Week of November 2nd - November 6th

Kindergarten
The letters for this week are l and f. The popcorn word is like. Students will sing songs and poems to reinforce letter names and sounds. They will also continue recognizing and manipulating rhyming and compound words, as well as beginning and ending sounds.

1st Grade
The trick words for this week are is, he, and for. We will practice them with sky writing, tracing, chanting, and finding them in print. Students will use magnetic letter boards to find letters and create words while tapping out individual sounds. Students will be "dipraph detectives" looking for wh, ch, sh, th, and ck and will write sentences using words that have digraphs in them. Students will also engage in shared reading to practice fluency.

2nd Grade

This week students will hear and discuss good writing from the following books:

They will write sentences to generate writing ideas. They will then create their own silly stories. They will be working on capitalizing proper nouns and applying spelling skills and rules throughout their writing. Students will also be peer-sharing and will have the chance to give their peers feedback.

Week of October 26th - October 29th

Kindergarten
Students are staying in their classroom this week and will be working on short vowels. My reading groups will meet again next week. The new Jolly Phonic letters for next week will be l & f. The new popcorn word will be- like.

1st Grade
Students completed the Unit 2 assessment in the Wilson Reading program. Unit 3 will last for three weeks and will focus on digraphs-letters that "stick together" such as wh, ch, sh, th, and ck. The following trick words will be taught throughout this unit: to, a, was, is, he, for, as, his, and has. We will continue to work on sentence dictation, segmenting, blending, and reading stories with fluency.

2nd Grade
Students did a nice job of writing stories about their friends. They are getting very good at adding adjectives to their writing and editing their writing. They are also becoming more comfortable with presenting their writing to their peers. This week, students will be staying in their classrooms for reading. Next weeks focus will be on writing silly stories, capitalizing proper nouns and approximating the spelling of unfamiliar words. At this point, students should be capitalizing the beginning of sentences as well as using proper end punctuation.

October 19 - October 23rd

Kindergarten
Due to a field trip this week and an early dismissal, I will only meet with the Kindergarten students three times this week. They will be using the computer program Imagination Station and will continue to work on identifying letters and recognizing their sounds. Students should know the following letters s, a, t, i, p, c,k, h, m, d and the following popcorn words, I, am, at, & see.

1st Grade
We are on our second week of Unit 2. We are still working on the following concepts:

• Blending and reading three-sound short vowel words
• Segmenting and spelling three-sound short vowel words
• Phonemic Awareness skills: sound manipulation (beginning, middle, and ending sounds)
• Sentence dictation procedures: capitalization, period, word spacing
• Sentence proofreading
• Trick words: the, of, and

An assessment will be administered on Friday. This test will check student's understanding of letter-sounds, spelling three letter words (cvc), spelling trick words, and sounding out words to write sentences.

2nd Grade

Students did a great job writing descriptive stories about their costumes. This week students will continue to make lists to generate writing ideas and will continue to explore descriptive language. They will write stories about a friend, using proper sentence punctuation and will approximate the spelling of unfamiliar words. They will also be responsible for correctly spelling the trick words that have been added to our word wall.

Week of October 13th - October 16th

Kindergarten

Students will learn about letters m and d this week. They will learn to spell and recognize the popcorn word- am. They will recognize rhyming words, compound words, and will isolate beginning and ending sounds. They will also review letter names and sounds learned thus far.

1st Grade
Students completed Unit 1 and did well on their first assessment. Unit 2 will last two weeks and will focus on the following concepts:

• Blending and reading three-sound short vowel words
• Segmenting and spelling three-sound short vowel words
• Phonemic Awareness skills: sound manipulation (beginning, middle, and ending sounds)
• Sentence dictation procedures: capitalization, period, word spacing
• Sentence proofreading
• Trick words: the, of, and

2nd Grade

Students did a great job last week adding sight and sound words to their writing. This concept will be expanded this week during Writing Workshop. Students will be expected to write a descriptive piece about a Halloween costume. They will be expected to write an interesting opening sentence, use adjectives, and write a closing sentence.

Week of October 5th - October 9th

Kindergarten
Students will continue to participate in activities that promote phonemic awareness. We will continue to recite rhyming words, isolate beginning and ending sounds, and combine two small words to create compound words. We will continue to review letters s,a,t,i,p,n,ck,e and the following sight words-at, and I. Our new letters for this week are h & r. The new popcorn word is see. Students will also be engaged with I-Station this week, a data driven computer intervention.

1st Grade
Students have been progressing well with letter-keyword-sound relationships of letters introduced thus far. This week's focus will be on letters p, j, v, w, z, qu, y, x. I will review short vowel sounds and reinforce letter formation. A unit test will be administered on Friday. The students will be asked to place letters in alphabetical order and will need to identify and write letters to match their sounds.

2nd Grade
This week students will continue to hear and discuss good writing. They will listen to another story from Donald Crews and one from Cynthia Rylant to use as models for their own writing. They will make lists to generate writing ideas and they will write about something that happened to them. They will learn how to use descriptive language to enhance their writing and they will be asked to focus on capitalizing first letters of sentences and using ending punctuation.