Week 18 in Review

Greetings from the hat-wearing first graders in room 119!

Last week we continued to bring in money to help the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society help children in need. Mrs. Doran had a typo in last week's review. She should have said we raised over $100.00... this week we raised even more putting our grand total for our class at $375.87!! On Friday alone we brought in $237.19 (pictured) to add to our school's grand total of OVER $6000.00!!!! Thank you to all of you who participated!

We continued to work on organization in our writing and Mrs. D. again gave us some sticky notes so we could jot down some of out thoughts before writing. Our writing is becoming more developed! It is fun to look back at how we used to write and see what we are able to do now!

Similarly in reading we have made a lot of progress. Mrs. D. finished testing all of us on our reading. She reminded us that it is really important that we read each night. With four kids at home with busy schedules, she understands how busy life can be, but taking time each night before bed to read will really help us improve. Everyone made progress from the fall and we continue to work well in the classroom and during our Reader's Workshop. Mrs. D. will continue groups next (which is now this) week.

Reading isn't the only thing that we were tested in... we also took a math assessment! It was a longer assessment so we had a few days to finish it and we loved working in our own 'office' to complete the test. Mrs. D. read the questions to us and got a workout walking around the room to answer clarifying questions that we had. Though this assessment will not be sent home, she will share how we did on it in our report cards which will be available on Skyward on the 30th of this month.

By Friday our testing was done and it was time to celebrate! It was an odd day because it took us 45 minutes to sort and count money (and that was without including Mrs. D's entire half hour prep in the morning which she began sorting out all those coins!). Counting the money each morning (and for so long on Friday) turned out to be great practice in sorting and of course counting! We also tallied dollars as we counted them and later added all of our week's totals with a calculator. You see a lot of us wearing hats (and Mrs. D. wearing jeans) in the picture at the top of this post because we brought in extra money to help kids fighting cancer.

Our fifth grade buddies came to our class on Friday afternoon and since they were a little early, they had fun practicing word families with us by dancing and singing. I think that they had as good a time as we did!

Then Mrs. D. read us a story and we talked about kids that are different. We talked about how to treat others and what we could do if we saw someone teasing someone else because they were different. We had a great conversation and then we got to work and made cards that we will send to kids that are fighting cancer to encourage them and let them know that we are thinking of them. Sometimes a card with a heartfelt note can be worth a million dollars to someone who needs it.

And finally we were very excited to end our week with a Mystery Reader! Bryan's and Lauren's mom came in to read us a story. She had great clues which kept us guessing up until that final clue was read! She read "Horton Hears a Who" by Dr. Seuss which contains one of Mrs. Doran's favorite lines, "A person's a person no matter how small." We sure showed this week that it doesn't matter how little you are or how little you can do (making a card or bringing in spare change), you really CAN make a difference in the lives of others! Thank you for helping US make a difference!

With all the testing, Mrs. D. didn't snap too many pictures this week, but the pictures she did take can be found in the slideshow below.

This free picture slideshow personalized with Smilebox