Class #29--Pilot Class Reading

Tuesday, January 4, 8:45 A.M. Pilot Reading Class. Class #29 on my “50 Classes or Bust!” expedition. Happy New Year to my readers! I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday season. We started up again here at Calvert on Monday, and we have an incredibly busy stretch coming up, including admissions events, dramatic productions, interscholastic games, and re-enrollment for the 2011-12 school year. I kicked off my 2011 class visits by spending a delightful 40 minutes in Pilot Class with Ms. Reinhardt’s enthusiastic reading class, comprised of six students. Ms. Reinhardt’s lesson was thoughtful and effective, as she incorporated listening, speaking, reading, coloring, and moving within the classroom. Class began with students sitting on individual squares on the rug. The students played a letter recognition game. Ms. Reinhardt showed a card with letter on it to two students, and then they competed to see who could say the letter correctly first. The students then learned about the letter of the week—U—including what it sounds like, how to write a lower case and upper case U, and short U vs. long U sounds. Ms. Reinhardt then led the class through a "U bucket" exercise: students listened to clues, found correct objects on a nearby table, determined whether it was short or long U word, and then placed the object (unicycle, umbrella, bug, duck, etc.) in the U bucket. After a read-aloud of a book about Umbrella Bird, the boys and girls moved to the table and colored objects on a piece of paper after listening to clues, such as “I am thinking of something warm in the sky.” The answer was sun, of course! In the final few minutes of class, the students picked out books, moved back to the rug, and read books individually. Congratulations to Mrs. Reinhardt and her class for getting so much done today!