Week of December 10, 2012

We have had an amazing week!

I can't begin to say how impressed I am by the amazing growth that your children are showing in both reading and math.  Students are really starting to make the realization that they are reading!  They are so proud of this.  Have them read for you and show you all that they know.  In math, today we were actually doing word problems with solving for a change unknown equation.  For example.  There were 37 children on the bus.  Some more got on.  Now there are 67 children on the bus.  How many more got on?  Students were able to make the connection about counting on from 37 to 67, and eventually students realized that this was just jumping on the hundreds chart by 10's.  I'm SO proud!

In reading, I have done a lot of shifting of student reading groups because of the growth students are showing.  I'm working hard to keep students with other students who are at or slightly above their levels to keep them growing.  For the last month, students have been going to reading groups (focus groups) with other first grade teachers to work on certain skills to help promote growth.  This has been very effective.  These groups will also be changing in January because of the amount of improvement that students are showing.  As a first grade team, we are also going to be doing these special reading groups 5 days per week, rather than the 2 days per week that we have been doing thus far.  If any of you have questions about this, please email me.

Finally, I am attaching a few photos of our final butterflies that we made last week.  It was a messy and fun project!  As much as you might love them, all you get for now is photos, because I love having these up on my wall until May.