Greetings from room 119! It was the first week of what will hopefully be a very successful and fun year for all of us. These first few weeks of school we build our community, learn routines and expectations and have some fun along the way. Please check in every weekend to hear our 'week's review' and consider signing up to get this blog via email anytime Mrs. Doran updates it (you can stop getting emails whenever you choose to).
Mrs. Doran read us many books this week including one titled, "First Grade Stinks". First grade doesn't really stink, but it is a lot different than kindergarten. We have a lot to get done this year so it was important that we set up some rules for our classroom. We all shared some great ideas and by the time Mrs. Doran recorded all our suggestions, her big chart paper was full! It was hard to remember all those rules so Mrs. Doran helped us come up with three rules that summed up al our ideas:
We will respect ourselves, respect each other, respect our class and school. We all agreed these were good things to strive for so we signed that we would agree to always do our best to follow these rules.
In addition we have been learning about PBS. PBS stands for Positive Behavior Support and is something that our school teaches and celebrates! Throughout the year when any staff see us demonstrating one of the 5 Rs (responsibility, readiness, resiliency, respectfulness and reliability), they may choose to write us a 'ticket'. These tickets are put up in the main hallway for the school to see and a few lucky tickets will be pulled during our school announcements each week.
We all showed respectful behavior when we started our classroom routines and began learning about each other from a Me-Box. This week Mrs. Doran, Bryan and Taya all shared their Me-Boxes so we could learn more about them. Everyone will get a chance to share their Me-Box soon. When it is your turn to have the Me-Box, we also make you a book. In this book we practice writing names using capitals in the correct way and draw pictures with as much detail as we can (detail in our pictures will later transfer to detail in our written words).
Speaking of written words, Mrs. Doran LOVES to write and though it was the first week of school, we didn't waste any time getting started in writing. We learned a little bit about how we will use our Writer's Notebooks this year (don't forget to do your homework) and we also made Number Books showing all the places we see numbers in the world. We did a great job and Mrs. Doran sees the makings of some wonderful writers. You can see some of our wonderful writing by clicking
HERE. She has set up another blog showcasing her wonderful writers and has published some writing that is now hanging in our hallway advertising the upcoming Ice Cream Social.
The best writers are often the best readers. Reading helps us expand our vocabulary and learn the power of the written word. Books can make us laugh (we did a lot of this this week), cry and think. This week we started our Reader's Workshop by learning how we can read a book. There are 3 ways we can read a book. Ask us what those three ways are. We then practiced reading and building our "Reading Stamina". We have been able to read close to four minutes without distraction and hope to build our stamina to at least 20 minutes. Ask us what will happen when we get to 20 minutes...
We also did some fun things in math this week. We learned a new song (and exercise) to help us count by fives. Practicing counting in patterns forward and backward helps us build our number sense. This is something that you can help us with easily at home or even while driving in the car. Ask us to count forward or backwards by 2s, 5s, or 10s. You can also pick a number and ask us to count forward or backward starting with that number.
We will be using a lot of math manipulatives in our classroom this year to help us build our number sense. Mrs. Doran gave each table a pair of dice and we rolled the dice and solved addition problems. We also recorded those problems on a paper. We worked together as a table and Mrs. D. told us that she had a surprise for the table that worked the best together.
Some of us thought that 'best' meant having the most problems solved but Mrs. D. told us that what she liked seeing the best was the way we worked together, helped each other and cheered each other on. For being so 'smart', we all were given some Smarties to have while enjoying a story.
Finally on Friday our new principal, Ms. Qonja, started a new tradition at LLE. We told Mrs. D. our wishes for the school year. She wrote them down and attached them to a balloon. We then went outside with the rest of the students at our school and sent our wishes to the sky! Please look below for more pictures from this week.
Greetings from room 119. Though we continue to be a bit chatty, we were MUCH better this week and Mrs. D. knows that we are headed in the right direction. Mrs. Ziegler caught us being super quiet in the hallway and even wrote us a PBS ticket! Also, please know that Mrs. D. has added some information to this blog. She has posted the Mystery Reader Schedule, Parent Teacher Conference Schedule, updated the Homework Information and added our Social Studies Writing to our Mrs. Doran's Wonderful Writer's blog (a direct link is on the right). Don't forget to check them all out!
We continue to work on our Reading Stamina and overall did a great job this week. Mrs. Doran was able to listen to all of us read and will be sending books home in our next week's homework bag that are just right for us to practice with. To gather more information about us as readers, the first grade teachers will all have substitutes on Tuesday so they can test us individually and better plan for instruction. Remember if you would like to build our home libraries that you can still order books from our book order. Orders are due on the 26th. Mrs. Doran has added book order information under the Parent References link to the right or you can find it by clicking HERE. Feel free to share this information with family and friends who may want to purchase a book for us.
Of course the most exciting news (and many of you probably have already heard this by now), was that MRS. DORAN DID A CARTWHEEL!! That's right, we made it to 21 minutes of totally on task and quiet reading! We actually made it to 2o minutes two days this week. Though Mrs. D. didn't have us take a video of her cartwheel, we assure you it was quite "Olympic-Like" (a-hem). Actually, we were thankful there wasn't a need to call for backup and aside from a few stars she saw, she did a great job and is happy she won't have to do another until next year.
We really dove into Writer's Workshop this week and setting up the routine for how this will be run. After a mini-lesson, we go back to our tables to write. First we THINK about what we want to write about. Then we draw a horizontal line dividing our paper in half. Next we sketch in pencil what we will write about. Mrs. D. has us sketch for 3-5 minutes. She encourages us to add as much detail to our pictures as possible as this will help us add detail to our words. After that time is up, we write and stretch out all the sounds of words we do not yet know how to spell and record them on our paper. Once we have a sentence on the page, you may think we'd be done but Mrs. D. has taught us, "Once you're done, You've just begun." We can either add to our picture, add to our words, or begin a new story. At the end of our writing time, Mrs. Doran picks some sticks (with our names on them) and chooses people to share their writing. She keeps track and makes notes so she knows what things she needs to work on with us and it helps her determine what the next day's mini-lesson will be about.
In math this week we continued our review from things we learned in kindergarten and on Thursday we took our first "test". The class worked in centers while Mrs. Doran called back 3 students at a time to work on the test. She read the directions to us and clarified any questions we may have. She also took notes when she was able to observe our thinking processes and how we solved a problem. The tests we took will come home on Monday so you can see how we did. If you have questions, you can contact her.
We also began Math Centers. Beginning in October, we will have parent volunteers to help us during this time (Mrs. D. will contact you next week if you signed up). Mrs. D. gave each table something to work on while she worked with students at her table. We had to stop quite a bit because our volume got a bit loud at times, but we are still learning. We build many of the foundations of math during center times.
Fridays are always special days in room 119. We meet with our fifth grade buddies from Mrs. Turek's room. Mrs. T. read us a book about being special and then we met with our buddies and shared three things that make us special (though we could have thought of way more than three). We recorded these things down and enjoyed getting to know our buddies. Some of us knew our fifth grade buddies because they live in our neighborhoods, or perhaps even our house!
The highlight of the day though of course was discovering who our Mystery Reader was. We enjoyed learning the clues about our Mystery Reader and up until the last clue, there were about five of us that thought we knew who the Mystery Reader was. In the end, it was Carter's mom who came to read to us and she did a great job! She read one of Carter's favorite books. There are still many Mystery Reader slots available, so please check out the link here and let Mrs. D. know if you would be available to read.
And finally, this week we made cards for some of the brave men and women who serve our country. While these cards will be shipped out to one troop, we are thankful for all who serve. Please check out the link below and share it with your favorite service men and women. To see the video on YouTube, you can click HERE. You cannot do a direct search for this video, so you will need to copy the link and send it to those family and friends who serve our country. And as always, extra pictures from the week are shown below. Have a great weekend!
We were excited to celebrate our first birthday in room 119! Izzy turned seven this week and we had fun celebrating with her. She brought in some yummy watermelon for all of us to eat and we sang to her. When it is your birthday you get to stand on a chair and choose how we sing to you! Izzy learned it is like heaven to be seven!
