Week 15 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! We had an (unexpected) short week. Because of bad roads, we had two snow days. Mrs. Doran had to rearrange the schedule a bit so that we could work on a 'surprise' for our families (she had planned on spreading this out over four days). We spent quite a bit of time on Wednesday and Thursday on the surprise, so did not get as much math done as Mrs. D. had planned.

A couple weeks ago, we learned about the history behind the December holiday called Hannukah. We learned about the Maccabees and the miracle they believed happened with the oil. This week, Mrs. Doran told us about the history behind the December holiday of Christmas. We learned that Christians celebrate Christmas to remember the birth of a man named Jesus Christ that they believe is the son of God.

Because December is a month full of holidays and family traditions, we made something special for our families. These pictures are of us working on the surprise, but don't worry... you won't be able to see how wonderful our surprises turn out until you open them yourself! For those of you from far away that are curious about the surprises... stay tuned... Mrs. Doran took pictures of all the 'finished products' and will post them sometime after the Christmas holiday when many of us will be giving our gifts.
We didn't just focus on the holidays this week, a lot of learning went on! We practiced a routine called, "Think, Pair, Share" this week. Mrs. Doran used this routine all the time with her third graders and we have been doing a great job with it here. How it works is we "Think" about something (Mrs. Doran guides us), then we "Pair" up with someone by silently looking with our eyes for someone near us. We turn to the person silently and when Mrs. D. sees that we're all 'paired' up, we "Share" what we learned, or thought or did. Here we are sharing connections that we made with the texts we read during our Reader's Workshop.

This week was a fun week for dressing up. On Wednesday we dressed in our best clothing and we looked GREAT! On Thursday we dressed like someone from our school. Grace dressed like Mrs. Doran and literally had clothes on that were just like some clothes that Mrs. D. has in her closet (only quite a bit smaller)! Mrs. Doran enjoyed dressing like Mr. Olack (P.E. teachers have the best wardrobe)!

On Friday, we had our Holiday Party. Faith's and Ella's moms did a great job planning the party. We started out with a 'Hot Potato' game- only we had to be very careful with the 'potato'. We passed around a large present and each time the music stopped, we peeled off one layer of the present and got a surprise to keep! It was great fun and everyone got a little treat!

The adults at the party had fun watching us because instead of passing the 'potato' quickly because it was 'hot', we passed it quite slowly in hopes that we would be able to unwrap its surprise contents!

We also had a book exchange, crafts and yummy treats before we watched a school-wide movie. Between the gifts we got at the party, the book from a friend and some gifts we got from Mrs. Doran, we had a really great day! Mrs. D. did too! She was so overwhelmed by the generosity this year and wants to thank you all for being so supportive and involved! She feels very lucky to work with such great students and families. She wishes everyone a restful holiday season and she'll see you next year! Don't forget to check in on the blog... she will be putting up a couple posts over the holidays!

Here we are passing around the 'Hot Potato'.

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Extra Pictures from Week 14

Mrs. Doran apologizes for these pictures coming so late... two snow days, two meetings, and holiday party preparations kept her from getting these up sooner. Enjoy!

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Week 14 in Review

Greetings from room 119! We're staying warm and made some beautiful snowflakes for our room that won't melt. It is cold outside though, so please remember to send us with hats, and gloves. Mrs. Doran does have some extra mittens and hats for us in case we forget, but most of the mittens are mismatched. You may also want to keep an extra pair of clean socks in our backpacks, just in case we get our socks wet on recess.

You may have noticed in the picture slide show from last week, that we have been learning about measurement. Last week, we measured things with our feet and our hands. We learned pretty quickly that measuring this was is not a great idea. All of our feet are different sizes and we were getting different answers.

To solve this problem, Mrs. Doran taught us about standard units of measure. That is just fancy talk that means people all over the world use the same units to measure things. Instead of using our foot, we measure a foot with a ruler which has twelve inches on it. We practiced measuring in feet with a partner, and also practiced measuring lines in inches using our ruler. Most of us did an AMAZING job. We lined up our rulers perfectly and did very well on a worksheet Mrs. D. created to check in on us and see if we were really getting it.

It is fun to get our bodies up and moving throughout the day. We move around a lot for math, but did you know that we also move around sometimes when we are practicing word families? Ask us about some of the workouts we do. During this 'workout' we were learning about the 'ug' family. Finding chunks in words (or word families) helps us decode words faster.

Another way we work on word families is through our Word Family Songbook. We have learned different songs that all focus on a different word family. Here some ladies from our room are reading their songbooks together.

Learning to find chunks in words helps us with our accuracy when reading. Another way we are getting better at reading is by... READING! In addition to our Reader's Workshop where we usually read for a half hour, we have fourth grade friends who come in often to hear us read. This week when we met with our fifth grade buddies, we got to show them how well we are reading now! Mrs. Doran is beginning to test us to see how our reading has improved since the fall. Most of us are doing really well and were very impressed when Mrs. Doran showed us what we could read in the fall and what we are reading now.

On Thursday, we had an assembly all about being kind to each other and celebrating differences. The assembly was given by Ella's dad and she was able to help him with a magic trick. She did a great job! Who knew she was so strong that she could lift a sixth grader with one finger!

On Friday we celebrated Emily's birthday. She turned seven and had a great day. When it is our birthday, Mrs. Doran lets us stand on a chair while the rest of the class sings to us. (It is the only time we are allowed to stand on a chair!) We also get a coupon for free Marco's Breadsticks! If they are anything like the yummy pizza we had last week, we are some very lucky first graders!

Emily had another great birthday surprise when her parents showed up to be our Mystery Readers. Emily's mom read a story and we were a good audience! It can be tough for us to stay focused with the snow and the excitement of the holidays, but we sure are doing a great job! Remember, if you'd like to be a Mystery Reader in our class, check out the link, find a day that works for you and let Mrs. Doran know.

Stay warm!

*** Mrs. Doran was having some difficulties posting a slide show from week 14. Please check in again as she hopes to do it Monday from her school computer.

Week 13 in Review

Greetings from room 119 and Happy Hanukkah to our Jewish friends! Evan's mom came in on December 1st (the first night of Hanukkah) and taught us a bit of the history behind the holiday. She read a story to us and then taught us how to play the dreidle game.

Mrs. Doran was excited because, though she has read books on the topic over the years, she did not realize that the reason the dreidel is associated with the holiday is because a long time ago the Jewish people were not allowed to study the Torah. They would gather in secret to study, and bring a dreidel so if they were found out, it would appear as if they were just playing a game. To read more about the history of the dreidel, click here.

After a history lesson, we played the dreidel game which was a lot of fun and turned out to be a great math game! We used pennies and counted them and if we spun a 'hay', we would have to figure the 'half' of a number. It was great fun and after we were done playing, Mrs. Biel gave us our own little dreidels and stickers to take home. Ask us about it! Thank you Mrs. Biel so much for coming in to talk to us about this Jewish holiday.

We are an awesome class and to celebrate all our hard work and efforts, Mrs. Doran treated all of us to pizza and soda lunch in the classroom. We gobbled up the pizza and loved eating with Mrs. Doran. Our fourth grade buddies joined us too. They are former students of Mrs. Doran. They have been coming in every day since school began on their lunch recess to listen to us read books from our book boxes or writing from our writer's notebooks. They are a great group and Mrs. D thinks there may be some future teachers in the bunch!

Speaking of reading our writing, we added another page to our portfolios this week. We love to look back and see what we have done from the beginning of the year. If you would like to ever see our portfolios, simply ask us to take it home and bring it back the next day. We wrote more pieces that are hanging in the hallway and will eventually be added to our portfolio. If you would like, you may donate plastic sleeves to help showcase our writing.

We loved the book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," so we asked Mr. Furca if we could watch the movie in class. He said yes! Faith's mom sent in popcorn for us to munch on during the movie (Thank you!) and we all had a great time! Mrs. Doran overheard us making connections during the movie about how it was the same (or different) than the book and was so excited!

Little did we know that we were going to be comparing and contrasting the book and movie using a Venn Diagram after we watched the movie. Mrs. Doran was AMAZED at the details we remembered from the book and secretly happy that some of us thought the book was better than the movie. We thought the movies we made in our mind were even better than what Hollywood could create! Mrs. Doran usually reads us two books by the same author and right now she is reading us, "James and the Giant Peach." This book (like many other Roald Dahl books) has been made into a movie but Mrs. Doran asks that you don't let us watch it until AFTER we are finished with the book... who knows, maybe we can talk Mr. Furca into letting us watch another movie...

This week was the first Student Council meeting and Brooke did a great job representing us. She brought back the notes that she took at the meeting and shared with the rest of us that we will be having a Spirit Week coming up later this month. She shared some 'fun day' choices with us and then we voted. We all thought the idea of a pajama day sounded lovely (and secretly, so did Mrs. Doran)!
We were excited to celebrate the first of many December birthdays in our classroom. Faith turned seven today and was all smiles! We enjoyed singing to her and loved her birthday treats, some of which you will see coming home in our Everyday Folders.

As always, we love ending our week with a visit from a special mystery guest. This week's Mystery Reader was Isabelle's mom. She shared a book that was read to her by her mom when she was little. The characters in the book had a box that they turned into many different things. What a great thing an imagination can be! As always, if you would like to be a Mystery Reader in our class, check out the links on the right. Have a wonderful weekend!

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Week 12 in Review

Greetings from room 119 (and our fifth grade buddies pictured above). Though it was a very short week, we were busy and working hard. Here are just a few highlights from our week.

We were very excited to hear that many of us won raffle prizes from the Fun Run. We have such a wonderful PTA. If you haven't joined yet and would still like to, let Mrs. Doran know. You do not need to attend meetings, but by supporting the PTA you help our classroom and school!

We continue to talk about making mental images. Mrs. Doran read us a book about the ocean (without showing us the illustrations) and we painted pictures of what we saw in our mind. Mrs. Doran also read us a story and we acted out what we heard. It was a lot of fun and Mrs. Doran was able to see that we really were listening to her words.

Though it was a short week, some of our parent volunteers were able to come in and help us. Here Grace's mom is playing a game with us to help us with literacy. While she did this, many of us were writing and Mrs. Doran was able to meet with small groups.

Isabelle's mom also came in to help us. If you would like to come in and help us with literacy or math, let Mrs. Doran know. You may work with small groups or individual students. (And thank you so much moms for coming in and helping out! Mrs. Doran sure appreciates it!)

We had another special volunteer come in this week. Her name is Miss Carter. A long time ago, she was one of Mrs. Doran's first grade students. Now she is in college studying to become a teacher. She enjoyed her time with us and we hope to see her again throughout the year! It was fun to think that at one time Miss Carter was a first grader just like us. My, the time does fly by!

At the end of the (short) week, we went to Mrs. Nienhaus's class to hear a play about Thanksgiving. We were an excellent audience and enjoyed getting a 'sneak peek' at what we could be doing next year in second grade. We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Below are some extra pictures from the week and some of the projects we have been working on.

The movie above shows us painting to the book that Mrs. Doran read to us. (Reading and filming a video at the same time is not as easy as you may think...)

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Week 11 in Review

Greetings from room 119! This week we had our classroom election for student council representative. We had 8 brave students run for the position. Each student gave a speech and then Mrs. Doran told us to think about who we thought would do the best job and had the best things to say and vote for them.

It was a close election. After everyone cast their secret ballot, Mrs. Doran counted the votes and Brooke is our new classroom representative. Congratulations Brooke! Ella will be our alternate in case Brooke can't make a meeting. Mrs. Doran was so proud of all of us for doing such a great job!

Mrs. Doran taught us a new game called "Domino Top-It". It was a fun game and helps us learn to add numbers. Mrs. Doran sent home paper dominoes that we can keep at home so that we can play the game at home, too. Ask us about it!

We also took a math test this week. Mrs. Doran gave us math manipulatives and read us the questions. She also guided us and helped us as much as she could. If we got a 'Beginning' grade, or if there was something we struggled with, please review it at home. Mrs. Doran will also continue to work with us in small groups to reteach those skills we are struggling with.

While Mrs. Doran meets with groups, we have different choices we can make to help us build our math skills. A new game she introduced to us is a blow up cube with math problems on it. When we catch the cube, whatever problem is under our right thumb is the problem we read and solve. This is a fun way to practice and can be made easily at home with a beach ball and a sharpie marker.

Another great way to learn is to teach someone else what we know. Here Trent was sharing with Keaton one of the strategies he uses to solve problems. We have a great classroom community that is kind and supports each other. We hope to continue this throughout the school year!

As always, we ended our week with a wonderful Mystery Reader. Sarah's mom came in to read us a great story which was just perfect for Thanksgiving. We really enjoyed the book and were an amazing audience. If you would like to be a Mystery Reader, please check the link on the side of Mrs. Doran's blog and let her know a time when you can come in and read. If the times and days don't work for you, contact Mrs. Doran and she will work with you to find a time that you can come in for a visit.

This is a new celebration that we learned just in time for this chilly weather. Please remember to send us with coats, hats and gloves. It is certainly getting 'cool' out there!

Here we are practicing the letter "S" in shaving cream. If you see us forming a letter incorrectly, feel free to correct us so we do not practice it wrong. The longer we write it the wrong way, the harder it will be to correct ourselves. Consider getting the shaving cream out at home. It's a lot of fun and great practice!

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We have been learning that when you read you should make mental images of what is happening in your mind. Check out what our minds saw in one of the chapters Mrs. Doran read to us from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

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Check out these extra pictures from the week!