Our children, our students, live in a world that has developed all kinds of media and ways to transmit information, disinformation, ideas, and images. They hear the media, adults, other peers talking about events and opinions as they move through their days. Some of these ideas are exciting and innovative, others are darker and disturbing. Read More >>
Silly Sentences
Once a week during journal time, the youngest students are part of a class called Silly Sentences. Here they play with puzzle pieces to make sentences that are bound to make them laugh. After making two or three sentences, the children copy and illustrate their sentences in their journals. In the process there is a Read More >>
Printing Class All Year
At the start of the school year, children in kindergarten worked on writing upper case letters of the alphabet. We have now moved on to lower case letters! During each class, we use sign language, the sound of the letter and printing pages to practice on two letters. Read More >>
Blend-it
Our youngest students spent the first 6 weeks of school playing many games where they worked on identifying the sounds of letters in our alphabet. After giving them all a letter/sound assessment in October (see above) we decided they were ready to start a class we call Blend-it. This class focuses on teaching children how Read More >>
Picture stretch
Four of our youngest students started a class in late October where they are using pictures to help them identify sounds in the words. For the activity each child draws a picture out a bag, identifies the letter the word begins with, writes the capital and lower case version of the letter and then S-T-R-E-T-C-H-E-S Read More >>
Dictation
Students in dictation class have been focusing on reading and spelling words that follow the vowel-consonant-e pattern and comparing them with words that follow the consonant-vowel-consonant pattern. Students sort, compare, read, and write words and sentences using words with these patterns. We have emphasized spelling patterns for certain consonant sounds at the ends of these types of words. For example, Read More >>
Xerox – Learning to Read
To assist children learning how to read, we offer small group instruction that focuses on the six syllable types. Using Road to Reading, and Wilson Language,each week children receive instruction that meets them at their instructional level. Typically children meet in small groups with a teacher three or four times a week for 20 – Read More >>
Xerox
To assist children learning how to read, we offer small group instruction that focuses on the six syllable types. Using Road to Reading, and Wilson Language, each week children receive instruction that meets them at their instructional level. Typically children meet in small groups with a teacher four times a week for 20 – 30 Read More >>
Word Stretch
Once a week the youngest students take part in a class called “Word Stretch” which gives the students an opportunity to write words. Each class begins with the students writing their names, the date and numbering their paper 1-6. As a group we brainstorm a topic such as colors, pets or sports. Each student thinks Read More >>
Listening Center
Once a week the youngest students listen to a book on tape. As they listen they copy the title of the book and start drawing a favorite scene in the book. More recently children have been asked to write one or two sentences. Some of the titles they have listened to this year include: Thidwick the Read More >>