Language Arts

 Classroom Activities

A student generated “contract” of our rights and responsibilities. A writing exercise, from brainstorm to a voted upon final draft, that had the students reflecting and writing about their class values  

Summer postcard writing and drawing 

Review of ABC order using dictionaries 

Continued review of High Frequency Words (HFW), and introduction of new words. They are using “spelling binders” for independent, quick (ABC order) access to support spelling of common words.

Dictation sentences to practice HFWs, students write sentences with proper spelling and punctuation.  They use “spelling binders” and classroom sources as a resource to spell.

For reading comprehension, we are going over the term “plot” and have studied this concept in the story The Little Red Hen

Introduction of cursive to continue to review phonics

The students performed Readers Theaters, supporting their reading skills and developing their reading fluency 

At Home

Keep reading to and with your child 

Play High Frequency Word games 

Read the Readers Theater script that went home last week

Brainstorm “a” words, both short a words (like Apple) and long a sounds (like ape). Make an “a” book, or a specific long a book. 

Elena using her spelling binder 

Jane using her spelling binder 

start of the year “book hunt”

Brainstorm for contract  

Graphic organizer to organize our brainstorm for our contract. The cloud contains a dictation. 

Final Contract. The students voted for the rights and responsibilities they valued for our class.

Please excuse the pink highlights, this was my copy at home. 

This is the same list that is handed out beginning in first grade.  

A copy will be sent home on Back to School Night, along with ideas for games

Example of three different dictation practices

Cursive books. We practiced the phonics of “c” and the phonics of “a.” We went over both the short a sound (Apple) and long a sound (ape)

Working on plot in The Little Red Hen