MB's Multi 1-2 Highlights!
Edition1
Welcome To or Welcome Back To S'More Newsletters!
It is one of my goals this year to use these awesome S'More online newsletters at least 2 times per month. It is also my goal to have the students help me write them. Life sure has been busy, and time has just been breezing by!!! So consider this a catch up for the past 9 weeks, and the students and I will begin writing them during the new month that has just arrived...NOVEMBER. How did that happen already?
Please let me know how you like these newsletters, via an email or Seesaw message, and if there is anything else you would like to see included in them.
Our main everyday communication will continue with the Seesaw app (talk about awesome hahaha!!!). Students will be posting their work more frequently using Seesaw, now that we have our routines down pat, and they are on their way to working independently through the activities involved in our routines.
So here we go, on with some highlights from September and October!
Daily 5 CAFE
One of our Most Famous and Favorite Routines!
CAFE stands for our reading strategies menu. The menu is displayed in the center of our room and is one of my most important instructional tools.
CAFE stands for:
C-Comprehension, A-Accuracy, F-Fluency, and E-Expand Vocabulary
Several times per week the students participate in focus lessons zeroing in on specific reading strategies which fall under one of the CAFE headings.
Using amazing mentor texts, fiction and non fiction, we have already focused in on:
C-Comprehension:
- Set purpose for reading
- Check for Understanding
- Back up and Reread
- Use prior knowledge to predict and connect with the text
- Retell; include sequence of main events
- Look carefully at letters and words
- Cross Check: Do the words...look right? sound right? make sense?
- Recognize high frequency words at sight
F-Fluency:
- Read texts that are a good fit
- Use punctuation to enhance phrasing and prosody (Reading the book the way the author intended.)
E-Expand Vocabulary:
- Tune into interesting Words
- Use word parts
C-A-F-E: All Four!
- Read Voraciously (Voracious: Engaging in an activity with great eagerness or enthusiasm; Wanting or devouring great quantities of!)
One of the strategies which has received almost daily focus is: Read texts that are a good fit. Students have been trained in the I PICK method for choosing Good Fit Books.
I PICK:
- I- I Choose something to read.
- P- Purpose-What is my purpose for reading?
- I-Interest-Does it interest me?
- C- Comprehend-Do I understand it?
- K-Know-Do I know almost all of the words?
Our wonderful and talented educational technicians, and parent, grandparent, and Jr. High volunteers are being trained in conferring with students about their Good Fit Book choices. After meeting about their good fit books, students are awarding one book, a golden Good Fit Book Award, which they sign and place on the back of the book!
Now that the beginning of the school year assessments have been completed and I have updated data about each reader and writer, I have the great privilege to meet with each one of your readers and writers, and decide with them on their next steps, and set some strategy goals. For the next month I will focus in on Good Fit book choices also. As I am doing this I get the chance to select existing strategy strengths and to look for a few more strategies which will help the reader and writer to grow into an even better reader and writer than they already are!
Shopping for Good Fit Books
Listen to Someone Read
Conferring About Good Fit Books
More Daily 5 CAFE Time and Flashlight Friday Read to Self Time!
Writing Workshop
Another World Famous and Favorite Routine!
Our Writing Workshop in a Nutshell:
Focus Lessons: Mini lessons by MB and Student Writers, Modeled Writing by MB, and Mentor Text Lessons
10 Silent Minutes of Writing: Priceless and Magical! Give it a try sometime!!!!
Everyone, including MB, writes for 10 mins. silently, using a pencil.
20 Minutes of Quiet Writing: Students continue to write, illustrate, use editing kit, work with writing supplies, confer with MB, discuss their writing with a peer, and keep writing!
10 Minutes to Share: Two authors and illustrators, per workshop, share writing using a microphone. The author asks for feedback via questions from two of his/her peers.
STWEAM
A Third Amazing and Fun Routine!
- Being a member of a community
- Simple Machines
- Consumers and Producers
- The parts of an Apple
- The Life Cycle of a Tree
- Why and How Leaves Change Colors
Our latest work found us viewing two books, one fiction, one non fiction: "Fletcher and The Falling Leaves" and "Why Do Leaves Change Colors?". After some group discussions about the texts, the students created a painting inspired by Fletcher and his falling leaves, and they will soon record themselves stating what they would share with Fletcher about the leaves, their new knowledge. We hope to have all of the paintings on display in time for our Parent Student Teacher Conferences coming up in about a week. Many thanks to Kate for getting the first round displayed. To record their information about what has happened to the leaves, the students will use the Seesaw app to make a recording. Then they will print off a QR code for the recording. The QR code will be placed on their painting. All folks interested will be able to scan the QR codes and listen to the students' explanations which will accompany their works of art!
Creating STWEAM Notebooks with our new cool mini binders and Meme!
Apple Picking with Mrs. Langelier's Class!
"Why Do Leaves Change Colors?"
Finishing touches!
"Fletcher and The Falling Leaves"
Simple Machine Playgrounds
Star Reader
A New Routine Which We Also LOVE!
Morning Meeting and Closing Circle
Our Favorite Ways to Begin and End the Day Together
DREAM TEAM!
Speaking of a DREAM TEAM...
Our class is truly a DREAM TEAM! We work hard everyday, and our hard work is certainly showing up in all kinds of ways. We have received compliments from all kinds of adults including Ms. I. and Mrs. V. who was our guest teacher. Ms. I has complimented us on how awesome we are in the hallway. Mrs. V. said we are the best kiddos she has subbed for!!! YEAH US!!!!
Halloween!
Creepy Underwear, The Ghost Eye Tree, Food Buffet Oh My!!!
Until Next Time...
Next S'more will feature all of the incredible work the students do with Mrs. Langelier during Math Content and Math Workshop, as well as Wonderful Word Study time with MB!!!
Thanks for the great students I get to teach, laugh, and learn with each day!
MB
Mary Beth Clason # MB
Email: mclason@wocsd.org
Website: https://www.mbsmultiage1-2.com
Location: WES
Phone: 207-646-5953 4128