Week of September 20, 2010

Welcome to the class blog! I hope you enjoy viewing the blog each week. Unfortunately, I am not posting pictures this week because the class camera was being used by the school on Friday afternoon. Not to worry, I will make up for it next week.

We learned the following this week:

• Math: we created a number poster for the numbers 1-5. As we created the posters, we practiced counting using one-to-one correspondence, grouping items, and recognizing number words.
• Reading/Writing: we finished learning about our classmates by conducting interviews and recording the students' responses. We have been conducting one interview each day since the second day of school and learn things such as the student's age, favorite color, favorite food, and number of siblings or pets. Through this activity the students learn concepts of written print (top-to-bottom and left-to-right directionality). They also learn the concepts of print as it relates to reading (left-to-right directionality, a return sweep, and starting at the top of the page) because I read each written interview once it is complete.
• Science: we learned about the start of Autumn by reading, "A Tree for All Seasons," which is a non-fiction story about the seasonal cycle of a maple tree. The book has real, high-quality photographs that show the different characteristics the tree has in each season.
• Handwriting: the students practiced writing the letters E, D, and P. First, we practiced with Wet-Dry-Try (using a wet sponge on the little slate, drying it with a larger sponge, and tracing the outline of the letter with a small piece of chalk). The following day we practice the letter in our workbooks. We learn one letter over a two-day period. Also, for the first half of the year we learn only the capital formation patterns for the letters as these are developmentally easier for the children to form because they follow the four basic shapes of big line, little line, big curve, and little curve.
• Phonics/Word Study: we practiced letter recognition skills by looking at the different features of a variety of letters during our class meeting, handwriting, and phonics lessons.

Also, I started assessing the students this week using the Observation Survey, which is designed by Marie Clay. This assessment tool has five components, which look at letter identification knowledge, writing vocabulary, letter sound recognition in spoken words, concepts of print (reading), and sight word recognition. All of this assessment data will be reviewed with you at the parent-teacher conferences in the beginning of November.