Lisa's K-1 Classpage

The State College Friends School

Welcome to Teacher Lisa's and Teacher Marilyn's
Kindergarten and First Grade Class

The Class of 2007-2008
We are a community of learners—having fun, loving to learn,
and respecting everyone!

Developing a strong learning community is always a primary goal for our year. Children need to learn how to learn and understand that we all learn differently. Students in the classroom learn with and from others, so developing positive ways to interact within the community is vital. Throughout the year, children will discover ways to express their needs and desires in positive ways as well as practice ways to resolve conflicting desires. Children employ these skills each day, the same way they practice and utilize their academic skills. When children are at ease in their relationships within the classroom community, they are better able to focus on the academic subjects. Everyday, children will have the opportunity to be teachers and learners, and together we strive to create a rich learning environment.

We journey through the year learning about the world we share with others. We make new discoveries through hands-on-investigations and exploratory travel (both real and through books).

Our theme this year is “Spaceship Earth”. Through books, stories, art, music, and field trips we study this precious and unique planet on which we live along with its inhabitants. By examining our own lives, we learn about the resources which the earth provides and how we can do our part to protect them. By talking with people from around the world and exploring diverse habitats, we discover the other living beings with whom we share the planet and consider the importance of sharing resources and space. Through games, sharing, and observation, we examine how the people traveling on our “spaceship earth” are the same and how they are different. And through demonstrations and exploration we study the sun and how the earth travels around the sun creating the seasons and night and day.

A favorite activity of many children is Writing Workshop, which provides an avenue for children to develop their writing skills through writing books on topics of their choosing. The emphasis is on recording individual's thoughts and ideas.

Children are proud to think of themselves as readers and writers and quickly acquire the tools they need to be successful.

For beginning students, this is sharing their story in pictures as they practice recording a sound or two for each word they want to write. As students work to sound out words, they increase their phonemic and book spelling which can also enhance their reading abilities. As students become mor

They also begin to work more on book spelling, punctuation, details, and story structure. When students finishes a book, they "edit" and "publish" it. The final, and very important, stage in the process is sharing the book with the class. Classmates provide friendly questions and comments to their peers which helps children feel encouraged and positive about their writing skills. These familiar books are placed in the classroom and become a popular choice for students to read on their own.

Students read and write across the curriculum--for science, peacekeeping, math, morning meeting, etc. Reading instruction takes place in a variety of ways. Students read in small groups with other students of a similar reading level to develop good reading and decoding strategies. All students spend time reading independently, sometimes using pictures to tell the story. There are also opportunities for students to read one-on-one with teachers and volunteers to practice their decoding strategies and oral fluency. We read big books, picture books, and chapter book aloud to expose children to fluent reading as well as to develop an understanding of story elements and text structure. Discussions of the books enable children to share their insights and enhance their comprehension by considering different points of view and interpretations. A favorite reading activity is reading weekly with older “Reading Buddies”.

Games and activities, colorful manipulatives, and peer sharing all contribute to the development of good math thinking and number sense, as well as a love for math!

In math, we use the Everyday Mathematics program but also take time for a variety of exploratory activities, games, and problem solving, all designed to develop math thinking skills and improve number sense. Throughout the day, we explore the many ways in which math is used in our everyday lives. We want students to become comfortable using numbers, understand that numbers are a way to represent quantity, can be manipulated in a variety of ways, and can be used to solve problems. We also want children to be comfortable recognizing and continuing patterns, since our number system is full of patterns. Developing a good number sense and an understanding of our number system is the foundation for other more complex mathematics. As with all subjects, students learn from and support each other but also often have the opportunity to work at their own pace.

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