Week 8 in Review

Greetings from room 119! We had a busy week! On Monday, Mrs. Doran had a substitute so that she could meet with us and test us individually and score our writing papers. Being new to first grade, Mrs. Doran didn't know about how much testing we have (Wow!). She would like the parents who have said they would volunteer to be patient with her because as soon as she is done testing us, she would love for you to come in. She has 7 individual tests to give to each student. This is taking time but she is chipping away at it. Thank you all for your patience!

As promised, Mrs. Doran let us practice our letters with shaving cream. This was actually wonderful because we practiced again and again until our practice was made permanent. Mrs. D. helped those of us who were forming our letters wrong and by the end of it, we all made perfect Ts. It took a while, but our practice worked and when it came time to write on paper, we had a class full of perfect letters! We would love to do this again. When you are shopping, if you would like to pick up an extra bottle of shaving cream and send it in, that would be wonderful!

We had a great time celebrating Kennedy this week! She had a birthday and turned six years old! We were able to sing to her and she brought us each a treat bag! Just a reminder that Twinkies are no longer a safe snack in room 119. Be sure to check the 'parent reference' page for ideas for birthday snacks!

We began our time lines this week. We wrote about what we were like in the past, in the present and what we think we will be like in the future. This was a lot of fun. We have not yet completed this project but we sure got a good start on them. We had fun looking at our baby pictures!

This week we were able to see Ms. Momeni's class perform a great Halloween Skit using Reader's Theatre. We were a great audience and enjoyed the show. Mrs. Doran told us that before the year is out, we will also take the stage and perform for other students at Loon Lake. We can't wait!

Writers' Workshop continues to be one of our favorite times of the day. Mrs. Doran is simply amazed with how much better our writing is after just 39 days of school! She asked one of us if it would be ok if she shared our writing in her blog. Here is an example of one student's work from September. This page says, "Me and my brother".

Here is the same student just 30 days (or perhaps less) days later. This page says, "When it was winter time, I made a snowman. I had(ed) fun.)" Wow! This is just one example of our writing and Mrs. Doran can't wait to share more with you! Some of us have asked to bring our writer's notebooks home to write in the evenings. Mrs. Doran said that is absolutely fine as long as we have it in school the next day! What an amazing community of writers we have become!

Though we didn't have a Mystery Reader this week, we did have Mystery Guests. On Thursday, Mrs. Doran's big kids (Joey and Ali Jane) didn't have school because of a power outage. Mrs. Doran's marvelous mom (who documented the day with pictures for Mrs. D's family blog) brought the 'Bigs' in to meet us and have lunch. We had fun meeting some of Mrs. D's kids and asking them questions. We laughed when the first question (for Joey) was, "Is it fun to have Mrs. Doran as a mom?" and Joey just shrugged! After a good laugh, Mrs. D's kids warmed up and told us lots of stuff. By the end of their visit we were hugging Mrs. D's kids and inviting them to recess, but they had to leave and we had to get back to work!

In room 119, we are not just a community of writers. We love to read! One day this week we made it 26 minutes of ABSOLUTE SILENT reading! Mrs. Doran was done with some testing and stopped us or we could have read all day! Today we made book boxes that we are going to put in our bedrooms at home. Mrs. Doran made us a book for Halloween and she will be making more books for us to keep in our (home) book boxes throughout the year. Practicing reading is something we should be doing every day!

We ended our week with the Fun Run to help raise money for our wonderful PTA and of course had a great time at our Halloween Parade and Party. Mrs. Doran wants to thank Mrs. Olsson and Mrs. Scheer for their hard work planning the party and all of the amazing moms, dads, aunts, cousins and grandmas (hope she's not forgetting anyone...) that came to join in the fun. We appreciate you and are so lucky to have you in our lives! For those of you who couldn't make the party (and Mrs. Doran understands since she missed her big kids' party...), please click on the slide show and videos below to experience some of the fun. You will have to scroll down a bit. hope you enjoy the slideshow- and now Mrs. D needs to get home to her husband, Bigs and Littles! Have a great weekend!

Check out how quiet we were after practicing with shaving cream. You can hear the concentration! WOW!

Here we are getting ready for the big parade to start!


You may not see us because we were running so fast, but this is some of us participating in the Fun Run! (Thank you PTA for all you do! We hope we raised a lot of money!)

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