Ask Me About Friday, September 8, 2017

We started our day with a fire drill today!  The kids did a great job as we talked and walked through our first fire drill.  We will remember to keep moving, quiet mouths, and watching to see where to walk.  We have a very friendly fire alarm, so everyone seemed very comfortable with the drill!
We read a story by Todd Parr called It's Okay to Make Mistakes.  This is really important in learning in all content areas, but especially in writing.  A few children were concerned that what they wrote on Thursday wasn't "right" and it stopped them from writing more.  This is very common, so throughout the year we will revisit the importance of making mistakes when you are learning.  After all, if you never make a mistake, you are probably not trying to do new and harder things.
Today we started a morning routine that we will do every day called Talk Time.  The students will study a photograph, painting, or video and notice and note things about it.  We talked about analyzing, which is one of our Thinking and Academic skills so we looked at different things in the painting that could give us clues about what the painting was all about.  The students then turn and talk to a partner or two about what they noticed and what they think.  Then, we share out ideas all together.  Ask me to tell you about this painting!  

We started Writing Workshop today.  Today we talked about the format of our workshop.  We have  a short mini-lesson, often associated with a book that we use to inspire and show the students how to write.  Most days I will model how to do whatever it is we are talking about as writers.  The children then conference with a partner before going to their seats to write and draw on their own.  Usually we will have a sharing time after where we look at the work a few of our writers did that day.  Next week we will be learning about tools we will use to help us in our writing.
In math, we read an Arabic counting folktale called How Many Donkeys, by Margaret Read MacDonald and Nadia Jameel Taibah.  Ask me to tell you about why Jouha kept thinking his donkeys were getting lost!  We also played with some of the manipulatives we will be using in our Math Workshop.  

This week we really focused on learning routines and expectations.  Overall, the children did a really great job.  Today, we have a few bumps in the road but that is to be expected!  We took time to really get to know each other as well!  I'm so excited to work with these children, and am looking forward to talking to you at Back to School Night on Tuesday.

Have a great weekend!  
Miss Wolfe