Upcoming Events

Blogger is experiencing a glitch and is not allowing me to publish upcoming events like I usually do (on the side), so I am putting them in a post.  I will move this to its regular place on the blog as soon as I can.

Oct. 2- Count Day!

Oct. 8- PBS Education Night- Homework

Oct. 9- Market Day Pick Up 5pm-6pm

Oct. 9-Annual Report Presentation 7-7:30pm

Oct. 9- PTA General Meeting 7:30pm

Oct. 10- Popcorn/Spirit Day (Wear Orange!)

Oct. 12- Packing Party 9:30am-Noon

Oct. 15- All-Pro Dad Meeting 8-9am

Oct. 17- Marco's Pizza Day

Oct. 18- Fun Run

Oct. 22- Bus Evacuation Day

Oct. 22- Field Trip

Oct. 23- Fun Run Money Due

Oct. 23- Bonaventure Skate Night 6pm-8:30pm

Oct. 25- Fun Run Prizes Drawn

Oct. 31- Halloween Parade 2:15

Oct. 31- Halloween Party 2:30-3:40

Week 4 in Review

Greetings from Room 119!  We had a great week especially Thursday when we had a special "Apple Day," where all our learning was centered around apples.  To see pictures and videos from the day you can click HERE or check out the video below.

We also had a big week in reading!  We've been working on our stamina and we made it to 20 minutes!  This has allowed Mrs. D. to meet with the students she was unable to test last week.  

Now that she has tested all of us, she will be sending home "just right" books for us to read in our homework bags on Monday.  These books should be kept at home and can be revisited throughout the year.  You may want to set aside a special place to keep the books (a shoebox or basket... etc).  We should be re-reading the books each day to help us improve our fluency.

We were also excited to add some of our early work from the year to the binders we brought in.  We call the binders our portfolios and they will come home at the end of the year.  We will work on portfolio pieces throughout the year that will go in our binders.  On Apple Day we wrote about our favorite part of the day and Mrs. D. will be putting our writing pieces in the hallway and then they will go in our portfolio.  If you ever want to see our portfolio during the year, just let Mrs. D. know and she'll send it home.  Just be sure to send it back the next school day.

Not only have we worked hard on our stamina, but we're also learning the expectations of Room 119.  We began doing math rotations in the classroom.  During math rotations, we are divided into three groups and while two of those groups are working on math center work and games, Mrs. D. is able to work with one group to problem solve and learn math strategies.  There are more pictures from math in our extra video below.

We also started learning about Social Studies.  Social Studies is the study of people and their interactions so we are beginning our study on Families.  We learned what the word "relative" means and talked about our relatives.  We also made our own family tree on Apple Day.  On Monday, we will be learning some more new vocabulary and in our homework bags we will be asked to make a simple time-line.  Be sure to check out our Homework Bags so we have time to work on this project.

We ended Friday the way we love to end our week... with a special Mystery Reader!  This time it was Zahraa's mom who came in and read to us.  She chose the book, "The Giving Tree," by Shel Silverstein.  She did a great job and we were a very good audience.

As always there is much more that went on in our room and you can click HERE to see more or check out the video below.

Also, you may have seen the video Ms. Qonja shared in a recent email regarding the upcoming Bond Election.  If you missed it, you can click HERE to view it.  Mrs. D. also shared it on our class Facebook page.  Please feel free to share it with others in the community so that everyone understands what it's about.  If you have any questions, let Mrs. D. know.

Apples, Books, Troops, Saving $ and Writing Help

A note came home on Monday regarding Apple Day.  Please remember to send in an apple with your child on Thursday, September 26th.

We will be visiting the library every Friday from 1:30-2:00 to check out books.  I have updated the FAPES schedule on the blog.  Please help remind your child to return their book on Friday.  If you would like to help during checkout, please let me know.

Just a reminder that a note was sent home in the Everyday Folder last Friday regarding a "Packing Party" to help support our troops and military working dogs.  Please send items in to school to support this awesome cause (that was brought to LLE by one of my former students).  If you would like another note (with suggested, needed items), please let me know.

Our School Pictures will be This Friday.  Remember if you'd like, you can order your pictures online by clicking HERE and entering the code that was on your order form.  Ordering online can also save you money.  When you are checking out you can apply the code "SAVE25" or "SAVE10" as a coupon.  Try SAVE25 first.  If it does not work, type in SAVE10.  I was told that the amount you can save is determined by how much you spend.  I was able to save 10% by entering the SAVE10 code on my children's pictures.

And finally, I put together a short 5 minute video to help guide you when working with your child in writing.  I hope that you find it a useful tool as you support your young writer.  As the year progresses, many of the supports you provide early can be removed.  If you ever have any questions on how to help your child, please ask me.  To view the video on YouTube you can click HERE.  You may also view it by clicking on the video below.

Week 3 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! We had a great week and are learning that first grade is a lot of work, but also a lot of fun.  If you haven't already, PLEASE make sure that you sign up to be a Mystery Reader.  Less than half of the class has someone signed up for them.  Click HERE to view available dates!

It was a busy week of testing for Mrs. Doran.  She was able to read with 21 of us to find our "just right" book and to learn where to start our instruction.  She still has 6 students to read with.  Once she is finished, she will begin reading groups and you will see "Just Right" books for us to practice coming home in our homework bags.  She hopes to finish testing by the end of next week but it is all dependent on if we can build our reading stamina.  We are still working toward our goal of 20 minutes!

In just a few short weeks we have already learned our routine for Writer's Workshop.  Right now, we are working on getting our ideas on paper.  We are working on putting details into our pictures, writing sounds we hear in words and, of course, adding good spaces.  Some of us are still trying to say "I'm done!"  But we know what Mrs. D. will say... "Once you're done, you've just begun!"  We began telling her what things she could add to her writing during our mini-lessons to make it more detailed.  This will help us start thinking of our own writing and what questions our readers may wonder about.

As you know from our homework, we have been learning about tallies this week in math.  We've done a really great job and Mrs. D. will be assessing this skill soon.  We also learned how to fill out a number grid and did a really good job with it.

We continue to learn and practice the math games we've learned.  Next week, we will begin practicing these math choices in "Rotations" because when we begin Math Workshop, we will need to be independent workers so that Mrs. D. can work with small groups of us on math skills.  We are also thankful to have some parent volunteers this year.  If you signed up (or wanted) to be a volunteer in the classroom and did NOT get an email from Mrs. D. last week let her know.  She send out an email late last week.

Ms. Qonja met with all the first grades this week to ask us what we want our school to be.  We did a great job and she shared how her job can help us.  Of course we are all responsible for our own learning, attitudes and behaviors.  She also read us the book "The Hare and the Tortoise," which goes along with our new PBIS theme.  To learn more about PBIS, be sure to visit their blog.  They are hosting an upcoming educational night on how to help us with homework.  To learn more about the night, click HERE.

We celebrated our first birthday in Room 119 this week (it was actually our second, but our first birthday girl opted to celebrate her birthday when her mom got in from out of town)!  Kaden turned 6 and his parents bought him a cool book that Mrs. D. read to all of us.  He also passed out some non-edible treats for us to enjoy and took our special friend, "Ollie" home for his birthday in Mrs. D's Birthday Bag.  Remember, if we have a birthday coming up to be sure to let Mrs. D. know.

We ended our week with a special Mystery Reader.  Massimo's dad came in to read us a story all about Curious George and the Pizza Party.  It was a great book and perfect because Massimo's dad also MAKES pizzas!  He even brought each of us a gummy, candied pizza treat to take home.  He did a great job reading to us and we were a WONDERFUL audience!

As always, this is just a snapshot of what we did this week.  To see more, you can click HERE or view the slideshow below.

Don't forget!  Marco's Pizza Night and Picture Day are coming up next week.  Be sure to visit Mrs. D's blog (if you're getting this via email) for upcoming events.

Week 2 in Review

Greetings from Room 119!  We just completed our first full week and Mrs. Doran was very happy to see that we are already learning routines and have grown a lot in just this first week.  Please note that for families of our English Language Learners, Mrs. D. has added a translate button on the blog so that you may read this blog in your home language.

Also, next week we will have a substitute so that Mrs. Doran can begin reading with us individually. This will help her plan for the next steps in our reading instruction.

As promised, Mrs. D. turned all those wonderful rules we came up with last week and put them into 3 short rules.  "We will respect ourselves, respect others, respect our classroom and school."  All of our rules fell under these rules.  We all (including Mrs. D.) signed the rules and they are now posted in our classroom.

Mrs. D. is turning over the morning routine to us.  Each day someone new will be able to be the "teacher" in Room 119.  They will help us edit the morning message and lead us through the calendar routine.  

We started writing in our Writer's Notebooks.  Thank you for helping us make our notebooks so personal.  Right now, Mrs. D. is helping us learn the routine for Writer's Workshop.  Most of us are working to make sure that our pictures match our words, that we have correct sounds to match our words, and that we are including spaces between words.  At the end of each workshop, we have about five students share their writing with the class.  We love putting our writing on the big screen.  Some of us are now working on using capitals in only the right places.  

We are also learning the routines of Reader's Workshop.  Mrs. D. begins this Workshop with a quick mini-lesson.  This week we learned the importance of reading books we love, practicing in "Just Right" books and finding the "Just Right" place to read.  We are working toward reading silently for 20 minutes.  Ask us what will happen when we achieve this goal.  Working on our reading stamina takes practice.  On Friday, we read for nine minutes without any interruption or off-task behavior tripling our time from the beginning of the week.  We are well on our way to making the 20 minute mark!

In math, we learned how to play Top-It and we can now also play it and other math games on the Everyday Math Website. Please look under "Links" and use our login and password taped to the back of our Everyday Folder.  We also experimented with all the different ways we can show numbers (addition and subtraction problems, words, dice, pictures and tallies).  We will be working more on tallies next week!

We had an assembly this week about "Filling Buckets" and making others feel good.  We put this into practice on Friday when we made "Get Well" cards for 21 year old John who is battling cancer at the Ronald McDonald house.  Mrs. D's class sent him cards last May for his birthday.  She learned he is not doing well and could use a dose of our well-wish medicine.  Mrs. D's kids and others in our school also added to the large envelope holding hope for John.

On Friday we met with our fifth grade buddies!  Every Friday, we will be meeting with Mrs. Turek's fifth graders.  We all met a new friend and worked on a project with them.  Mrs. D. read us a story and then Mrs. T. explained a project for our wishes for the school year.  Ask us about it!

And finally, we didn't end our day with a Mystery Reader but with Mystery Guests!  Yatiri's family came to our classroom to teach us about their Ecuadorian Native American culture.  We heard stories, learned about their dress and celebrations and even heard some of the traditional instruments that they use during their celebration during the Summer Solstice!

They also gave each of us a special hand made bracelet!

Thank you so much for spending time with us in our classroom.

As always, this is just a small taste of what went on within the walls of Room 119.  Click HERE or check out below to see more!  Don't forget to email Mrs. D. for a conference time if you haven't already and click HERE to see the Mystery Reader/ Guest schedule to sign up for a time to come in!

HELP WANTED!

There are more volunteer opportunities available 

(and for some you don't even have to leave your home).

I am looking for people to sharpen pencils.  Our pencils get quite dull from all our work.  Last year, I sent home a bag of dull pencils with students who volunteered to sharpen and return them.  

Let me know if you are interested.

As you may have noticed (from my call for Mystery Readers), 

I really want YOU to be a part of Room 119.

We had an AMAZING visit from Yatiri's family today.  They taught us all about their culture (Ecuadorian Natives).  If you would prefer to teach us something about your family (to being a Mystery Reader), please let me know.  I know we have many students this year from bilingual homes and we would love to hear about your traditions and customs.

And finally, Mr. Olack needs your help

(and since Mr. Stearns heard from so many through this blog he wanted me to come to YOU!).

During recess, grades 1-5 have Mileage Club.  This is a great way to get kids interested in running and help promote physical fitness!  Don't worry... you won't have to run with them!

He needs 2-3 volunteers for Tuesday and Thursday for two hours during the lunchtime recesses (outside).

This is only during the months of September, October, April, May and June (aka weather permitting).

Contact me if you are interested.

I will be getting in touch with those who signed up to volunteer in the classroom early next week.  If you would like to volunteer and didn't sign up, please let me know.  I would like to meet with volunteers to go over some things and to answer any questions you may have.  

**And yes, please bring your kids!**

If any (or all) of the above sound like something you would like to help with, please contact me!

Thanks,

Mrs. D.

lauradoran@wlcsd.org

Stay Tuned: "Week Two in Review" will be out later this weekend!

Mystery Readers Wanted

Dear First Grade Families,

Thank you to those of you who were able to attend last night's Curriculum Night.  I wanted to remind everyone that I would like your child to have someone be a Mystery Reader this year in the classroom.  You can click HERE to see which dates are available.  Please contact me as soon as possible with a date.  After every child is signed up, I will open it up so you may volunteer for a second opportunity.  If Fridays at 3:30 will not work for you, please email me a day/time that will so I can get it in my schedule.  Please contact me if you have any questions.

Have a great day,

Mrs. Doran
lauradoran@wlcsd.org

Week 1 in Review

Greetings from Room 119!  We had a great first week of school and are a bit exhausted!  We learned that first grade is a lot of work and quite different than kindergarten.  Mrs. D. is reading us a chapter book (which we are really enjoying) and we also learned that there isn't really any play time (which we aren't too happy about).  Still, we assured Mrs. D. that First Grade doesn't stink (she read us a book called, "First Grade Stinks") but that it really rocks!  This made her smile.

We have been spending some time getting to know the people in our class.  It is fun to make new friends and so far everyone is really getting along well!

Still we decided to make some rules and Mrs. D. wrote them all down.  We taught her that not only should we not push, but we shouldn't push someone into an electrical fence because it could make the person jump and their hair stand up.  Next week we will condense all these rules into something a little easier to remember~ stay tuned!

Mrs. D. did introduce us to how she keeps track of our behavior in Room 119.  She uses a card system (that she will explain in greater detail to you on Curriculum Night next Wednesday).  Since it's the first week of school, she does give more reminders than she will in the upcoming weeks.  If she has to remind us of a rule more than a few times, she has us "pull a card."  We start out with a green card every morning and we hope to stay that way.  Still, there are occasions when we may need a reminder. Yellow cards are reminder cards.  Red cards are next and if we get a Red that means we really have to be careful with our choices.  The last card is a Red X and if we have to pull a Red X, Mrs. D. will contact you to let you know specifically what we did.  Please ask us how we did each day.  She is keeping track on a calendar and will send it home at the end of the month.  If you want to know how we've been doing though, just email her and she can give you an update.  If we have five "Green" days, we get to visit her "Prize Bucket."  We were really excited to see what she bought for it.  She gets fun toys from the dollar store or toys that you may see in birthday goodie bags as well as sweet treats.  If you would ever like to donate left over party favors or candies, she'd love to add them to our Prize Bucket.

Mrs. Doran shared a bit about herself on the first day of school using a "Me-Box" to tell us about herself.  Then she pulled a stick so someone new could get the Me-Box.  Lincoln was the first to share and did a great job.  Everyone will get the opportunity to have the Me-Box.  We will also make them a book.  We are working on writing names with one capital letter and the rest lower case.  We are also working on drawing pictures with a lot of detail.  Adding details in pictures will eventually transfer to adding details in words.

We are learning routines and can get a bit chatty as a group.  We have 27 students in our room this year so even a handful of students talking can get too loud.  This is something we will work on as we learn the new expectations in Room 119.  Here are some first grade friends at work.  They were very quiet and paying attention to detail as they wrote about their wishes for first grade.

We did some writing together and Mrs. Doran will model write with us almost every day.  At this stage we will be working on many things from spacing and using sound spelling to using correct spelling, punctuation and adding detail.  She will talk more about this at Curriculum Night.

We also began doing some math work.  Mrs. Doran is going to focus on building our number sense this year so that we can have a good understanding of numbers and value.  One way she will do this is by using ten frames.  We really liked the activity we did with the Ten Frame.  If you would like to have more information about Ten Frame, you can click HERE.

We also made some graphs this week.  We made bar graphs that were both vertical and horizontal.  We learned that just by looking at the graph you could get information like most, least and same.

Comparing numbers and understanding order is really important.  We played a game on our Smart Board called "Number Squeeze."  Number Squeeze is also available on the Everyday Math Website.  Mrs. D. will be giving us passwords next week so we can play in the computer lab and at home.

Mrs. D. was excited to make a quick stop at our Ice Cream Social and hopes you were able to make it too.  She did enjoy seeing many of you there.  Her youngest son enjoyed helping Mrs. Tisdall's student teacher scoop ice cream.  Thank you PTA for putting on such a wonderful event and supporting the students and staff at our school.  If you haven't yet, please consider joining the PTA.  You don't have to attend meetings to join.

Though it was a short week, Mrs. D. did take more pictures than are shown here.  To view more you can click HERE or below.  Don't forget that we have homework this week!  To see more directions on how to make our Writer's Notebook, click HERE.  Please try to have them completed by Monday so we can get started on our Writer's Workshop!

Mrs. D. is looking forward to seeing you at Curriculum Night next week & don't forget that Tuesday is Popcorn Day!  Mrs. D. has not yet been given the FAPES (Fine Arts & PE) schedule but will email you the information as soon as she gets it.