We had a very productive first week. Student portraits are up in the classroom and look for a wall of mystery outside the classroom: Try to see if you can discover which student is which!
In this first week, I'm introducing students to routines and expectations, but also classroom resources.
In math, students have been learning to show numbers on ten frames and hundreds charts by rolling 6 sided and 10 sided dice. They are using counters and other materials to help them make numbers concrete. Students have also been learning to "add on" or "count down" to get to their number rather than starting from zero each time, which gives them a number sensibility that helps when they are eventually working on addition and subtraction. We've been playing Chutes and Ladders (also known as Snakes and Ladders), to help practice these skills as well.
In language, I'm working to determine every student's reading level with levelled books and introducing letter concepts with a variety of alphabet books. Students are helping me read and get a sense of the alpha order by using letters to organize themselves around the carpet, which was surprisingly difficult for even my higher readers.
We also practiced stamping, writing on white boards, writing on chalk boards and writing in journals this week. I have a variety of different letter games, which students used to help complete rhymes as you can see in the pictures below. We're trying to build pattern recognition and chunking, as well as just practicing the letter sounds.
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| Trying to find as many real words as possible |
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| Working on distinguishing consonants and vowels |
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I'm looking forward to building on these concepts as we slide into week two.
Sincerely,
Ms. Goegan
