Getting Acquainted and Learning to Work Together

For the first few days of school we played some "interview" type games to get acquainted with each other. This got us up and moving around the room, helped us learn each other's names, what we did over the summer, and our favorite foods, colors, sports, etc. These activities helped to create a feeling of community in our room from day one.

 

We graphed our names to compare how many letters were in each.  This helped us learn how to recognize and spell each other's names.

We practice spelling words with a variety of partners to help get better aquainted and to feel more comfortable working with each other.

 

During journal time the boys and girls confer with partners.  They read their writing to a partner who then asks questions and offers suggestions for improvement.  The two also edit each others journal writing for the conventions of capitalization and punctuation.

As shown in an earlier post, students read with each other at times, sharing favorite books and coaching each other to become better readers.

 

During math students play games with partners and work with each other to solve problems.

 

Our little classroom is really beginning to feel like a team in which everyone is working well together and our year is off to a great beginning!

Get Ready! Get Set! Read!

  Our book boxes are full of "good fit" books now that reading assessments are complete.  These are books that we can read easily in order to practice fluency, expression, and comprehension.  Students also get to pick out one or two books of high interest. These may or may not be at the student's reading level, but are topics they love.  We want to make sure that reading time is very enjoyable!

 

We practice reading to increase stamina and become better readers.  Sometimes we read to a partner. Our partner asks questions, helps with unknown words, and gives us "stars" (things done well) and "wishes" (things they wish were done, or things that need more practice).

 Our reading stamina is increasing each and every day!

 

 

Our "Book-in-a-Bag" program will begin this week.  Students will be taking home four books on Monday to practice during the week.  These will be returned on Friday when a new set of books will be chosen by the students.  Our school participates in the Pizza Hut Book-It program, so, the boys and girls can earn coupons for a free personal pan pizza each month, October through March, if they meet the goal of 4 books read at home each week. We appreciate all of the encouragement and help families give our 1st graders at home.