Week 19 in Review

Greetings from Room 119 (or the warmth of Mrs. D's home)!  We have had some really cold weather, and it seems like there is not an end in sight.  We had another day of no school because of the weather.  If you are wondering how the decision is made about closing schools, Mrs. D. found an article from another district in our state that can help us understand how those decisions are made   You can click HERE to read the article.  Should we have another 'cold' day next week, be ready to view some lessons from Mrs. D. on YouTube.  Like you, she is anxious to be back in school so she may have to just send 'school' to your computer.  Stay tuned... 

 These cold days are really messing up Mrs. D's reading testing with us.  She hopes to be finished by the end of the month and may need to test some of us while Miss Coe teaches handwriting or leads the morning routine.  Please remember to keep practicing with us at home.  Make reading fun for us by recording us and letting us hear ourselves read or reading for an audience of pets or stuffed animals.  Whatever you do, READ!

 In writing (and reading), we are continuing our focus on 'beginning', 'middle' and 'end'.  To illustrate this and make a clear distinction between the three, we made flip books where we illustrated and then wrote a piece with a beginning, a middle and an end.  Our writing is getting more in depth now so we may spend a couple of days on a single piece.  This is good because we are growing as readers.

Miss Coe has been working with us on handwriting.  Mrs. D. and she have noticed that some of us are forming our letters incorrectly so we're going slow to retrain our brains.  Miss Coe models letters for us, we practice on white boards and finally we practice on paper.

In math we are learning about place value and we've done really well.  We are learning that when we write two digit numbers they contain groups of ten and groups of ones.  For example, the number 13 contains one group of ten and three ones.  We've done really well with this.  Miss Coe is now teaching math workshop (except for when she has seminar for her teaching classes) and Mrs. D. is observing her and helping with math rotations.

 Mrs. D. has enjoyed working with us in math rotations.  While it looks like we are just having fun and playing games with our math moms, a lot of serious learning goes on!  We are so thankful for those who are able to volunteer (Mrs. D. knows how crazy schedules can be... including her own)!  We played an "Exchange Game" to help us understand place value more as well as a "Tens Frame" Go Fish game that Mrs. D. made.  If you would like, she can post a pdf file for you so you can print and play the game at home (just let her know~ her own first grader likes playing and she likes that he's practicing math).

 The cold weather resulted in no "Fun Friday,"  no Mystery Reader and no fifth grade buddies, but we sure hope to be back on schedule next week.  Mrs. D. did take some additional pictures that you can see below or by clicking HERE.