Week 6

This week was great!  The kids were a little crazy because we got a new desk arrangement, along with the first snowfall of the season.   We worked through it, though.  Here are highlights of the week:

Special Guests: This week we had wonderful parent volunteers, as usual.  We had wonderful parent help with the Speedy Word sight word timings.  This helps students instantly recall the most common words in our language so they can comprehend what they read better.  We also had an art lesson from a parent volunteer.  In the art lesson, students made fall trees with colorful leaves, and they turned out great!

Funny Stuff From Kids: I may have said this before, but it just cracks me up that the only use our classroom jump ropes get at recess is to be used as reins while playing horses.  I think it’s awesome, but it is does crack me up that not a single kid has jumped rope.  They always use the jump ropes to play horses. 

To celebrate our Smart Board working, we had a party with treats and a few short videos on the Smart Board.  One of the videos I was going to watch was an episode of Arthur, which is a kids cartoon show based on books.  When I began to turn it on, I heard some complaining, and one student said, “But Arthur is a kid’s show!”  I said jokingly, “Well, what do you think you are, aliens?”  After that, everyone laughed and decided it was okay to watch Arthur.

This next one was my fault for asking a bad question, but it still cracked me up inside.  We were discussing the symbolism of our flag.  While trying to figure out what students already knew, I asked, “Where do the fifty stars come from?” Of course the fifty stars represent the fifty states, but a hand shot up very quickly with a better response: “The stars come from the sky!”

Homework: Please continue doing the weekly homework.  Students get a prize for every 8 homework assignments (one week’s worth) that they complete.

Social Studies: We talked about our U.S. flag and what it means.  We also learned how to say hello in Pakistan: “Punjab.”

Math: We had a test on addition, and the class did okay on it.  We’ll keep covering addition in more depth all year, but before we move any deeper I’ll cover it a little bit more to ensure that everyone is ready to move on.  I’ve just been going through the first grade math program as outlined, but I’m discovering that the math homework doesn’t reflect the lessons we do in class very well.  In turn, the homework doesn’t reflect back to the tests very well.  So I’m trying to remedy that, but it’s a complicated mess.  I’ll keep you up to date. 

Project Read/Spelling: This week’s focus was the fizzle rule. (Basically it’s that usually we double the last letter if it’s a z, s, l, or f.)  The students did incredibly well on the test.  The lowest in the class was 15 out of 18, and most scores were 17’s or 18’s.  We did a lot of fun activities, including making up a song and playing musical desks spelling-a version of musical chairs.

Speedy Words and Rocket Math: We’re continuing daily practice and timings on the highest frequency words in the English language, along with basic addition facts, and I feel that it’s really helping students develop to be fluent in math facts and reading.

AR: Many kids are over half way to their Samurai (20 books by the end of October is the first of four goals to reach Samurai).  Fie kids have already reached their twenty.  Way to go!  Remember, they can take tests at school on the books they read at home.   

Writing: The students wrote a fun story this week about their life as a penguin.  We’re still working on basic sentence skills, and we probably will be most of the year.

Science: This week we each made a prediction (hypothesis) about whether or not a toy snake would grow if placed in water.  This was real stretch for me since snakes are the one thing in the world that I can’t stand.  (Good thing it was just a toy.)   Anyway, the kids loved it.  This science project worked well for the kids to practice writing also.