School Supplies!

Perhaps you came to this link via my class facebook page because you are still subscribed to my page or perhaps you stumbled across it while looking up the first grade teachers at our school...  Whether you're reading this early in the summer or before school starts, I wanted to share with you the suggested school supply list for the 2013-2014 school year.  You can click HERE to view ALL grade level supply lists and hopefully take advantage of sales over the summer months.

IF YOU ARE IN MY CLASSROOM IN 2013-2014 READ BELOW!!

Please note that if you came here because you are in MY class, you will NOT need to buy scissors or colored pencils (I have plenty of both).  Also the only things I ask you to label are your child's 1 inch binder (feel free to decorate it if you would like, it will house their portfolio work for the year) and please write your child's name on the composition books.  If you find a deal on plastic page protectors you'd like to donate to the classroom, we are always in need of them.

Also, I know that shopping for fun folders, pencil boxes, sharpeners and those sorts of things can be fun but please don't send them into school.  We don't have a lot of room for those extra materials.  I do think that those fun items (should you choose to buy them) can be used at home for days you are doing homework and things.  Sometimes just a fancy new pencil can help your child want to write.  Speaking of pencils, if you're wondering why we prefer you buy the Ticonderoga pencils, it's because their lead is always in the center (other companies don't always do that and so you end up throwing away pencils because they can't be sharpened).

Have questions?  Just send me an email.

:-)

~Mrs. D.

lauradoran@wlcsd.org

2012-2013 Year in Review

Dear First Second Grade Families,

It's hard to believe that another school year has come to an end.  While Room 119 isn't quite closed yet (though I'm working on it), it feels so empty without the wonderful personalities that learned here this last school year.

This is the last blog post of the school year.  If you are reading this blog in your email and would like to unsubscribe from this blog, please click on the "unsubscribe" button at the bottom of this email.

Please remember that on June 17th, report cards will be available for you to view.

I also wanted to encourage you to continue to do some sort of learning with your children this summer. I have a blog of summer suggestions that will hopefully be fun and keep your child's mind in great shape this summer.  If you ever have any questions, I will be checking my email in the summer (though not daily as I had during the school year).  To check out the summer blog, you can click HERE.  It has ideas and suggestions that you can do with your older and younger children too.

Thank you again for all the wonderful words, gifts and hugs you and your children shared with me this last week.  I do hope that they will keep in touch and come see me again.  As they learned this year once a student of Mrs. Doran, always a student of Mrs. Doran!  Even some of my first graders turned college students still come back to say hi (and I love it!).  

Please enjoy the last final video from the year by clicking HERE or viewing it below.  

Finally I wanted to thank those of you who took the survey I sent out a couple weeks ago.  It was good to know what you think went well and what suggestions you had for me (I loved reading your personal responses!).  It will help me in making decisions next year.  I will include the anonymous (multiple choice) portion of the survey below (in case you were curious).

Have a WONDERFUL summer!

Sincerely,

Laura Doran

PS.  We found the missing yearbook!!!  Thank you for checking!

18 people took the survey

1. Is your child required to do too much, too little or about the right amount
of homework each week?

Somewhat too much: 1 = 5.6%

Slightly too much: 2= 11.1%

About the right amount: 12=66.7%

Slightly too little: 3= 16.7%

Somewhat too little: 0= 0%

2. Did you like having homework come home once a week, or would you
prefer a Tuesday/Thursday (etc) schedule?

Once a week: 18= 100%

Tues/Thurs: 0= 0%

3. How well did Mrs. Doran communicate with you?

She communicated well: 17=94.4%

I would prefer more communication: 1= 5.6%

I would prefer less communication: 0= 0%

Week 37 in Review

Greetings from room 119!  We completed the last full week of school in first grade and Mrs. D. finds it hard to believe!  It seems like yesterday we were just meeting and here we are getting ready to say goodbye.  

 We continue to do all those routine things that Mrs. D. doesn't always write about: our math minute in the morning, editing and revising our morning message and more.

Robbie had a birthday this week and we had fun celebrating him turning 7!  He spent the day (and night) with Ollie (our birthday owl) and passed out goodie bags at school.  He also got a new book that Mrs. D. read to the class.

We are almost done with our word family song books.  Did you know that we regularly sang songs with word families and looked for patterns to spell new words.  You'll be seeing these as they come home next week.

We've also been adding more pages to our portfolios.  Next week, Mrs. D. will give us our birthday pages from our Birthday Bag and our tooth pages from our Tooth Tote.  We've enjoyed looking back at how far we've come.

 Mrs. D. did finish all of her testing this week and we ALL made great progress this year!  She was so proud of us and enjoyed telling our future second grade teachers about how well we did this year!  She will be sending home our reading levels along with some suggested titles, should you want them, along with a summer blog with ideas to help us stop the "summer slide".

Our Reading Stamina also greatly improved.  We went from being able to read about 5 minutes to reading close to 45.  We've learned to love books, to question books and to make connections with books.  Please continue to have us read to you and read to us.  Your reading to us helps us read more fluently.

Finally, we took a look at a specific piece of writing we did in the fall compared to a writing piece we just completed (with the same topic).  What a difference!

With so much going on and with all the end of the year demands, Mrs. D. didn't take a ton of pictures this week and we didn't have a Mystery Reader this week.  She did get to see Maddie's All-Star team beat her daughter's All-Star team.  You can see the pictures from this week in a quick video by clicking HERE or looking below.

Just a reminder that we will be having our End-of-the-Year Party on Monday from 3:00-3:45.  It is a low-key party and we will be going out to play and just spend time with one another.  You are welcome to come if you would like.  Mrs. D. will (of course) be taking pictures.

Please remember to send us with our backpacks each day next week, as we have many things we need to bring home.

3 QUICK THINGS (I promise)

As a thank you for being so supportive this year, the PTA will be giving ALL of LLE students FREE POPCORN tomorrow!  No need to send in any money!  You can also wear your LLE Spirit-Wear or tie-dye to get an extra treat!

 

THANK YOU PTA!!

 

 

Also, please mark your calendars:

The ONLY lunch choice on May 10th will be the hamburger.

 

 

And finally, now that we are nearing the end of the year and I will soon be completing assessments on your children, I'm asking you to take a moment and assess me.

Please click HERE to take a quick 5 question survey on how things went this year.

It is COMPLETELY anonymous and your answers will help me to better serve my future students.

Thank you in advance!

Week 36 in Review

Greetings from Room 119!  Mrs. D. is kind of in denial that the school year will end in just 8 days!  You will be very happy to know though that after we turn in our homework on Monday, we'll be done for the year!  She still has a lot of reading assessments to get in so we may have a read-in next week (to help her get in all that lovely testing), stay tuned!  It was a fun week with lots of picture taking so be sure to check out the different videos Mrs. D. put together for you.

 We have been doing a great job with our writing.  Not only are we listening to those things Mrs. D. asks us to focus on, but we're picking up tips from other's writing!  We are really focusing on rereading our writing to make sure that it is just the way we want it to be.  We are excited to be sharing our writing with you very soon!

 In our writing, we sometimes write contractions, but we didn't really know what contractions were.  Mrs. D. told us that the word "contract" means to make smaller.

 We made words and then an apostrophe would come in and make those two words one (and kick out a couple letters in the process).  We had fun being the words and learning about contractions.

 Our last butterfly finally emerged from its chrysallis.  We went outside and found an area near some flowers and let them go.  We had fun watching them fly away.  Mrs. D. found a real cool video that shows the life span of a monarch butterfly.  You can click HERE to see it.  She also made a video of our butterfly release that you can see by clicking HERE.  One butterfly didn't want to leave us right away.  Check it out!

 On Friday, we were very excited to have Field Day!  It was a nice hot day and we were having a blast... that is until the heavens opened and chased us inside.  Still, Mrs. D. took lots of pictures and videos before the rain started so you could see what field day was like.  You can click HERE to see that video (please forgive the typo in the video, Mrs. D. noticed it after she published it and has so much on her plate she figured you'd forgive her for it).

Finally, Brandon's mom came in in the afternoon and was our final Mystery Reader of the year.  We enjoyed listening to her and all of our amazing Mystery Readers this year.  Thank you so much for coming into our classroom and sharing your favorite books with us.  A child who is surrounded by readers will become a reader himself.

We learned some fun social studies songs, practiced our math facts and had a lot more fun (especially with it being spirit week).  Be sure to check out the video below or click HERE.