A year... in Review

Dear First (now Second) Grade Families,

This time of year is so bittersweet. As I sit in my empty classroom, I am filled with memories that your children left me this year and I must say a sincere thank you. Thank you for sharing them with me this year and thank you for being so supportive. Your kindness this last week along with the heartfelt notes of thanks had me (literally) in tears. I will keep the notes always to read on days I need a "pick-me-up" because they made me feel better than you can imagine. This group holds a special place in my heart and I hope that they will be like many of my former students and keep coming back~ even if just to say a hello and tell me how they are~ my door is always open.

As for this blog experiment, I thank you for allowing me to document your children's first grade year for the world to see (as many of your relatives and friends- as well as mine, have tuned in). Education has changed so very much from when I was a student and I wanted to communicate with you what our days looked like and from your letters and notes I know that I was able to do just that.

And finally, as I joke with my students, "Once a student of Mrs. D, always a student of Mrs. D", so, too, are you part of this very important community. If you have any questions, I will be checking my work email at least once a week this summer. Our teachers at Loon Lake Elementary are among the best. I truly believe that, and I know your children will always be successful if they put their minds to it (they have proven that within the walls of room 119).

And so this will be my final blog to you parents of the 2010-2011 school year. If you have younger children, I do hope that I will get the opportunity to work with you again. If you are getting this blog via email, there is a link at the bottom at which you can 'unsubscribe' to the email list. This blog will be up always for you to come back and "remember when" you child began their academic years~ blink and they will be grown up!

I have attached (surprise) a slide show of our last days together and have also set up (another surprise) a "Summer Suggestions" blog which is what I sent home (to those who requested it) minus the handouts, but plus cool links. I look forward to see all the writing that takes place this summer. Give your second grader a hug, tell them I miss them, and that I'll see them next year!

Take care and enjoy your summer!
Laura Doran

(Click to see some Summer Suggestions)

This free photo slideshow customized with Smilebox

Week 36 in Review

Greetings from room 119! It is hard to believe that we just completed our last full week of the year! Thanks for checking in. Here are some of the highlights from this week along with some slide shows.

When we arrived at school on Monday, all of our butterflies were alive and well but we could tell from all their fluttering that an active first grade classroom was not the best habitat for them. We went out to the edge of our playground near a yard with many flowers and watched as they flew away! It was a wonderful sight and we all said so long to our dear friends and wished them well on their new journeys!

One butterfly however, did not leave. He was the one whose chrysalis fell and when he emerged, his wings were still wet. If you look closely, you can see how his wing was bent. He liked staying on Mrs. D's hand and we got to see him real close up. We decided to bring him back to our classroom and we gathered leaves and flowers to help make his habitat more comfortable. Sadly, when Mrs. D. came back to school the next day our friend had passed. We did feel good knowing that we did all we could and learned a little about the life cycle and what could happen if a chrysalis falls.

We continue to read like crazy and most of us are reading chapter books. We also enjoyed reading our own works. Mrs. D. decided to send our portfolios home so you can see the progression of our writing this year. She forgot to put one piece in our portfolios. She sent it home in a plastic sleeve on Friday so you could add it yourself. She hopes you enjoy looking at some of our hard work and seeing how much we have grown this year! Our writer's notebooks will be coming home on Monday along with our book boxes. You may want to send in an extra bag with us so we can take everything home.

Many of us have used up our Writer's Notebooks and are anxious to start a new one. If you haven't run out and bought us one yet, don't! Mrs. D. has a surprise that she will be handing out on Monday. Please continue to encourage us to write. We are so motivated right now. The hard part isn't becoming a writer, it's staying a writer. We recently finished a book about a writer named "Harriet the Spy" this week. Ask us about her and how her writing got her into some trouble and the lessons she learned by the end of the book. This book was also made into a movie so it is now "safe" to watch it (Mrs. D. has not seen it so does not know it's rating or if it is any good... She has yet to see a movie as good as a book, but hopefully "Harriet the Spy" is one worth watching).

We did a fun activity for math this week. We cut out butterflies, folded them down the "line of symmetry" and painted one side. We then folded them again and when we opened them, many of us had a beautiful butterfly. We say, "most" because some of us used so much paint that the paper was too saturated and difficult to pull apart (good lesson for our first grade teacher for her next year's class).

We celebrated another un-birthday this week! Keyar will be turning 7 shortly after school gets out. He brought in a snack and we enjoyed singing to him and cheering for him. Mrs. D. went through our list and we have now celebrated every one's birthday this year! What a year it has been!

A week or so after school gets out we will also be celebrating another holiday, and though Mrs. D. won't be with us, she did want to do something for the dads in our lives. We began a very special project that will be coming home soon. Keep an eye out for it and maybe we can keep it mum until Father's Day (though she understands that sometimes it is hard to wait).

This week Mrs. D. also assembled special books for our volunteers (these took longer than a week to do with so many wonderful helpers). She bought flower pots for us to sign and made some bright flower pens. We were very lucky to have so much help this year. Thank you to everyone but especially to the moms who came in and helped in the classroom (Moms of Faith, Evan, Grace, Isabelle and Ella).

Many of those moms (and other moms and dads and grandmas) came to celebrate with us on Friday! Faith's mom planned another great party and so many of you sent in things and helped. It was a wonderful time because everyone worked together. If we have learned one thing this year, hopefully it is how to be a good community and to help and be kind to one another. Mrs. D. of course took a lot of pictures so has added an additional slide show below.

And finally, Mrs. D. let us play the "Bridge" game in math. This is a fun game that helps us master those math facts. She will be adding this to her list of Summer Suggestions that will come home on Monday.

And now she has a favor to ask of you... She has put up some questions on the blog and is asking if you would take a moment to answer them. It is always important to stop and assess how you are doing so she is doing just that and would like your feedback. If you are getting this via email, please click on "Days with Mrs. Doran" below and go directly to the site. She thanks you in advance! Have a great weekend!

Another digital slideshow by Smilebox

This free slideshow customized with Smilebox

Mid-Week Updates

I have added more information on my school funding page. To reach it directly, please click here.

Just a reminder that our End of the Year Party is tomorrow from 1:05- 2:30 (I will be getting the students from recess at 1:05 and it may take a while to 'settle'). Remember to wear your favorite Hawaiian or "Tacky Tourist" clothes for a hopping hula good time! Sunglasses and hats are OK too (let's hope for sun!).

Have a great day!
Mrs. Doran

Week 35 in Review

Greetings from room 119! As we wind down the year, Mrs. D. has been extremely busy wrapping up assessments and continuing to use our time left as best she can. Summer Suggestion Packets will come home soon if you requested them. Mrs. D. apologizes for getting this blog up late but had a medical emergency in the family. Thankfully everything seems to be OK now...
Our week was short one day due to the Memorial Day Holiday (many of us participated in the local parade by walking and passing out candy). The week felt even shorter though because when we came back on Tuesday, we weren't really in the classroom all day. We had a WONDERFUL time at Field Day (as you have probably seen from the MANY pictures Mrs. D. posted in her last post). Mr. Olack did a great job, our super PTA again gave us some amazing shirts and we saw many of our parents out there volunteering! Just another reason to love LLE and the special people that work together to make it a stupendous place to be (Mrs. D. is using some of our favorite adjectives)!

We did talk about Memorial Day on Wednesday (when we were actually in our classroom). We learned about the flag in our Scholastic Magazine and why it looks the way that it does. It has changed over the years. Mrs. D. also showed us a video (by scholastic) all about the flag and it's history!

Our magazine also had a play that Ms. Carter helped us read. At the end of the play, there were questions to answer and we did a great job with this. These types of questions are perfect practice for us as we get ready for second grade! Learning to "take" tests and answer multiple choice questions is a lesson in itself. There is more that goes into taking tests than you may think (even for smart first graders like us!). This is one of the reasons Mrs. D. assesses us in many different ways.

Ms. Carter continues to come in regularly but she is only one of many amazing volunteers we had this year! We made some posters (and other surprises which is why Mrs. D. didn't take too many pictures) and sang a song for the LLE volunteers as they walked down the hallway to a special volunteer luncheon in the media center! We did a great job singing (Mrs. D. will post a video soon. She had to delete Field Day pictures to make room since she ran out of memory space on her camera). Thank you again to Faith's, Grace's, Evan's, Isabelle's and Ella's moms, Mrs. D's former student, Ms. Carter and all the FABULOUS Mystery Readers we had this year! We'd also like to thank all those parents that work behind the scenes with donations and things. We've been very lucky to have so many awesome adults in our lives!
As mentioned earlier, we are in the time of year where Mrs. D. is doing a lot of assessments. One way she assesses us is good old fashioned pencil and paper tests. This big math test we took is called a Benchmark Assessments and assesses all that we learned this marking period. You will learn MUCH more about BAs as we get older. This test had 30 problems, but most of us thought it was a breeze! There was no way we could have taken a test this long independently in the beginning of the year! We've really come a long way!

Our writing has also improved so much this year! You will see this very clearly when we bring home our portfolios soon as well as our Writer's Notebooks. Writing remains one of our favorite times of the day and all that work and practice has really paid off. If you haven't already, please check out our new Writing Blog and leave us comments on our writing! Mrs. Doran will be updating it again soon (Tuesday morning she hopes).

Our stamina in reading has also improved. It is hard to believe that earlier in the year we were just working to get to 20 minutes so that Mrs. Doran would do that cartwheel for us! Not only did we get to 20 minutes, we passed it and we are often sad when Mrs. D. tells us that it is time to move onto something else. The more we read, the better we will become. Put good books in our hands and we will read them! The best source to find good books is your local libraries (Mrs. D. will post information on them soon).

In science this week, our butterflies finally emerged from their chrysalises. Shockingly, the chrysalis that fell (and we assumed had died) had a butterfly emerge from it mid week. We loved watching this happen and cheered on our little insect. The only problem was because the chrysalis was on the ground, the butterflies wings couldn't dry and one of its wings is not working so well. Mrs. D. carefully moved the butterfly into a position so his wing could dry. So far the butterfly seems to be doing OK.

Mrs. D. added more sugar water and some other flowers to make the habitat better for our new friends. We were still waiting for one more butterfly to emerge on Friday when we left school. We have been able to see such a great change in just a few short weeks!

Our week started out great and it ended great. On Friday we celebrated Brooke's birthday! This was not an "Unbirthday" (like the ones we have been celebrating recently) but her 7th birthday and we were able to celebrate it right on the day! Happy Birthday Brooke! Remember, there is still time left if you'd like to celebrate those summer birthdays, but let Mrs. D. know soon as our days in first grade are coming quickly to an end!

One of the big highlights this year has been Mystery Readers and Brooke got an extra birthday surprise when her dad showed up (with her mom) to read us a story! We were excited to see him again (We saw him earlier in the week when he was spraying us with a water bottle while we were doing the Treasure Hunt on Field Day). He read us two of our favorite books and did a great job! Though our days are coming to an end, if you haven't read and would like to, contact Mrs. D. and she'll work something out so you can come in and read to us! More surprises next week!