The Explorer Classroom at Clark Fork School is a place where children learn through playful, hands-on experiences with materials, the natural world, and an engaging, caring adult. Literacy permeates the Explorer classroom and underlies many of the activities and interactions. Our teacher creates a magical and engaging language-rich environment that supports the development of ideas about symbols, oral language and the printed word. Our biggest priority is to mentor and encourage a love of reading, an appreciation for the places it can take us, and an understanding of the worlds and knowledge it can unlock.
The Daily 5 is the portion of our day that focuses specifically on developing literacy skills. This time starts with a 5-7 minute Focus Lesson about a particular concept in reading or writing. After the focus lesson, students get to choose from five different centers to practice their literacy skills: Word Work, Read to Self, Listen to Reading, Work on Writing, or Read to Someone. The teacher also meets with individual students during this time. Through the Daily 5, we balance student choice, individualized education, and good work.
In addition to early literacy skills, Daily 5 helps students develop life-long learning skills such as initiative and self-direction, persistence and attentiveness, and reflection and interpretation.
Last week during Daily 5 we added another consonant digraph to our repertoire--"wh"! We worked on listening for the sounds of all our digraphs in different words and grouping them accordingly! We also learned two new activities that we added to our Word Work choice--Writing the Room (where we get to walk around and copy words we like from our print-rich walls) and playdough and letter stamps (where we stamp letters into playdough to make words from our Word Wall - a sensory-rich way to experience words)!
The Daily 5 is the portion of our day that focuses specifically on developing literacy skills. This time starts with a 5-7 minute Focus Lesson about a particular concept in reading or writing. After the focus lesson, students get to choose from five different centers to practice their literacy skills: Word Work, Read to Self, Listen to Reading, Work on Writing, or Read to Someone. The teacher also meets with individual students during this time. Through the Daily 5, we balance student choice, individualized education, and good work.
In addition to early literacy skills, Daily 5 helps students develop life-long learning skills such as initiative and self-direction, persistence and attentiveness, and reflection and interpretation.
Last week during Daily 5 we added another consonant digraph to our repertoire--"wh"! We worked on listening for the sounds of all our digraphs in different words and grouping them accordingly! We also learned two new activities that we added to our Word Work choice--Writing the Room (where we get to walk around and copy words we like from our print-rich walls) and playdough and letter stamps (where we stamp letters into playdough to make words from our Word Wall - a sensory-rich way to experience words)!