What We're
Learning
Reading
At the beginning of the semester
I focused very heavily on developing the children's word recognition
strategies. The children discovered that when readers decode words,
they use multiple strategies as opposed to using just one. The children
also learned that whatever strategy they use, it's always in the
context of meaning or what makes sense. If you find that your child
consistently uses one strategy, encourage him/her
to use
others.
Research has
shown
that
those children
who
use a variety of strategies are more successful at decoding.
Our Toolbox for Reading
We sound out the words.
We look closely at the words around it.
We can ask a friend.
We can look at the pictures.
We ask ourselves "Does that make sense?"
We can skip the word, read to the end, and come back to
the
word.
We can break words into smaller parts.
We think about what the story is about.
The children have also been working on their comprehension
of text. Reminding the children to create a mental image, to
use their schema (background knowledge), to make connections
and
to think
about
the "big ideas"
in stories has helped to build their understanding. Next semester
we will be working on the comprehension strategy of inferring.
Inferring during reading helps the reader to "dig deeper" into
text.
Writing
Writing very focused vignettes or "small moments"
from the children's lives is our current unit of study in Writer's
Workshop. The goal is to teach the children to retell a sequence
of events with precise
detail and to write it in such a way that a reader can follow those
events. The lessons included in this unit were: focusing
our topics; adding dialogue; showing not telling as a writer; using
interesting
punctuation
marks, colorful words and descriptive language; and making sure their
writing makes sense.
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Math
Our
current unit of study focuses on developing the children's sense
for numbers and building an understanding of operations. The children
will learn about numbers in lots of ways: they'll play games and
solve problems; use numbers to describe dot patterns; count sets
of objects; read, write and sequence numbers to 100; find the total
of two or more numbers; and compare numbers to find which is larger.
The children's growing sense for numbers will help them to develop
strategies for solving problems.
Social
Studies
After
the holidays we'll begin our next unit of study, The Family. Over
the next two months, the children will have 3 family projects to
complete: a family tree, a family keepsake, and interviewing a kupuna.
More detailed information is forthcoming.
Mark your calendars! The First Grade Family Picnic is on February
1, 2008 at Kalama Dining Hall. The children will be making kites
and playing games. Keep that day open. All parents, siblings, and
grandparents are invited.
