Growing Our Literacy Lens

Over the last few weeks, we've been working on growing our reading and writing stamina. We've also begun to think beyond our stories through read-alouds, turn and talks, and partner reading. 

Mrs. Belanger, our new Assistant Principal at SMS, came into our classroom to read the story Going Places by Peter and Paul Reynolds. During the story, she asked us to think about how we could work together to create new ideas and collaborate to make our work even better. We loved seeing how two brains could be better than one!

The giraffes continued to do an amazing job talking about and sharing stories when we began partner reading at the end of our Reader's Workshop. Everyone was focused on their partners and they were all very flexible when it came to taking turns reading and sharing the stories from their book bins!

In order to help us generate ideas for our small moment stories, all of the giraffes were asked to bring in pictures of the people, places, and things they love most. On Thursday, we used those pictures to decorate our writing folders, which we will use throughout the year to inspire our writing. 

We loved seeing everyone's folders once they were complete. Many of us were able to make several connections over the pictures we had! We will continue to grow our literacy lens as we begin to dive deeper into our reading and writing, and we can't wait to see where our new literacy skills will take us in second grade and beyond!

Writing Folders

Hello, Giraffe Families!

Next week, we are going to be personalizing our Writer’s Workshop folders, which will help us generate ideas for our stories throughout the year. I am going to have magazines, brochures, and printed pictures for students to use, but you child is also welcome to bring in or email their own personal pictures of their families, friends, pets, and places they’ve been to in the last year or so to add at school. We will be creating our folders on Thursday, September 14th, so if your child would like to bring in pictures to add to their folder, you can send them in on or before that date. 

To give you an idea of what these folders will look like, here are some examples of my own writing folders over the last few years:

I am very excited to see how everyone chooses to personalize their folders. Not only will it help us to support our writing, but it will also allow us all to get to know each other on a deeper level ☺Enjoy your weekend!

Gratitude

This week, the giraffes continued on with celebrating The Global Kind Project by focusing on Gratitude. 

We also showed gratitude for the teachers in our lives for Teacher Appreciation Week! Each of the giraffes made a card for one of the classroom or related arts teachers they've had in the past at SMS and we delivered them to their classrooms for Teacher Appreciation Day on Tuesday. The giraffes also surprised Ms. Riley and Mrs. Zampini with some wonderful pictures and two beautiful mini gardens filled with beautiful painted stones and kind messages <3

Thank you SO much for our incredible gifts and for all of the other kind gestures you've done for us over the last few school days. We are so grateful for YOU!! 

Writer's Workshop Folders

On Tuesday, September 13th, we are going to be creating our Writing Folders for Writer's Workshop. We are going to add our own pictures as well as pictures from magazines and brochures to our folders in order to help us generate ideas for our writing. Families are welcome to send pictures in or email them to Ms. Riley to print out at school. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and these pictures will inspire us throughout the year to write and publish wonderful stories during Writer's Workshop.

This an example of one of Ms. Riley's writing folders. It has pictures of her friends, family, pets, hobbies, special trips, and fun  memories! We took a look at all of Ms. Riley's writing folder's on Friday, and we were already beginning to tell stories just by looking at her pictures!

Summerpalooza!

Hello, Giraffes!

I hope you've all had an amazing summer so far. We still have a few weeks left to soak up some fun and sun with our friends and family! I've been very lucky to see many of the giraffes I've already had in class as well as some of the giraffes who will join me this fall for second grade on my many summer adventures. Here are a few pictures from my travels around New England and across the country:

ISTE Conference: Denver, CO

Camp Kinneywood: Worcester, MA

Acadia National Park: Bar Harbor, ME

Jenness Beach: Rye, NH

Tendercrop Farm: Dover, NH

Prescott Park Arts Festival: Portsmouth, NH

Forest Lake: Winchester, NH

Garrison Hill Tower: Dover, NH

Rye Beach: Rye, NH

Heinemann Teacher Tour: Portsmouth, NH

Seagull Encounter: Seabrook, NH

In addition to fending of seagulls, I've also been doing a lot of reading and playing lots of beach volleyball. I've been putting a lot of time and effort into serving and setting the volleyball with my team and so far, we've won our first three games!

I hope each and every one of you are enjoying your own adventures this summer. I cannot wait to hear all about them and begin our year together! Until then, continue having a BLAST!

Love, 

Ms. Riley

Say Cheese!

Today was Picture Day at SMS! Everyone brought their best smiles to school for our class and individual pictures. While we did take a class picture in the cafeteria, we also took a few in our classroom. Enjoy!