Outdoor Lab
Published September 29, 2011 | 
After postponing it twice, we finally got to go to the outdoor lab today. It was worth the wait. The weather was perfect!
Mr. Kuhn had the students identify the tracks of animals that are found in central Indiana. Most of the class could identify several of the tracks, but there were a few that were confusing.
The students got free time to spend in the outdoor lab after discussing the animal tracks.
This week’s extra credit (due Friday October 7):
Identify This Animal Track – Bring me a piece of paper with the correct animal name and your name for extra credit.
Friday’s Happenings – 9/16/11
Published September 20, 2011 | by Megann
Today in science we took the first science test of the year. The class was happy it was an open book test.
Science wasn’t the only test on Friday, vocabulary which is really easy if you study hard, was also on that day.
Our Special Class for today was library. We learned about how books are filed and who came up with the idea on
how to do this. This is called the Dewey Decimal system and was named after Melvin Dewey. This is how we now
We did miss Mrs. Kuhn as she was not able to come to school, but we had a good day.
90 Minutes of Reading
Published September 11, 2011 | 
The state of Indiana is requiring elementary classrooms to do a 90-minute, uninterrupted reading block each day. Rush County School Corporation is encouraging teachers to use literacy stations in the elementary classrooms. We’ve been practicing the first several weeks of school and this past week we began literacy work stations.
Here’s what our 90-Minute Reading Block looks like:
Full Group Reading Instruction (from the Treasures reading series) – 30 minutes
Literacy Work Station Rotations – Three 20 minute rotations
We also go to the computer lab two days a week for 40 minutes to do Achieve 3000. This past week we took the first test for Achieve 3000. Every time we go into the computer lab students will have a non-fiction article to read and then they complete activities on the computer that go with the article. This is the first time any of the teachers have used Achieve 3000 and we are very excited about the possibilities we have with the program. (I went to my first training Sept. 2nd and will have another training later in September.)
Literacy Work Stations
Students each receive a sheet at the beginning of the week that has their weekly literacy work station rotation schedule. Each day they go to three different work stations. Throughout the week they will go to:
- Guided Reading (3 times/week) – I work with small groups during guided reading and teach reading skills and strategies.
- Word Work (3 times/week) – This is when students complete vocabulary activities for the prefixes/suffixes/latin roots and selection vocabulary. When they are finished we have Boggle and Scrabble available.
- Partner Reading (2 times/week) – Students read with partners from their own books and then share with their partners using task cards with comprehension questions.
- Writing in Response to Reading (2 times/week) – Students read silently from their own books. They must use task cards and write their responses in their Literacy Station Notebooks.
- Poetry (1 time/Week) – Each week a new poem is put in the poetry station. Students glue this poem into their Poetry Notebooks and then respond to the poem using task cards and writing their responses in their notebooks.
- Newspaper (1 time/week) – Each week there are several articles to choose from (soon we will also have the Rushville Republican) and the students use question cards and task cards to write responses to the articles in their Literacy Station Notebooks.
I hope you’ve enjoyed a quick look at Literacy Work Stations in our classroom!
Now… for this week’s extra credit:
What is your favorite literacy station and why?
Write your response on a sheet of paper and turn it in to me any time before Friday September 16th for extra credit!
