Glance At Our Week - Sight Word Goals, Penguins and the 100th Day!

Good afternoon friends!  It is Sunday afternoon and I've got my Sunday vibes going...sweatpants, another cup of coffee and Netflix.  I'm taking this little bit of quiet time to regroup and think about the upcoming week.  I blogged a couple of weeks ago about striving to create purposeful and thoughtful lesson plans - modeling for my student teacher.  This semester, one of the goals our grade level is focusing on district wide is reading high frequency words.  At the beginning of the semester we pre-tested our students using all of the words we want our students to know by the end of the year.  After testing all of my students, I created a Google sheet that tracks which students know which word so I am able to target specific words in reading groups and small group plans.  The high frequency words on my word wall are colored coded by quarter - first quarter (yellow), second quarter (green), third quarter (red) and fourth quarter (blue).  I used the same strategy with my Google sheet and color coded my list. 

After gathering and organizing all of the data, my student teacher and I sat down and worked with every child to create a sight word goal.  The main goal is that students increase sight word knowledge.  Some students have begun to work on first grade sight words while some students are practicing words from first quarter still.  I showed my students my spreadsheet and we choose 3-5 words for the student to target.  If there were words from first quarter missing, those were words we targeted first, then missing second quarter, then words we've learned already in third quarter.  We placed their card on our goal tracking board that shows us where the students are.  Essentially, the goal is for each student to move to the next 'level' by practicing their targeted words.  

  In addition to setting goals in the classroom, parent involvement is important as well.  We sent home a ring of Superhero Sight Word cards with each student, a letter explaining them, and a list of the targeted words.  You can find my original post about this product HERE.

Once we set goals for the students, we had to think about HOW we were going to teach them.  How were we going to help our students reach those goals they set for themselves?  This past week we used several methods to practice sight words, including writing them in shaving cream for a multi-sensory approach, locating them and reading them in emergent reader books, and playing games like "Guess My Word" (similar to Hangman) and SPLAT - not pictured!

The most exciting part of the week was the level of ENGAGEMENT in my students.  They are completely invested.  Telling me that they are practicing at home with mom and dad, choosing to practice their cards at school at the end of the day while waiting for the bus, and encouraging each other during activities.  This upcoming week will mark two weeks since we set our goals so we will be checking to see how we have progressed - and I am excited!  We are in this together! 

This past week we also studied penguins and celebrated the 100th Day of School!  Here are some pictures of what we did!

• In math we enjoyed penguin subtraction, where a subtraction problem flashed onto the screen and students solved it using goldfish.

• After reading a nonfiction books that told us emperor penguins can grow to be 4 feet tall, we compared our heights with emperor penguins then used the poster to practice labeling skills.

• On the 100th Day of School, everyone received a 100th Day of School certificate to show them how proud their teacher was of them!

• I absolutely loved how some of my kiddos got into the 100th Day spirit - how cute are they?!

• We also had parent helpers come in and help us make 100th Day of School hats and necklaces!

• For writing, we wrote about ourselves when we're 100 including what we would watch and what we would play - I love kindergarten answers! 

This week will be a busy week coming up - tomorrow is a Professional Development Day with the UH-MAZING Matt Miller and I have a meeting have of the day on Wednesday - plus my student teacher begins her lessons!  I can't wait to share how our week goes!  :)