Oct. 3

Well the weather this week is definitely screaming, "It is October!"
This past month we spent much time establishing our classroom routines and expectations. We are in full swing with our Reader's Workshop. Kids are reading, sharing, answering questioning and making connections daily. We have started Writer'sWorkshop, and will continue to work on the daily routines of writing.

We had over $300 in book orders! WOW! That means that we will get a TON of free books for the room. It is so exciting when the books come. They should be in some time this week.

Yes, more information about Spelling!
But after this, there probably won't be as many posts about it, so I wanted to make a few points.
 I selected a list of words that the students might be spelling over the next month.
We went through list of words together: they tried to spell the word, I then put the correct spelling on the smart board.
If they spelled the word wrong, they circled it and it was then put onto their spelling list for the week. We tried to make sure everyone had words that they really needed to learn.
Every student has a highlighted list at school which stays in their Writing Folder. AND... Everyone wrote their words in their planner under the section Spelling Words for this week.
There is a test on spelling every Friday, unless we have a really short week or no school. In cases like Thanksgiving break for example, we will have words for two weeks. We will continue to move to having the students put words that they are misspelling in their writing onto the lists.

A few important dates:
NO early release Oct. 14 
End of the 9 weeks...Oct. 21
Our Fall Fun Day is Monday, Oct. 31st!

One other note...The other day I was asked,  
Why would I teach my students 3 Ways to Read a Book when so many of them are reading chapter books?

I really thought about this and actually found this online, which I believe, gives a great answer.

"Most of us have a wide spectrum of readers in our rooms. Intermediate teachers will tell you that the gap doesn't get smaller, but only increases in the later grades. By modeling three different ways to read, we meet the needs of our emergent readers by providing them with a way to successfully read a book. Validating these forms of reading helps create a climate where our students can honor and support each other. This culture is critical if our older emergent readers are going to honor where they are so they can grow and develop, instead of waste countless hours pretending to read books that help them save face, but fail to create real progress.

Three ways to read comes in handy for all students. Modeling reading the pictures provides them with a useful tool for reading non-fiction, (e.g., textbooks, charts, graphs). By modeling retelling, we are providing an approach to comprehending text used by many proficient readers. Because of these reasons, we find Three Ways to Read a Book to be a valuable lesson which benefits all students grades K -6."

Source: The Daily Café