Happy New Year

A peek into our day...  Happy New Year Friends and Parents!  We took time today to learn about New Year's Resolutions.  Sharing our resolutions helps us to be accountable!! :)  We read a short poem about resolutions and added that poem to our poetry folders.  Then we got busy brainstorming some things we wanted to work on in class.  We decided to call our list "I'm going to knock your socks off in 2012 by..."  the kids came up with some great ideas and they each picked one or two that they were going to focus on in the coming year.  I am constantly amazed at the maturity level of some of my first graders. They were pretty serious about what they were going to work on.  In turn, I told the kids my biggest resolution is to get more organized!!  They said they would help! YAY!  Anyway, the kids wrote their resolutions on paper and created sock backgrounds!  Great job, kids!!!

I introduced some new chunks today which included long i. I introduced the strategy of "Sparkly e" to the kids through a story and a poem about how special a silent e is.  We brainstormed words to practice this week and then created sparkly e's!  Loved it!  The kids will practice flipping the sound of the vowels (eg. rid to ride) this week.  Flipping the sound is a strategy useful while monitoring your child's reading. If you hear them applying the short vowel sound when it should be the long sound,(or the other way around) simply tell them to flip the sound.  They will know what you mean!

Hope you enjoyed a quick peek into our day!  Come back soon!
Have a joyful tomorrow!
Nancy