After Independent Literacy Time and Morning Meeting, we had Reader's Workshop. The focus of the mini-lesson today was to talk about our favorite books. I brought in some of my favorites to share and many of the kids shared theirs as well. We also read a big book (which is just a normal book, but in a larger size for the class to be able to see better) called Crabby Cat's Shopping. We'l continue our study of that book tomorrow.
After Reader's Workshop, we had a guest teacher - Mrs. Straub, who is our Reading Specialist, came in to do a lesson on handwriting (and I got the chance to do some beginning-of-the-year literacy assessments). After Mrs. Straub's lesson, we had Writer's Workshop.
Today in Writer's Workshop, we talked about how writers write - I showed them the book Corduroy by Don Freeman and The Best First Book Ever by Richard Scarry (ask your child what we actually call Richard Scarry). Don Freeman writes the words first, and then puts the pictures above the words, and Richard Scarry does the pictures first, and then adds the words to match. The point was that kids can write like either of the very successful writers and be just fine. The kids all went off to write their own stories, choosing to write either like Don or Richard (they are like old friends by now). Lunch and recess interrupted our writing time, so we had to continue it later.
When we got back up from recess, Mrs. Straub came back for a continuation of her lesson from the AM. After that, the kids finished their writing for the day, and then we all shared who we decided to write like today - this concept of a writing mentor is a crucial one, and we will continue to develop it throughout the year.
After writing, we had an organizational period. The kids are organized into teams, and each team has all of their materials on a shelf (this is how we can get away with having tables instead of desks). We had to practice and work a bit to get it, but I think we're mostly on board now.
When we were all (mostly) organized, we had a short math workshop - the kids worked on number words, and connecting them to the number ('one' to '1', for instance, and 'eight' to '8').
After all of that, it was time to clean up and pack up, and then head home!
