Questions to ask students while they are reading at home.

Help develop your student's comprehension at home. Ask them yes or no questions about the book they are reading, but have them give you specific evidence of where and how they found the answer. For example you could ask something as simple as "do ducks walk in the grass?" And the student would respond "yes and the evidence is in the text on page 12 where it says the ducks walk in the grass. Evidence is also in the picture on page 13 because it shows ducks walking in the grass.

Remember you don't have to have the most sophisticated questions to help develop your students comprehension, start off with simpler questions and as your students ability increases, make your questioning a little more difficult. A more difficult question could ask a student to infer.  For example, if they were reading a book about the fall season, you could ask "how are leaves helpful? What evidence led you to make that inference?" The student should respond with an answer that explains that leaves make shade or birds can make nests with them and site in the text or the pictures where they found their clues or evidence to make their inference.

Compare and contrast!

The students are on the ball today! This morning we worked on comparing and contrasting two nouns. We learned that when we compare, we use words like: same, both, alike and when we contrast things we use words like different or but. Half of the students were given a whiteboard and were asked to either compare are contrast themselves with a partner. The pictures below show the students working around the room to complete the task. The other picture shows what the compare group came up with. Some of the awesome responses I got from the contrast groups were: "their voices were different" and "I am a girl but he's a boy." Students were doing an outstanding job using those signal words to compare and contrast. Everyone did an excellent job this morning.

Geometry build up..

Not as easy as you would think..

Math and Art make a fabulous couple

Parent volunteer did a mini lesson on drawing animals using 3D shapes, we will have an ongoing center once a week during math centers where student will learn drawing techniques while working with different 2D and 3D shapes.

Seeing numbers..

In kindergarten and 1 st grade, we want to build a robust number line in students minds. We want them to be able to visualize that number line with ease up to 120 forward and backward with ease. We want students to be able to visualize the number that comes before or after 30, 17, 21,99,etc. Knowing this number line and understanding it makes all other concepts in math in first grade much easier because they have the foundation in place. We also want students to.be able to count on from any number, for example counting on from 27 would be..27 28 29 30 31...practice counting at home, driving in you car, whenever you can fit it in. It is so important each student learns this to have a great foundation and understanding to build off of.

2 vowels go walking...

Today during guided reading student learned a 2 vowel rule. We sang a song, when two vowels go walking, the first 1 does the talkin and the second 1 goes....(and we cover our mouth to show that the second vowel is silent). Once this group of students mastered this concept, they went to teach other students about it in other centers around the room.

Guided reading pics..