Some Old First Graders...

100 Acts of Kindness!

With our hundredth day of school around the corner (we will be celebrating on February 27th as long as we have no other snow/cold days), Mrs. Doran & Miss Coe have given us a challenge...

PERFORM 100 ACTS OF KINDNESS BY OUR 100TH DAY OF SCHOOL!

An informational note came home in our Everyday Folder on February 7th along with five hearts for us to record acts of kindness.  We can always ask for more hearts if we do more acts.  The hearts are displayed on a bulletin board outside of our classroom and will also be recorded here for those of you who don't walk our hallways regularly.  Thank you for teaching us to spread kindness!

Acts of Kindness from Room 119

1. Massimo cleaned dishes after breakfast.

2. Will guided the Cub Scouts to the line to register their cars for the Pinewood Derby.

3. Massimo shared candy with his sister.

4. Hailey fed the dogs.

5. Massimo held the door open for people at Catechism.

6. Hailey set the table.

7. Emily H. helped her mom put away laundry.

8. Hailey was a big helper because mom was sick.

9. Madison gave her sister a toy that she got from the prize bucket when she got home from school.

10. Emily H. put down salt on the front walk way.

11. Madison helped clean up her sister's toys.

12. Kaden helped feed the dog.

13. Emily W. wrote math for her brother on a piece of paper.

14. Kaden helped put things away in his brother's room.

15. Emily W. helped her brother draw a Star Wars guy.

16. Kaden helped put chairs away after a meeting.

17. Massimo brought laundry up from the basement.

18. Michelle helped with the laundry.

19. Massimo fed his pets in the morning.

20. Michelle helped clean the fish tank.

21. Troy folded all the blankets on the floor.

22. Michelle helped serve dinner.

23. Troy opened Carly's bag of apples for her.

24. Michelle helped bring in groceries.

25. Emily H. held the door open for her mom.

26. Michelle helped her sister with her Valentines.

27. Braedyn's friend, Anika, was getting ready for a dance at his house ad he made her feel very special by saying how pretty she looked in her dress.

28. Shane threw away Carly and Troy's wrappers.

29. Braedyn's little brother was crying and he gave him a toy to help make him feel better.

30. Emily H. helped mom put away groceries and bring them in the house.

31. Troy brought his sister a glass of water when she wasn't feeling well.

32. Braedyn helped his mom give his baby brother a bath when she was busy with many other things.

33. Emily H. helped her sister put away her clothes.

34. Braedyn filled bags to send meals to starving children around the world as part of the "Mannapack Two Million Meals" campaign!  He even had a special job weighing the bags!

35. Will brought home an extra goody bag for his brother (from a birthday party).

36. Yesterday Tomo picked trash up and I put it in the recycling bin for mom.

37. Will helped put away the groceries.

38. Tomo put the garbage out on garbage day to help his mom.

39.Massimo helped his mom when she was sick.

40. Massimo bought his sister a toy with his own toy money.

41.Ethan helped to shovel snow this winter.

42. Ethan helped clear the table after dinner.

43. Shane cut his sister's waffles for her.

44. Ethan got all my school things ready for mom.

45.Ethan helped open doors for people.

46. Ethan gave up a prize for someone else at all pro dad.

47. Bennett helped his mom at the grocery store.

48. Emily H. always does what her mom asks and doesn't complain much.

49. Emily H. cleaned up her mess without being asked to.

50. Emily H. Helped her mom when she didn't feel well.

51. Emily H. played with a friend.

52. Emily H. cleaned up her sister's stuff.

53. Jenniah helped Hailey spell a word.

54. Jenniah helped her daddy clean the house.

55. Jenniah bought a rose for her grandma.

56. Jenniah cleaned the entire house with her sisters without even being asked.

57. Jenniah made beautiful pictures for her friends.

58. Julian helped his dad clean the house.

59. Emily W. taught her brother about different colors.

60. Emily W. helped her dad shovel snow.

61. Emily W. read a book to her brother, Brendan.

62. Emily W. helped her mom empty the dishwasher.

63. Emily W. helped her brother, Andrew, make his bed.

64. Kaden clean up the playroom.

65. Kaden helped dust the living room.

66.Will cleared and set the table for dinner.

67. Will picked up 100 Lego's that were on the floor.

68. Massimo fixed his mom's coffee for her.

69.Massimo wrote a "Get Well Soon" card for his Grandpa.

70. Landen helped his mom vacuum the living room.

71. Landen taught his brother how to play a game.

72. Landen helped give his puppy a bath.

73. Landen shared with his little brother.

74. Landen helped mom with the dishes.

75. Julian helped his mom do the laundry.

76.Julian helped his brother do the dishes.

77. Julian helped his mom clean up.

78. Julian helped his dad clean the car.

79. Bennett said sorry.

80. Bennett helped his mom with a project.

81. Bennett shared toys with his friend and made him a special guest at his house.

82. Bennett helped take out the garbage.

83. Michelle opened the door for her mom.

84. Michelle poured Kool-aid for her sister, Nicole.

85. Michelle made a bracelet for her sister, Melissa.

86. Michelle helped pick up the house.

87. Michelle brought in the mail.

88. Zahraa went to bed when her mom told her to.

89. Zahraa did her homework before her mom and dad asked her to.

90. Zahraa helped her mom by staying upstairs so she didn't get in trouble in the morning.

91. Zahraa got dressed without her mom telling her to.

92. Zahraa helped her dad bring groceries in for the family.

93. Zahraa got her brother clothes for her mom.

94. Zahraa woke up at 8:30 when her mom told her to.

95. Zahraa cleaned her desk without her mom telling her to.

96. Zahraa helped her older sister to find her clothes.

97. Zahraa got her little sister's clothes for her mom.

98. James cleaned up his brother's dishes.

99. James read books to the twins. 

100. Regan cleaned the kitchen.

WE DID IT!!

Thanks to those who participated!

 

Week 22 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! We had a busy week but it was full of fun.  Mrs. Doran sent home a reminder email about our Insect Report which is due next month.  If you didn't see it (or the report that came home last week with homework), please let her know.  If you aren't going somewhere for mid-winter break, you may want to get started on your report.

 Insects have definitely been the most exciting part of our week! We got wax worms and learned and created a habitat for them.  Because they prefer temperatures in the 80s, Mrs. Doran has brought them to her home (it's not in the 80s but much warmer than school).  We learned that all insects have three body parts (head, thorax and abdomen) and six legs.  Ask us about the song we learned to help us remember this.  We also continued to observe our mealworms and Madison got our class's first pupa!  Ask us what that means!

 Our writing has shifted to nonfiction to go along with what we are doing in reading and our studies as entomologists in science.  On days when we study our insects, instead of doing our traditional Writer's Workshop, we record our observations in our Science Notebooks.

 In Writer's Workshop Miss Coe and Mrs. Doran have given all of us nonfiction books to work with during guided reading groups.  We are also working on recognizing and understanding nonfiction text features like tables of contents, indexes, captions, diagrams and more.  We will continue this study when we return to school.

 In math this week we worked on story problems~ specifically questions that ask "How much more?"  These questions can be difficult but we are getting better at solving them.  We have learned that there is more than one way to solve a problem.  After solving a problem that we were given, we were asked to share HOW we solved the problem.  There were many different ways to solve one given problem but they all gave us the same answer.

Mrs. Doran finished reading "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" to us this week.  We REALLY loved the book and were so excited to watch the movie on Valentine's Day.  We were surprised at how different the movie and the book were.  When we return to school, Miss Coe will be reading us the second book in the Oz series!  We can't wait.
We had a lot of fun on Valentine's Day.  We mailed our Valentine's, made puzzles with our buddies, enjoy popcorn, cookies and water and watched a movie.  To see more from our week, be sure to click HERE or check out the movie below!  Have a wonderful Mid-Winter Break!

Week 21 in Review

Great News!  Mrs. Doran fixed her tech problem and was able to make our video from last week.  Please take a moment to check out extra videos from last week by clicking HERE.  We hope you were able to check out our report cards and celebrate all the progress we've made this year.  We are now closer to being second graders than kindergartners!  Wow!  Time is flying!

Miss Coe taught us about "Rule Boxes" or "In and Out" problems.  She did an awesome job at making it concrete for us using a magic rule box that she made.  If the rule is +2 and she puts in a 3, a 5 will come out.  These sort of problems will happen in other grades as well with harder problems.  She did a great job showing us how to do these and we did very well on them.  We also took a math assessment and reviewed other math concepts like money and place value.  We also began timed tests.  We took a pretest this week and now we will begin working on math facts that start easy and get progressively more difficult.  This is one way for us to work on our math fluency which will help us with other problems.

Science has been the most exciting thing that we worked on this week.  Three days a week when we work on Science, our Writer's Workshop becomes part of our Science Instruction.  We have become Entomologists and are recording our observations in our Science Notebooks.  Similarly in reading we are learning more about non-fiction texts and the mentor texts Mrs. D. has been using are about insects! Ask us what we've learned about insects as well as how a table of contents can help you.

We had fun celebrating with our Star Students this week!  We have a new Star each day!  They get to work at Mrs. D's desk, wear a special star cape, walk near the front of the line, share a poster about themselves and get a special book the day after they are the star!  We will all get a turn to be a Star and Stars are chosen at Random.

 We were surprised on Friday to learn that it wasn't someone's mom or dad that came in to read to us, but someone's sister!  Zahraa's third grade sister came in to read to us and did a wonderful job.  We were all very surprised but were great listeners as she read her story.

Of course this is just a small snapshot and extra pictures from THIS week are also available for viewing by clicking, HERE.

Thank you to all of the families that have taken the survey thus far.  We've had only 15 responses and would love to have more.  Mrs. D. will share the survey results later next week.  If you haven't yet, you can still take the survey by clicking HERE.   It has been so valuable to hear how you as a community think we are doing.

Also, please don't forget that Friday is Valentine's Day!  We are looking forward to a fun filled day that Mrs. D. and Miss Coe are in the process of planning.  Please don't forget to work on something to collect our valentines and please remember to ADD JULIAN to the Valentine list.  Mrs. D. will be sending a note home on Monday about this too.  We are so excited to have him back in room 119!

Survey Says...

We are half way through the school year and I thought it a good time to get some information from you on how you think things are going.  I have created a short (5 question) survey that I hope you will take a moment to fill out.  It is completely anonymous and helps me continue to learn and grow as an educator.
Thanks,
Laura Doran

Please click HERE to take the short survey.

Week 20 in Review

Greetings from Room 119!  We had a great week and had a lot of fun using our "attentascopes" to stay focused and learn a lot.  Please remember that Report Cards will be posted Wednesday the 5th.  If you can not access Skyward and need help printing your child's report card, let Mrs. D. know and she will print one for you.  Remember the report card is letting you know what we are doing in the classroom and more importantly what goals we have for the next marking period.  Thank you for celebrating our achievements and supporting us in reaching our goals!

 The most exciting news of the week is that we became entomologists (scientists that study insects).  We got our very own mealworms (2 of them) and created a habitat for them.  We learned that all insects need 4 things (ask us what they are- food, water, air and space) and got to hold our insects if we chose to to get a better look.  We also recorded our observations in our science notebooks.  Stay tuned to hear more about this exciting area of study!

Mrs. D. FINALLY finished testing all of us which was very difficult with all of the snow days that we have had.  If we dropped from where we were on our last report card, she let you know. We ALL improved our reading and look forward to starting reading groups again.  Remember to make time to read one (or even two) book(s) a night to help us build our fluency!

In writing we continued to learn about beginning, middle and end.  Miss Coe taught us how to include characters, setting, and time into our writing.  We are enjoying learning about story elements as they go together with what we are doing in reading.

In math Miss Coe taught us about "Greater Than" and "Less Than" and Mrs. Doran also reviewed this lesson with us.  We did a great job and loved her use of the 'alligator' to help us understand this.  Mrs. D. also made some videos that she posted on YouTube to help us build our number sense.  You can click HERE for practice of numbers up to ten and HERE for practice with numbers up to twenty.

 This week we had fun celebrating Bennett's seventh birthday.  He had fun spending the day with Ollie, and his family sent him in with a wrapped book for Mrs. D. to read to the class.  She loves reading it to us as it was one of her favorites and knows Bennett will enjoy reading it again and again at home with his family.

 On Friday we had a lot of fun playing a Jeopardy Super Bowl game that Mrs. D., Miss, Coe and Mrs. Turek worked on.  There were interesting questions, fun questions and silly questions.  We had fun working with our buddies to answer questions in teams.  Ask us what our favorite questions were.  Maybe we can teach you some interesting Super Bowl history!

 And finally, we were so excited to have Madison's dad come in and read to us.  He read "There's a Wocket in my Pocket" by Dr. Seuss and did a great job!  We enjoyed the book and got a great kick out of all the fun characters in it.

Of course this is just a snapshot of what we did during the week but UNFORTUNATELY Mrs. Doran's phone (which holds all the pictures she took) is not syncing with her computer. After hours of fighting with it is giving up on the video.  If she can get it to work, she will update the blog and let you know when she emails the news for the week.