Happy Monday!

It was great to see everyone back today after a nice weekend. I did begin M-class reading testing today so we are on our way for the winter bench mark. In order to be reading on grade level this quarter students need to be reading on a level k. Please make sure to turn permission slips that went home today and complete your reading logs and spelling each night.

Reading AM - Today we began reading testing during guided reading. After guided reading we went to whole group time. Today we discussed how to understand words in a book we don't know. Sometimes we can say a word but don't know what it means. We talked about using the picture clues and sentences around the word to help us. Tomorrow students will work with a partner or small group to figure out the words I assign to them. I want to see them applying the strategies we are teaching. During writing today we began our final writing assignment for the quarter. Students listened to an article about lions and then they began to take notes today. Tomorrow we will finish taking notes and begin writing our final paragraph. I cannot help students with this task since it is a final assessment. We need to know what they can do on their own and what skills they have mastered throughout the quarter. During spelling we set up our notebooks and talked about how we need to use our mouths to communicate and pronounce words. Often times children mumble and forget to articulate using their mouths:-)

Reading PM- We began our afternoon going over our language activities and graphing our results from last weeks quiz. Many students missed the use of apostrophes, we went over the rules again today for using them to show ownership or making contractions. During guided reading I began assessing students while others were working independently on finishing their animal books. During the whole group time we discussed how to understand words in a book we don't know. Sometimes we can say a word but don't know what it means. We talked about using the picture clues and sentences around the word to help us. Tomorrow students will work with a partner or small group to figure out the words I assign to them. I want to see them applying the strategies we are teaching. During writing today we began our final writing assignment for the quarter. Students listened to an article about lions and then they began to take notes today. Tomorrow we will finish taking notes and begin writing our final paragraph. I cannot help students with this task since it is a final assessment. We need to know what they can do on their own and what skills they have mastered throughout the quarter. During spelling we went over the homework assignment for tonight and pasted in our homework. Our test will be on Friday, the last one of the quarter.

I hope you all have a great night.

Hugs,
Mrs. Del Balzo