Leaf Men, parent conferences, election day, OH MY!

HELLO, blogging world!  I am so sorry it has been so long.  To say my life is hectic is an understatement, but, here I am.  Tonight's post is to let families and other fellow teachers know what has been going on in Room 8.

The kiddos have been working hard.  They earned their tenth Dazzle a week or so ago.  They voted and "Toy Day" won.  The kids were able to bring in their favorite toy to share with the class.  I am so proud of their hard work.  I hope everyone stayed safe during Hurricane Sandy!  I actually got stuck up in New Hampshire, so I ended up taking a personal day on Tuesday.


The past week has been full of learning fun.  We continued to work on our phonemic awareness by talking about syllables and listening for rhyming words.  So far, I have taught these letters.  We use Lively Letters, which trains phonemic awareness and phonics skills. This program turns abstract letters and sounds into “lively" characters by embedding letters into colorful pictures that show students what to do with their mouths when making the sounds. Engaging music, pictures, hand/body cues, oral kinesthetic cues, and mnemonic stories are key features of this powerful, yet fun, program. Students systematically progress from learning isolated letter sounds with picture cues to reading and spelling multisyllable words in books and on paper. The letters we have learned so far are on the left side of the screen.  Ask your child if they can tell you their stories.  

we have been able to start building words because we learned about our SUPER STAR letters. Duh Duh Duh..... VOWELS!  We have been introduced to super star vowel /a/.  We learned that vowels have two sounds, their long sound and their short sound.  We began blending CVC words, such as; tap, bag, fab, etc..  We make real words and "alien" words.  Stay tuned to see which letter I will introduce this week.

On Fun Friday, we read the story "Leaf Man" by Lois Elhert.  After reading this story, we decided to make our very own Leaf People.  First, we brainstormed the types of nature they should be collecting when we go outside.  We talked about making sure we got materials for eyes, hair, etc.  Then, we ventured outside.  Each student was given a brown bag to collect what they needed for their leaf person.  When we got back inside, we talked about planning out our person before we start glueing.  Here are some pictures of their wonderful work.