Week 19 in Review

Greetings from room 119! Thanks for checking in to see what we are doing in our classroom. Remember there are additional pictures from the week in the slide show below and links and helpful information on your right. Please check next to the name of the student (or teacher) that you are reading for so Mrs. D. knows who you are!

In math we have been learning new concepts and finding 'differences' in numbers. We usually work on newer concepts with Mrs. Doran in smaller groups. In case you were ever wondering what the rest of us were doing during this time, here is a little window into some things we do during math. We have a 'Clock-o-dial' that helps us practice telling time. A lot of us are getting very good at this skill and have surpassed the expectations for first graders (at this time it is expected for us to be able to tell time on the hour and half past the hour)!

We also sometimes use tiles to sequence numbers, count with patterns or play games. Pick a number and see if we can continue counting from that number, or if we can count backwards from that number. This is a great way for us to practice our number sense and easy to do in the car or around the house when you have a few moments to spare.

Money is something that many of us need practice with. We try to spend a little time each day identifying coins and their values as well as counting them. We love using white boards to answer questions to flashcards and Mrs. D. has some great flashcards where we can check ourselves to see if we are counting money correctly.

Mrs. Doran also has some money puzzles. Flashcards for money, time, addition and subtraction can be found at grocery stores and at dollar stores. We enjoy learning when it is fun, so sit down and spend some time with us so we can show you what we know!

This week Mr. Olack held Jump Rope for Heart! We did a great job collecting money for this wonderful cause! Mrs. Doran came down to take pictures of us jumping, but we were already finished and having a yummy snack by the time she got there. Thankfully Mr. Olack let us jump for a few more minutes for a photo-op for Mrs. D. We were so fast most of the pictures turned out blurry so she took a video (shown below).

One thing we revisited this week was how authors tell a story with words, but can tell a different story (or add details) using their pictures. Mrs. D. shared some of her favorite books to illustrate this and we spent some time making our own books and adding details to our illustrations. Adding details in our illustrations also helps us add details to our writing using our words.

After Mrs. Doran gives us a short mini-lesson in writing, we are able to practice what we learn on our own. While we are doing this she meets with us in small groups or individually to work on things she has observed in our writing.

She has been encouraging many of us to use the resources in our room to help us. Because we don't have a lot of wall space, Mrs. D got creative and started hanging the charts we make together from the ceiling. We also have Word Wall words on magnets so we can bring words back to where we are working and write them correctly in our notebooks and books.

Did you know that Loon Lake has its very own Post Office? Stationary costs just 2 cents and we can mail letters to anyone in the building. Mrs. D. taught us how to write a letter and address an envelope. She bought each of us one piece of stationary so we could write to someone in the building. We can bring in money at any time to buy more stationary. Ask us the five things we should have in every letter (date, greeting, body, closing, signature).

To continue our practice in letter writing, we are starting something next week called "Star Students". Each day we will celebrate a new star in our room. The stars will be able to wear a special cape, share a special poster, lead our classroom in the hallways, and we will each write the star student a letter. Mrs. Doran will collect the letters and combine them into a book we can take home on Friday. She is also asking that parents include a letter (We thought it was neat that our parents would have homework!).

We ended our week with our Mystery Reader. Isabelle's dad read one of Mrs. D's favorite books called, "Julius, the Baby of the World." We were a great audience! Remember, there are still dates available where you can come in and read to us. If the time does not work well for you, but you would still like to come in, contact Mrs. Doran. She knows how much we love to see those we love most in the world come into our classroom. She will work with you to make sure you can come in and read to us!

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Week 18 in Review

Greetings from room 119! Though it was a shorter week, it felt like a long one (at least for Mrs. Doran). She finished up our individual reading assessments, formed new reading groups and finished up report cards. They should be available for you to view on Skyward on Wednesday. Remember, the school is no longer printing report cards, so you will have to view them on-line. If you are having trouble with this, contact Mrs. Doran.

Not only did we switch reading groups in the classroom, Mrs. Doran began reading a new story to our class. We are now reading "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White. We have been learning about Story Elements and have done a great job identifying the problems and solutions in the chapters we have read so far. Ask us about it!

Instead of giving us books to read, Mrs. Doran let us go "Book Shopping" in our class. She told us which book baskets we could 'shop' in and we found books that we liked that were also at our independent level. We then put these books in our book boxes to practice with throughout the week. It is really important for us to read and reread text because it helps us with our fluency.

We also had fun meeting and working with our fifth grade buddies. Last week we read a book about snowmen and this week we worked with our buddies to create our own snowman. We did a great job following directions and worked well with our buddies. Ask us what our creation looks like!

One thing we practice a lot in first grade is following directions. Mrs. Doran read us directions on how to make a car. We had to follow the directions carefully and most of us did a really great job! Mrs. D. posted a picture of us (at the top of the page) holding the cars we made. In upcoming weeks, we will continue to look at "How to" books and write our own- Stay tuned!

We had a birthday to celebrate in our classroom this week! Zane turned seven years old! We had fun singing to him and loved eating his special birthday treat. Remember, if you have a birthday coming up, contact Mrs. D. and let her know your plans. There is also a link to safe snacks on the blog.

Mrs. D. gave us a book (to keep at home) that had a lot of words containing the "Long A" sound. (Ask us what a 'Long' vowel sounds like -it says its name!). After reading the book, we went back and circled all the "Long A" words we could find. We then met back at the gathering place and sorted the different patterns we found in "Long A" words- 'ai', 'ay', 'a_e'. We did a great job!

Our Student Council Rep, Brooke, shared with us that our school will be collecting non-perishable food items for Gleaners Food Bank. We will begin collecting food items on Monday and the collection will go until February 11th. Brooke made a special box for us to keep all of the food items we collect! Thanks in advance for helping out those in need!

On Friday we had a special Mystery Reader and he brought us some fun accessories to wear while listening to the story. We had a blast finding a hat that was perfect for us and Mrs. Doran snapped some fun pictures that she put in the slide show below.

Emily's dad was our Mystery Reader this week and he did a great job (and so did we- It's not easy to pay attention when you get to wear really cool hats)! He read us a book called, "Tiger in a Pink Hat". It was a great way to end the week on a high note! There are still Mystery Reader dates open, so take a look and see if one of the dates will fit into your schedule and contact Mrs. Doran.

We love moving and when it involves learning- even better! Mrs. Doran bought some 'tweakers' so we can hear movies and clips from her computer much easier now!

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Week 17 in Review

Greetings from room 119! It was a short week, but we still packed in tons of learning fun. We have been doing a lot of work with words. We have been sorting words into categories (like beginning sounds, ending sounds...) and we also have been identifying and practicing spelling words with a silent 'e'.

One way we work with words is through our Word Family Songbooks. We sing poems and look for spelling patterns in words that rhyme. We also sometimes have fun acting out the poems with friends creating new movements and teaching them to our others.

Though we did learn a bit about place value, Mrs. Doran really slowed down on math this week to give us a Benchmark Assessment. Benchmark Assessments (or BAs) are given at the end of a unit of study or card-marking to assess those 'Benchmarks' we have been learning about and you will see on the report card. The district Benchmark Assessment for math this second card marking was NINE PAGES! So Mrs. D. split it up throughout the week only giving us a couple pages at a time. She also read us all the directions and helped us to understand what a question was asking. Benchmark Assessments are not sent home, but used as a tool to drive instruction and to assess how we are doing in different areas.

While some of us were working on the BA with Mrs. Doran, the rest of us were busy working on 'scrolls'. In first grade we are getting to be really good counters. We filled in a grid where we counted to 100 (much like a hundreds chart). After Mrs. Doran checked them to make sure we wrote our numbers in the correct order, we were able to add another page and continue our counting. Some of us have written numbers up to 600. This has become something we really like to do and has motivated many of us to get ready early in the morning so we can work on 'scrolls' before the day begins. They are called scrolls because we roll them up like a scroll. Some of us have said we want to count up to 100,000... WOW!

Because of the Math BA, Mrs. Doran took a break from testing us in reading, but we did still work on the skills we've learned so far. We have added strategies to our CAFE board to really help us with our reading and have enjoyed sharing our reading with our friends.

We also learned about Story Elements this week. We learned about Characters, Setting, Problems and Solutions and were able to identify these Story Elements in our books. We also made a flip book that will be coming home next week that details the Story Elements from the book, "The Rainbow Fish."

We were a bit sad when Mrs. Doran told us that there was no Mystery Reader this week, but with all of the testing before report cards and losing a day this week (and Monday), she really couldn't give up the time. We are looking forward to starting up again next week. Remember, if you would like to volunteer or read to our class just contact Mrs. Doran or email her at lauradoran@wlcsd.org.

We also spent the week reading a biography which is a story about someone's life. We read and learned all about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Mrs. Doran then shared some videos with us so we could see real pictures of Dr. King and hear his voice. On Monday, our school district will be hosting a Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration. For more details you can click here.

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Week 16 in Review

Greetings and Happy New Year from room 119! We started off the Near Year getting right back into the groove of learning and having fun while doing it!
One of our favorite things we learned this week was a new game Mrs. Doran taught us called "The Bridge." We start out in two lines (one on either side of the of the classroom) and one person from each line meets together on a (make believe) bridge. Mrs. Doran then shows us a flash card (she has tested us on addition facts and telling time) and the first person to answer the question correctly gets to bring the other person back to their 'side', and the game continues with the next two students in line meeting on "The Bridge".
A new year brought not just new ways to learn and have fun but new reasons to celebrate! And we had two special people to celebrate this week! Ella and Isabelle both had birthdays and are now seven years old! We had fun celebrating with them and singing to them.

Did you know that when our class sings to us that we get to stand on a chair? It is the only time that we are allowed to stand on a chair because when it is our birthday we are the queen (or king) for the day!

For social studies we have been learning about maps and how to read them. We learned that "Map Keys" are the place that unlock the clues on how to read a map. We made our own maps of playgrounds that we designed and had a great time. Our maps will be coming home soon for you to see. Don't forget to ask us about them and for us to show you where everything is on our map.

Mrs. Doran will be reading with us again soon to test us and see how we have improved since September. When she instructs us in books, we usually read books that are a little harder than what we could pick up and read by ourselves. Mrs. Doran is excited to read with us again and let you know how we are doing!

Mrs. D. has also been getting on us about writing more high frequency words correctly. She gave us some words to write earlier in the week and if we misspelled any words, she helped us learn those words. Some of us wrote all the words right the first time! By the end of the week almost everyone was able to spell all the words correctly!

We also practiced writing words in shaving cream. Mrs. Doran noticed that some of us are still forming some of our letters incorrectly. The lower case "a" especially was one that was tough for many of us. We can practice this at home. A fun way to practice is by writing letters (and words) in shaving cream. To keep it clean, have us 'write' on a baking sheet.

Mrs. Doran didn't have a Mystery Reader scheduled for Friday, but we didn't know it. Thankfully one of her favorite people was able to come in last minute (since we love Mystery Readers so much)! As usual, Mrs. D gave us clues throughout the day about the Mystery Reader. We were really surprised with the last clue when Mrs. Doran said that the Mystery Reader had a first grade TEACHER at Loon Lake Elementary. That's right, Mrs. Doran's mom came in to read to us! We had fun listening to her story and were a great audience, and of course, she got a picture of the Mystery Reader and her first grader!

Isabelle and Sarah created hand movements to go with our word family song this week.

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