The Daily 5

We are really getting right into grade one learning! Soon you will begin to hear about a program called  Daily 5. It is a Language Arts program designed for the students strengthen their reading, writing and spelling skills.  There are 5 components: read to self, read to someone, word, work, work on writing and listen to reading.  During Daily 5 the students are encouraged to gain independence at reading and writing while the teacher works with small groups or individuals. I have been using this program for a number of years now, as have many other teachers in the school. It is very successful and helps the children in grade one see themselves as readers and writers.  The first part of the program is all about doing things independently and practicing the "right way" so that the student use their time to grow academically and so that they give their classmates equal opportunity to accomplish great things in reading and writing.  

Today we started the first of the five choices: Read to Self.  We had already talked about 3 ways to read a book, how to pick good fit books, and where to sit. Today we talked about the WHY. Do we need to read to ourselves.  And then...,, we tried it out!!! It was awesome to see them in action!!! 

Stay tuned for the next choice! 

Scissors glue and a lot of fun too!

We listened to a story called Curious George goes to School by H.A. Rey.  The main character George is very curious and that curiosity causes trouble and he makes a mess wherever he goes. We found out though that even though he makes mistakes at the end of his stories he always saves the day. After reading we discussed the beginning middle and end of the story and how there is a pattern to his adventures. We retold the story using pictures for the three main parts of the story. We have been busy learning and/or shining up our scissor skills, so we all tried very hard to do our best on the follow up activity. We carefully cut on the lines, learned to use a glue stick very carefully and coloured to make the pictures just like in the book. We were very proud of our grade one work!

We made our mark!

All we had to do was try!  And look what we accomplished!!  Our Dots!

Librarians at work

We visited the school library today. We got to meet Mrs Wood and hear about her family. She read us a story and we learned how to check out a book.  This year we get to take out good fit books from any where in the whole library! After library we returned to our classroom and became class librarians.  We sorted and categorized the class library books. We worked together to decide where the books should go and how they should be labelled. Then we spent time choosing a few we were interested in and we got to read them.  

Dot day!

September 15 is international dot day.  It was inspired by the Peter Renolds story The Dot.  This story is about a little girl who thinks she "can't" but with the help of an encouraging teacher learns that if she tries she can be proud of what she can do ..."you gotta make your mark...all you gotta do it try!"  That's our motto in room 14. 

Our First Assembly

We gathered in the gym this morning to meet and greet some new teachers and some new friends. We sang our school song and we reviewed the most important rule at Stevenson school : RESPECT!

It is going to be a great year! 

Our first day was a huge success!

We had a wonderful first day in room 14. We decided together that we wanted our year together to be excellent and so we came up with a class promise that will make this year be the best it can be! We had a lot if fun. We played a bit, danced a bit and  a sang a bit too. We read stories,  coloured, counted, marked patterned learned reading strategies and we all were proud. We had a sharing circle at the end of the day where we shared what we were proud of today. What an amazing beginning to our journey....