Literacy Activities: 1st Class Story

The focus this year at DISK is literacy. The teachers of DISK are teaming up to create novel and engaging ways for our students to become more active, skillful and reflective readers and writers.

Thank you for helping your child with their reading log (R.E.D. folder) every night! Daily reading habits coupled with comprehension questions and activities help the students with their fluency and decoding skills.

The grade two students did a wonderful job meeting their K2 reading buddies last week. Ms. Zeng and I will continue to have our students meet on Tuesday during ECA when we don't have mass.

The grade 3 teacher, Mr. Yaremchuk, has arranged for the G3 and G2 students to have pen pals with the class of one of his teacher friends back home. I'm really excited by this opportunity for the students, and will let you know when we receive our first letters from Canada!

We are also keeping a running "Class Story," where the students are encouraged to come write a sentence or two during their downtime. We have completed our first class story and I am pleased to share it with you! It is a bit silly, but a solid effort for our first attempt at cooperative storytelling.

Once upon a time, the beautiful and hard-working second graders of DISK were starting to sing a song. It was a nice song. But it was too loud, so the grade three teacher came into the grade two classroom. 

      “Hey!” asked Mr. Y. “Why are you so loud?” 

      “Sorry, Mr. Y,” said the grade two students.

      “Don’t be too loud,” warned Mr. Y as he left.

      The grade two students continued to sing. Mr. Y came again, asking: “Why are you so loud again? I am teaching math to the grade three students.”

      The grade two students continued to dance and sing.

      “Hey!” said Mr. Y. “Look at me! You kids are very impolite. I’m going to tell your teacher.” Then Mr. Y went back to his classroom while the grade two students kept singing and dancing.

      Victoria said, “I think I dance very well!”

      Suddenly Yoko walked into the grade two classroom. “Hey Yoko, did you see Mr. Y?” asked Julie.

      “Yes,” answered Yoko. “I saw a butterfly.”

      “That’s not what I asked! I asked if you saw Mr. Y,” said Julie.

      “Oh, no I haven’t seen him,” answered Yoko.

      Mr. Y came back into the grade two classroom for a third time. “Have you seen Ms. E?” he asked?

      “Oh!” said Sophie. “Ms. E is in the bathroom. And you can’t go into the girl’s bathroom. You are a boy. You must go into the boy’s bathroom.”

      “Mr. Y already knows that!” said Victoria. “He is very good and nice.”

      “Thank you, Victoria!” said Mr. Y. “I was going to go find your teacher because you are being too noisy, but maybe you can be quieter and I don’t have to talk to Ms. E?”

      “Ok!” agreed the grade two students. “We are sorry. We will be good!”

      “Thank you very much! Have a good day!” said Mr. Y.

      “You too!” said the grade two students, and they continued to sing…but only in their heads this time!

The End