Here's what we were working on in the classroom last week :
Reading : We began to talk about ways that the students can tackle tricky words. When the students get stuck on a tricky word, I always want them to try their phonics knowledge first. But, 1-Bu students know that while they know some phonics rules, that they haven't learned them all yet, so they've got to learn some back-up strategies to read tricky words in the meantime. Last week, we spoke about looking at the picture for clues and looking at all parts of a word. We also tried to become aware of some of the bad habits we may have already gotten into when we come across tricky words in our books. Rather than allowing ourselves to get stuck or immediately asking for help from someone else, we want to try our strategies first.
Writing : The students published their first writing pieces! Last week, the students colored the pictures and shared their pieces with their classmates. This week, we'll start our next writing unit, which called Small Moments. I'll explain what that is next week. :)
Phonics : We continued working with digraphs (wh, sh, ch, th, and ck) and learned some more 'trick' words.
Math : The main focus of math last week was to continue to develop the students' knowledge about and understanding of the complements on ten. By now, most of the students are fairly familiar with the number pairs that go together to make ten. Ask your child to sing The Complements of Ten Song! (If your child gets stuck, it started with "five and five, six and four..."
Science : Last week, we focused on the stars in the night sky. We talked about what stars are and the patterns that people make with them (aka, constellations).
Chromebooks : The students are becoming more and more proficient navigating various programs and websites all on their own. Last week, the students went on Raz Kids and Happy Numbers for the first time this year. Ask your child about them!
Here are some pictures of 1-Bu in action last week :