We had a busy and joyful three days back to school following our February break!
extra strength sound power
The children have continued to develop their extra strength sound power by exploring digraphs during Fundations and connecting our phonological work across content areas. They've been building words on magnet boards, listening for the sounds they hear as Megan reads from a collection of words. On Wednesday and Friday they took on the role of digraph detective, searching our classroom for words with a digraph at the beginning, middle, or end.
These experiences support the children's knowledge of letter sounds and ability to transfer their knowledge to various learning opportunities. They continuously practice listening for the sounds in words, using letter tiles to build words, and counting and comparing the number of letters and sounds in a word. During their digraph search they found words with ch and th, recording their findings on sticky notes and sharing them with their community. Our sound power is stronger when we listen for and figure out the digraphs or blends in a word!
Megan has continued to support the children's learning about writing like a scientist.
This week they began researching and writing in their topic clubs. They explored non-fiction literature specific to the topics they chose; squirrels, rabbits, black bears, owls, foxes, or deer. With their club members they learned about what the animal they are studying looks like and transferred their knowledge on paper using pictures and words.
On Thursday and Friday the scientists wrote headers and drew detailed drawings of their topic animal. They added labels using real words and scientific words! They added more information on the lines below their illustrations. They used familiar tools to add more words and detail to their work, such as their letter sheets, sight word libraries, and magnet boards. They also used new tools to develop their work, utilizing the collection of non-fiction literature specific to their topic and the knowledge and skills of their club members.
During reading workshop children have been using their sound power to write literacy goals specific to their conferring notes. Together we revisited past notes and next steps, using these notes to help develop goals the children can monitor across workshops. Their goals connect to the work and play we do during reading, writing, and academic choice.
We will make their goals more visible as a living document, a space for children to use and post examples of their progress. I will continue to check in with students individually in the coming weeks and you will see our living document develop.
