SWR and Reading Workshop

Today marked our first day of SWR (Spelling, Writing, Reading), which is our spelling/phonics program. Students met two feathered friends--Echo and Word Bird--stuffed puppets who help add some pizazz to our learning! They also learned about using their bodies to help them learn "red words," which are sight words that cannot be sounded out. Today we practiced the red word 'the' through "tapping," "fireworks," and "marching" motions. I hope to post a video of this soon! Finally, students practiced correct letter formation of the lowercase 't' and 'h' using our new handwriting notebooks. I posted the pages on our interactive whiteboard to model correct letter formation. We practiced these letters together since they both start on the top line and pull down. Students are taught to start writing their letters from the top rather than bottom up to help form good penmanship habits. 

It wasn't actually this dark in the room, but the photo turned out really dark!

Today during Reading Workshop, a few students shared their favorite books and then met in table groups to browse their book tubs. They were practicing finding books of interest to them--finding a book you WANT to read is key to being a motivated reader!