most important things you and I can do for our kiddos. Kids who don't speak much are usually kiddos who struggle and they usually continue to struggle. It's THAT important. My high fliers are kids who talk non-stop. Literally. So when you need a moment of peace and quiet at home, remember to be thankful that your child has a large vocabulary. It will help them so much with reading harder texts....they will have a MUCH easier time understanding stories and retelling them, b/c they have the words.

You probably didn't realize that just by talking to your kids...explaining things, answering questions and using big words in front of them...you're setting them up for success!!!! 

This group of writers is organized! A big part of our time is spent just learning how to learn. You won't be able to get a lot of writing done, unless your space is organized and your tools are ready! 

We have a TON of new chunk experts this week. Carter is the new 'ar' boy.

We are starting to expect our kiddos to use punctuation when writing. Just so you know, you should encourage your child to read the story OUT LOUD so he or she can hear where the stop should go.
It's normal for kids to start putting them after every word, or at the bottom of the page (only) when they first begin. 

Brayden is the 'sl' boy! 

Malachy is the 'fl' boy! 

Here are those learning words!

Yay! More counters! We have SEVEN kiddos left to earn a star :)