Days With Mrs. Doran: Week 20 in Review

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Week 20 in Review

Greetings from room 119. Mrs. D. came in to school on Friday, only to get sick and need to go home. Thankfully it appeared that we had a great guest teacher (who taught in the district for ten years) and some parent volunteers for math who said it went well. Mrs. D. is feeling better and looking forward to Monday so she can hear more about how we were. Many of the pictures she takes are on Friday, so she didn't get a nice group shot of our class but the picture above is almost as cute to look at.

In math this week we did a lot with fact families and with all of the added practice, it seems like more and more of us are getting this concept. In addition to working with Mrs. Doran, we also worked with some of our parent volunteers using dominoes. We are also getting better at working on our math boxes independently which will help us get ready for second grade (now that we are half way through first grade).

In writing, we are working on "All About Me" books. We began by writing about our families and will add more to our books next week. Mrs. D. will be typing the books for us. We noticed that what seemed like a lot of writing in our notebooks, wasn't always that much when she typed. This has inspired some of us to add more details to our writing.

In reading we continued to learn about story elements (which also helps our writing). Ask us what story elements are. We learned that if we pay attention to story elements, they help us retell a story and improve our comprehension (Mrs. D. didn't get any pictures of us reading this week).

We were very excited to have "Star Students" this week. Mrs. D. pulls sticks to choose a star for each day of the week. The star gets to share a poster, wear a cape for the day, sit at Mrs. D.'s desk and get a great book from all of us! This week's stars were, Vasu, Calynn, Taryn, Bailey and Elizabeth.

The book that we make for our "Stars" is in the form of letters that we write to them and also includes one from our parents at the end. This has been great practice for us with writing letters. We are getting much better at writing the five parts of a letter: date, greeting, body, closing and signature. It is amazing how much better our writing has gotten since the beginning of the year.

On February 2nd, we learned about Groundhog Day. Mrs. D. showed us some videos of Puxatony Phil and we learned about the tradition of Groundhog Day. She also read a book to us. We learned that because the Groundhog saw his shadow, there will be 6 more weeks of winter. If winter is as mild as it has been, that shouldn't be too bad.

After the book, we worked on sequencing. We were given different events from Groundhog Day and had to put them in the order that they occurred. This is an important skill for us to work on that will also help us with our retells.

It was an exciting week for Taryn! On the day she was the "Star" she also lost her first tooth! Did you know that we have been keeping track of all of the teeth we have lost in first grade? We have a great graph displayed on our window. Mrs. D. also gives us a sticker to wear.

Taryn also got a surprise on Friday when her mom came again to be our Mystery Reader! Mrs. D. wasn't there to take a picture, so she used a picture from the last time Taryn's mom read (hopefully we were a great audience). If you have not yet been a Mystery Reader, we are in need of one on February 17th (please let Mrs. D. know if you are interested). There are also slots open in the spring. Mrs. D. would love for everyone to have someone special in their lives read to our class.

Report cards were available for viewing on Thursday. If you were unable to see our report card, let Mrs. D. know so she can help you. Hopefully you were able to celebrate all the wonderful progress we have made this year, and were able to see areas that you could support us in at home to continue to help us grow.

Don't forget to check out the slide show below!