Week 4: Start of Work Stations

Upcoming Events

Please support our PTA by participation in our fundraiser. I will be handing out monkey keychains to kids that turn in the little tickets. Our class goal is 280 items sold. We can do it!!

Also, our class has a basket for the Fall Carnival. You  should have received a letter from the room parent, Bonnie Baum. She asked for donations. I am currently accepting them. Thanks!

Picture Day is Thursday, September 26th. We go first thing in the morning.

Work Stations:  How you can help

Some kids have gotten some practice with the computers and we have started exploring the iPads. We are going to begin “work stations.”  If you have access to Quizlet  at home, it is helpful to practice with your child how to use a mouse, get in and out of websites, and how to navigate a website such as scrolling up and down.  We will explore sites and apps such as the ones on the Symbaloo webmix, Quizlet, Onlinefreespanish.com.

My plan is to have work stations every Thursday and Friday and offer the students time to work on some of these activities as a "may-do" once they finish their work on a daily basis.  During this time, it is important that students can work independently at their station and stay on task while I work with small groups on guided reading and phonics practice.  Please talk to your child about these expectations and that if they need something that no other child can assist them with, they need to stand on the taped X by the U-table until I address them.  This helps minimize interruptions during small group time.

Yo puedo/I can:

We will go over the “I can” or “Yo puedo” options for each station.  They have a choice of a few different activities that share the same objective.  For example, there are a few different ways to practice handwriting in that station, as demonstrated on the cards. There are also signs around the room with pictures demonstrating their options.  In addition, certain areas around the room have hanging signs that designate where they can do that station.  Some stations will require them to grab the materials from the library area and move them to the station table.

Our Stations:  Handwriting, Alphabet/Words, Library, Pocket Chart, iPads, Puzzles, Computers (Symbaloo Edu), Big Books, With the Teacher

How it works:

They will rotate twice each day on Thursday and Friday.  For each station period (about 12-15 minutes) they will be working on that station only. They will do the station in the blue section first and then the green section (refer to the chart above). When they rotate, they will work on the next station.  They may not do every station every week, but they will meet with me in small reading groups at least one day a week.  It is okay if they don’t get to do a particular station one week, because they may get the chance to do it the following week or week after.  There is a chart in the room with their pictures next to their partner, and the station cards to the right.  They will always move to different stations in pairs (with their partner). Blue is the first station and green is the second station.

Why am I giving you so much information about this?

 I have found that when parents talk to their kids in English and explain procedures and expectations, it makes receiving the same instructions in Spanish so much more understandable.  This helps the transitions run much more smoothly.  Thanks for your participation in the process.

These are the plans for the week:

Language Arts:  The letter of the week is /m/, pronounced 'eme.' Now that the students have learned the five vowel sounds, we will be blending /m/ to make the syllables ma, me, mi, mo, mo.  Students will learn words that begin with /m/ and do various activities to practice writing and reading words with this letter.

Math:  We will learn to count and write numbers 3-5 as well as describe shapes, decompose numbers in groups, etc.

Color:  The color of the week is blue/azul.

SLD:  Students will be learning about different actions/verbs.  They will describe which things they like to do at home, at school, and at the playground.  They will use the sentence frame:  Yo puedo _______. / I can ______.  Ex.  Yo puedo dibujar./ I can draw.