Edward the Emu

     This week's mentor text was Edward the Emu.  We also used the internet to learn more about his friend Edwina.  It all started last Friday when I made our EMU poster and the children saw it.  They were all buzzing, "What's an emu?".  It got us excited for Monday.  On Monday, we talked about how good readers make predictions before and during reading.  We then started the book, BUT I didn't read the ending.  We wrote our predictions in our reading notebook and had to wait until Tuesday to confirm or adjust our endings.  Well, I don't think that anyone got the exact ending but great predictions, using text and picture clues were made.

     We filled in facts on that EMU poster the children saw, later in the week after reading about real emus.  We also identified and fixed sentences from the text that were scattered around the room.  No-one should forget that sentences start with capital letters and end with punctuation now.  We're experts.  For more sentence writing fun, we took boring sentences and STRETCHED them, not tugged, STRETCHED.

     We have also been reading some Cynthia Rylant stories and even took turns reading Mr. Putter and Tabby stories as plays.  The children got excited when they got to be Tabby.  He always had important lines to read.

     Math has been fun with some computation practice, missing addends and word problems.  We used dice to add three numbers with friends.  Word problems can be SUPER tricky.  I try to get students to picture in their mind what's being asked and when they finish, to think about if their answer is reasonable.

     Next week we can look forward to taking the story that we started planning on Friday and creating a draft.  Those are the first two steps in the writing process.

   

   

   

Bad Case of Stripes

      This week we have been using Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon as our mentor text.  Which means, we have been using this story as a spring board for lots of learning activities.   Ask your student what happens to poor Camilla and how she was cured.  If your child has never tasted lima beans, try this week.  Camilla Cream LOVED them maybe he/she will too.

     We described Camilla, learned new vocabulary words, made lima bean abc order books, learned about summaries and even drew Camilla in a lesson!  Lots of activities and games. SUPER FUN

     We read another cool story titled Daddy, Can I have an Elephant?  In this story Tony asked for some crazy pets.  

     The students played a dice game enriching reading fluency, a rhyming game and arranged some beach theme words into sentences.  One of them was TRICKY! 

rhyming

     If you haven't logged into Edline yet, you are missing out on some first day of school photos.  You have to turn you head because I couldn't (didn't have the time to) figure out how to spin them.  It's on my "to do" list.  Which pretty much means it may or may not ever get fixed.  YIKES

First Week

     It was a great week.  I'm pretty sure everyone is happy and settled in.  Whoo hoo!

     We had music today.  The students seem to really enjoy Mr. Liquori and his class. I know my two boys, Derek and Jason are huge fans.  After music it got HOT in class.  We tried to keep cool by relaxing a little with friends and books.  Luckily, I had a handy squirt bottle to help out a little.

     We also went to computers today.  Everyone logged onto IXL math.  I'll be sending home info and passwords next week so your child can play at home.  It's great math practice.
   
     I like having learning centers in class.  This week we had two different ones, syllable sort and sentence writing.  These centers really make learning fun.

     Some upcoming dates for your calendar: Thursday, Sept. 15 is back to school night 6-8 , Thursday, Sept. 22 is a half day.

     Never miss a post by signing up for an email each time this blog is updated or follow me on twitter @kpotamis.   Be sure to check Edline soon.  I hope to post some photos from the first day of school this weekend.  If you are having trouble logging into your edline account let me know and I'll get the info you need from Mrs. Cannon for you.

Day One

Phew, we made it through the day.  I seriously had doubts that I would when I woke up this morning. It's not easy getting back in the swing of things.

We had a GREAT day!  We started with a simple connect the dots to break in our new crayons while we all got settled.  Then, we played a fun getting to know each other game.  We walked around asking each other questions to get our papers filled in.  Apparently, I'm the only one who wears glasses, so I initialed that box a lot.

We read First Day Jitters.  The story has a fun twist.  Although we read that story last year, I was surprised that not many students remembered the ending.  We then wrote a bit of what gives us the jitters.  We also wrote about some of our favorite things and brainstormed about second graders.

Luckily, the rain stopped in time for outdoor recess.  The students had gym and we went to the computer room. My students were the best fire drill practicers I've ever seen. There is also a rumor that we MAY have broken the world record for the quickest I have/who has game with 1 minute and 16 seconds.  Remarkable.