MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Today we read a book by another favorite author mine...Mo Willems!!! These books are GREAT for beginning readers (a lot of snap words). Sheep the Sheep had a chunk in her name---sh. 

We also hang up this picture to remind us of the 'sh' chunk when we're reading and writing.

Look at Cade's story! He was writing about the Christmas party :) Way to add more details and smaller pictures Cade.

Happy Thursday!!!

What another great day we've had! We're chugging along....still very much practicing routines and procedures. I am spending a lot of time watching them work, learning more about what they can do and what's hard for them! I can't wait to return from break to really dig in! 

Here's a story by Lauren today. It starts with the sentence starter, I love. Now you must realize that other classes are already moving past easy sentences like this and adding details. I want you to have an understanding of how behind we are. Not trying to panic you! But we have a lot of catching up to do. Right now I'm looking for....

*Sentences that go from left to right

*Snap words like I like, I love, I can, We can, etc.
*Spaces between words

*Small pictures/illustrations
*More details from a few of our writers (they know who they are)

So Lauren's story made me think of how I always write the word love on the whiteboard once I see it appear in a story! Then we use it as a word wall all year long! 

We even looked at stories from previous years to give us an idea of how a 'real story' looks. 

Aker got the picture! Look at her story! She filled up an entire page about things she's good at doing!
When we share....we ask our friends, Does anybody have a question for me? Then the kids have to ask questions. This is another thing we're working on that they don't quite understand yet. You can work on that at home too! Sentences that start with, I like--are NOT questions :) 

HaPpY 1/2 BiRtHdAy to Jaymeson!!! Thanks to his mom for coming to celebrate, reading us an awesome and sweet story and bringing us treats! 

Happy Wednesday!

Oh goodness. Battery is currently charging. I'm so bummed too! We had a really great day! Here's some stuff we were doing.....
*Writing: Working on writing sentences. We have kiddos with very different abilities. As I'm getting to know them, I am seeing some that can write a lot and add more details to their stories (and work on capitalization, spaces between words and adding more details). I also see some who write backwards, aren't going from left to right and are drawing huge pictures. So for them, we're working on WORDS FIRST, writing with sentence starters like, I can  and I like. I have shown them stories that have huge, sloppy pictures and we just recycle them now :) It's a big process! We're ready for the challenge!

*Daily 5: We are trying SO hard to get to 15 minutes of stamina! We learned today that kindergarten readers should not read silently. You should practice reading the words and pictures aloud, but with an inside, talking voice. I noticed some kiddos weren't even reading! Of course, this broke stamina.

I hope all of you had a great day too!
Mrs. C and kids

Happy Wednesday!!!

Happy Wednesday to you :) We've had a great day so far! Today we FINALLY really got down to some writing. We now know that we do WORDS FIRST. No more drawing pictures. That's not what authors do. Here is Cade's writing that he shared with the class today. It says, I can ride my bike. A friend noticed that he remembered a space between ride and my. We have to remember spaces between every word for first grade :) 

Here is a risky word that Beau wrote. Risky words are not snap words. They are words we either segment the sounds in or say slowly and write down the sounds we hear. Can you figure out what his says? The class agreed that it looked right. 

When you're reading at home and come across a hard word....start asking these questions....

Does it look right?
Does it sound right?
Does it make sense? 

Here is Taylor answering our survey question. Today my goal was for them to look for chunks you know. Chunks are SUPER important! Look for them at home :) I'll put a picture of the poster on here sometime. Beau is our first chunk expert because when he was reading, he knew that --ing says ing like in king. 

A very fun and famous celebrity came to visit today! Shawn Cable! He read us a book about snow! He was a very nice man and we had such a great time with him. He said we might be on the news...either tonight or tomorrow morning after 6:30am. So set your DVRs :) 

We also celebrated the birthday of a special little boy :) Thank you for coming and for donating such a wonderful book to our classroom library!