Text to World Connections

First graders are learning all about connections. Making strong connections to text helps a reader understand what they are reading. We read The Lorax by Dr. Seuss and focused on text to world connections. First graders then answered the question "If I were the Lorax, this is how I would help the earth..."  Check out our answers hanging in the hall next time you stop in! 

RES Red Clover Book Award Results

This is a guest post from RES teacher librarian Beth Redford .

 RES Red Clover Winning Book:

The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt

All school year, RES scholars have been sharing the 10 excellent picture books on the 2014-2015 Red Clover Award reading list. Every year the Vermont Center for the Book puts together a new reading list of 10 fiction and nonfiction picture books for this award, which is named after our state flower. Vermont students in kindergarten through fourth grade read, listen to, discuss, and write about the books on the list. Then each student votes for his or her favorite.

Discussing Red Clover books in Grade One library class

 Another popular title: Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great 

by Bob Shea

Discussing Red Clover books in Grade One library class

This year's Red Clover winner at RES, by a large margin, was The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt. Scholars couldn't wait to reread their favorite parts of this story about a rebellious box of crayons who complain to their owner: "Try coloring inside the lines," "tell Yellow and Orange to stop arguing over which one is the color of the sun," or "pick a different favorite color, I'm worn down to a nub!" This funny book is an excellent example of character development, perspective and voice, and it kept our first and second graders laughing all winter. Other popular titles were Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great by Bob Shea, Papa's Mechanical Fish by Candace Fleming, and The Mighty Lalouche by Matthew Olshan (Mrs. Redford's favorite to read aloud with a bad French accent).

Once we have collected the last few Red Clover votes from RES, these votes will go to the Vermont Center for the Book. The VCB will add our votes together with votes from elementary schools all over Vermont. The top vote-getter from the whole state will be declared the Red Clover Award Winner for 2015. More information about the Red Clover program is available at the Red Clover Website.

We are very proud of our scholars and their hard work in reading and evaluating this year's Red Clover books!

W.O.W. Word of the Week- Extraordinary

Our extraordinary students read the book The Extraordinary Egg by Leo Leoni. In the story a curious frog finds an egg she  thinks is extraordinary. Help our learners by using our word of the week as often as you can when they are around! 

W.O.W. Our word of the week!

Today our students started amazing woud journals! Each Wednesday we will add a new word of the week. If students HEAR or USE the word at home or at school they can add a tally mark to our chart! The following week we will tally how many times we used the word. You can help us out at home by using our W.O.W. word as often as you can around your child!

Our W.O.W. word for this week is CUDDLY!  We ready Cuddly Duddly and made a word map for the word cuddly! I hope your student is cuddly with you tonight! 

Fast with Facts!

First grade is working hard on our fact fluency! Today we made ways to make  10 rainbows and ways to make 10 flash cards! They will be coming home today. You will be amazed at how fast your child can do the  flash cards. These cards are for families to keep at home and practice!

 

Author Share

Thank you to our families and school staff for joining us the celebrate our writing! We also enjoyed sharing our life-sized penguin project!