Awesome Achievers!

I am so proud of our awesome achievers in the classroom!

Over the past few weeks Kindergarten has been making the transition into First Grade curriculum and assessments. Currently Kindergarten is completing math work on the first grade level as well as completing the accompanying assessments. Next week our 6 Kindergarten students will start the first grade reading curriculum as well as continuing their work with weekly word families and sight words.

Our First graders are also achieving above and beyond. Over the month of March 1st grade will finish their math curriculum and then move into the second grade curriculum focusing on an in-depth study of addition and subtraction with regrouping.

Currently in math both grade levels are studying time. We just finished our clock reading unit and will move into calendar time and elapsed time this week. Students will learn that the calendar reminds us of specific dates while is also keeps track of much larger units of time like a week, month and year.

Science is extra exciting with a hands-on experiment planned for this Wednesday. We are studying living and non-living objects and their characteristics. We have made lists of objects predicting if they are living or non living. We will discuss the most common characteristics of living things and their non-living counterparts. In our upcoming experiment we will look at the relationship between some living and nonliving items and conclude this unit on Friday.

Our new and improved literacy program is having more success than I could have ever thought possible. Recently I had a student who, at the beginning of the year, did not seem to find joy in writing ask me, "Can we have writing again this afternoon?" He went on to confess that writing was now his favorite subject. Below is a slide show of what our Writer's Workshop looks like.

Students are using their own creativity and personal experiences to express themselves and what they know through writing. The children choose their own topics to write about as well as their genre. I suport this process through mini-lessons and teacher conferences with students daily. After they publish their works they have the opportunity, twice each month, to present their works and share them with a real audience, our class, just like any other published author would do.

In reading our modified Daily 5 is really increasing student choice and some fun hands on activities. Just this week we are adding a new word work into the mix where students practice their spelling words and typing skills on the computer. First graders are using Microsoft Word to type their spelling words as well as using magnetic letters, pipe cleaners, and molding dough to build and practice phonics. I have also seen an increase in independent reading stamina, the length and focus given to reading a particular book. Comprehension has increased through this personalized reading and skills lessons taught weekly.

I am so incredibly proud of all of the students in the classroom and the achievements they are making daily. I am excited to see them continue to grow and learn through the last 12 weeks of school and prepare them with the solid foundation necessary for their next grade level.

Miss Ellis

K-1

P.S.

Here is a look into some of the fun 100th day counting activities that took place during my Odyssey Hiatus.

The Odyssey Hiatus is Complete

My blog updating hiatus is over! This past month I finished up my after school Odyssey of the Mind club when we took part in the Magic Center Regional Competition. Odyssey of the Mind is a wonderful hands-on program that is gauged to increase problem solving and creative, critical thinking. Students participate in solving longterm and spontaneous problems. This program allows participants the opportunity to think outside of the box and use personal expertise and expression while learning life long problem solving skills.

Currently Samsula does not have a team for students grades K-2 and we would like to make this happen in the future. Anyone can coach, even parents! If you want to know more or are interested in Odyssey, check out their website.

I would like to take this time to congratulate my team on their 3rd place achievement at the Regional Magic Center Competition held in Orlando, Fl. Way to go team!

Field Study and Exploring Personal Choices

What a great week we had! We prepared for our field trip to the Barberville Pioneer Art Settlement, spending some time learning about the early American and Pioneer life style only to get to experience it first hand. It was a fun learning day where the students participated in hands on activities such as candle making, butter making, spinning, weaving, farming and word working. Below is a look into the past where our class participated in all of these things on our wonderful field study!

I would like to take this time to thank all of the wonderful parents who participated in this field trip and made it possible.

In other news a congratulations are in order for our Kindergarten students. This past week we studied our very first word family, the -an family, and took our very first spelling test. None of the words were sent home to study, but were covered in class and every single one of the students showed mastery of reading, writing and spelling the words chosen from that word family. This week we will be working with the -ap family found in words such as map and tap.

Since this is a week 6 review week in our reading curriculum I have decided to use this week to implement some new teaching practices that allow for more creativity and enhanced meaningful and personal student achievement in literacy. Today was our first day starting a Writer's Workshop. Within the Writer's Workshop you can expect your child to think of and write about their own ideas and in the formats that they prefer. The students will learn about the full writing process from brainstorming through drafting, peer conferencing, teacher conferencing and creating a final writing piece. All of this writing will be supported by mini-lessons on different genre writing and an emphasis on grammar and techniques.

As a counterpart to writing I will also be implementing some of the techniques of the Daily 5 in our reading class. The daily 5 focuses literacy instruction through 5 components in the classroom. Those components are 1. reading to self, 2. reading to someone, 3. listening to reading, 4. working on writing (writers workshop), and 5. spelling/word work. All of these essential literacy components will be worked on each day along with specific skill instruction from myself. As the students and myself become more comfortable with the new approach to teaching and learning literacy the students will be able to explore self directed learning by choosing reading books and reading "best-fit" books and also creating and working towards meeting their own reading goals.

In mathematics Kindergarten has finished their number study, reading, writing and counting orally to 100. This week we begin our unit on measurement which will be followed by time and money. This week we will focus on specific concepts such as length, weight and capacity. In first grade we continue to practice our addition and subtraction facts daily and are now working with larger numbers and therefore larger sums and differences.

In science we will be reviewing movement and studying more in-depth how movement can be affected, increased, changed and stopped.

As always I am looking forward to another great week here at Samsula Academy!

Miss Ellis

A New Year and a New Week

Happy New Years to all and welcome back!

Now that we are all back from our winter vacations we are jumping right back into the thick of it and are hitting the ground full seed. In first grade math this week we are furthering our understanding of addition and subtraction. We are adding more than 2 numbers and using multiple methods to solve mathematical problems. In Kindergarten we are reviewing number 0-90 and will be working our way up to 100 by the end of the week.

This week our reading unit focuses on families and we are reading a play called Smile, Mike! in reading class. We are focusing on generating questions to ensure understanding while reading. Our comprehension skill for the week is making predictions and confirming them. First grade spelling is on long /i/ words spelled i-e. Spelling words for the week are: bike, hide, like, mine, ride, and spike. Spelling words can also include previously learned spelling words and high frequency words. First grade high frequency words to know are: how, there, so, more, funny, and call. Kindergarten is currently reviewing short vowel sounds this week in reading. Kindergarten sight words for the week are: ride, saw, say, she, and so.

In social studies we are preparing for our first field trip to the Barberville Pioneer Arts Settlement on Thursday January the 13th, 2011. We are learning about the life style of Pioneers and how that life style is similar and different to our own today. We are very excited for this trip and I remind you that field trip permission forms and money are due the beginning of next week.

As always I am looking forward to another fun week of learning with your children!

Miss Ellis

Happy Holidays

As the Holiday Season is coming to a close I have compiled a few pictures to show some of the fun Holiday activities our class took part in during December. Just to mention a few we weaved Kwanzaa placemats, made our own Christmas wreaths and had fun opening up our Holiday gifts at our party.

I have also included some span shots from my own winter vacation. Enjoy!

Here Comes December!

Another holiday down and a new month just around the corner. There are only 3 weeks of school left before our winter break and we have a whole lot of fun things to get done.

In Math first graders are now starting their unit on measuring. This week we will be focusing on length. We will measure with nonstandard units such as paper clips and blocks as well as standard inches and centimeters. We will uses these measurements to compare lengths identifying which objects are longest and shortest. In Kindergarten we are continuing to progress through our number identification and writing and hope to reach 100 before the winter break. We will also be measuring some objects with nonstandard units.

This weeks science concept is: Change in Matter. This concept lends itself to a lot of fun activities such as paper folding and clay modeling. We will learn how you can start with one thing (or medium) and manipulate it to create something brand new. We will compare and contrast what we started with and what we were able to create.

In Reading we will continue our compare contrast theme with that being our main focus skill for the week while we continue to practice retelling. Students will be reading Kids Can Help. In this book a boy and a girl each help their parents cook. We will compare and contrast the two characters to see how they are alike and different. First graders will focus their phonics and spelling on words with s-blends. The spelling words for the week are: sled, slip, snap, spill, spin, make, game, people, and water. High frequency words are: girl, boy, together, when, people, care, and water. Kindergarten is still reviewing all of the letters, their names and sounds and we are adding to our sight word reading. This week Kindergarten sight words are: must, new, no, now, and on.

There is a lot to be thankful for...

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving holiday and had time to spend with family and friends. Here is a look at some of the fun Thanksgiving related things we did over our 2 days last week.

A thank you is given to Hailey's Grandmother for making our class some Thanksgiving treats. We took that idea and made it our own taking some fun snacks and turning them into turkeys. We also used some pinecones to make our own thankful turkeys.

We learned a Thanksgiving song, "Tommy Turkey" and loved to turkey around when we got the chance!