Week 8 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! The week's Thoughtful Thursday project went to Nick who is turning 16 on the 3rd.  To hear his story, you can click HERE.  Mrs. D. didn't tell us all the details about Nick but we know that he is sick, the things he likes and that he could use some cheer so we did a great job sending him some love.  Sadly, we had difficulty treating each other with the same respect.  We had some cases of bullying and had a few class meetings on the difference between tattling and reporting.  Hopefully next week will go a little more smoothly. 

You probably heard that we learned the hard way the importance of Mrs. Doran's rules.  Some of us were pushing on the bookshelf and we knocked over Little Blue's cage.  We were all very worried about him and he stayed home the next day to feel better.

Claire felt badly about what happened to Little Blue so she made him a new cage which he really liked.  He came back to school the next day. Many of us have been sharing writing and projects we do at home which Mrs. D. thinks is really cool!

This week in math we took our Unit 2 test.  Overall we did really good!  We are getting better at taking tests (we'll be taking lots of these throughout our academic careers and the act of taking a test is actually something we have to learn).  Mrs. D. will be sending our tests home next week so keep an eye out.

As you have heard, Mrs. D. made a video to help us with Telling Time.  Thank you for those of you who sent the nice feedback.  Remember it is great practice for us, so feel free to revisit when you need it and let Mrs. D. know if there are other lessons you would like her to do in this way.  To see the video, click HERE.

We were really proud that some of us worked on a 100 piece puzzle and we completed it!  It wasn't easy but we worked at it and got it done.  Puzzles are a great activity for us to do at home too!

Our stamina as writer's is really growing.  Most of us are writing well over three sentences at each workshop.  We have our own targets and many were met last week.  Ask us what our current target is.  We should be able to tell you!

 We ended the week making some bats with our 5th Grade Buddies and of course a special Mystery Reader came to our class.  Sophia's dad came in and did a great job reading to us!  If you haven't signed up to be a Mystery Reader, please do so.  Mrs. D. plans to open up the schedule for second reads after Halloween but would really like for all of us to have a special person come in and read to us.

As always, this is just a snapshot.  To view more snapshots from the week, you can click HERE.

Don't forget that next Friday is Halloween and our parade and party.  For times, be sure to check out the Upcoming Events on Mrs. D.'s blog.

Week 7 in Review

Greetings from Room 119!  We had a fun week and are growing each day as learners.  Be sure to look at all the math pages that came home in our Everyday Folder and review if necessary.  We'll be taking a Unit 2 assessment in math sometime next week.  We also sent out a care package to Mrs. Doran's friends, Linda, Justin & Ben who recently lost their husband/dad.  To see our video you can click HERE.  Also, if you know someone who could use a little color in their days, contact Mrs. D.

 Did you know that each week we learn about a different word family in our Word Family Songbooks?  Ask us to sing some songs for you and tell you how we can spell different words in the same family.

 We continue to work on our writing stamina and we all have different writing Targets that we are focusing on.  Some of us are working on adding more detail to our writing.  Our Show and Tell writing is really helping us think about detail in writing too.

 Similarly, we are all working in different areas in reading.  Right now we are focusing on Learning Targets that help us improve our fluency.  We have reviewed all of these targets each week.  We should be able to tell you what they are (get your mouth ready, look for picture clues, use your finger).

We are also working on comprehension skills and thinking about what we read and making predictions.  We also do this when Mrs. D. reads aloud to us.  We finished James & the Giant Peach and are now reading another Roald Dahl book, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory.  We hope to watch the movie after we are done with the book to compare and contrast the two.  If you haven't seen the movie yet, please don't watch it until we are done with the book.

 We were excited to have a math mom join us this week.  Landon's mom was able to come in and help us find sums to ten.  This is a great thing we can practice at home too.  Give us a number and ask us how many more we need to get to ten.

We also did a fun project with jack-o-lanterns.  We made addition problems and practiced tallies all while having a little Halloween Fun!

We did a lot of review this week with hundred's grids, time and story problems with number models.  We also worked a little with pennies and nickels.

 On Friday we celebrated Christian's 6th birthday by singing to him.

This was a bit of a weird week because we spent some time in the computer lab taking the iReady test.  We really seemed to like it and many of us wanted to do it again.  We are still learning more about the iReady test and Mrs. D. will attend another training session in November with Ms. Qonja and Mrs. Heinke to learn more.

Of course this is just a snapshot of what we did this week.  To see more pictures from the week, you can click HERE.

If you haven't yet, please remember to turn in the permission slip forms and money for our upcoming field trip and $5 to cover the cost of our Halloween Party.

Week 6 in Review

Greetings from Room 119!  We had a GREAT week!  This week's Thoughtful Thursday project went to a very special little girl named Avery.  To see what we did and hear about Avery's story, click HERE.  We also ended the week with an awesome Color Run!  To see what that looked like, click HERE.

 We had an important assembly this week all about bus safety.  We learned important rules to keep us safe.  It is important that we ALL see the assembly because we all ride the bus for things like field trips.  There was actually a note sent home in our Friday Folder about an upcoming field trip.

 After the assembly, we all went out to a bus and practiced a bus evacuation so that if anything were to happen while we were riding a bus and we had to get out quickly, we'd know what to do. We did a great job.

Next week we are going to begin taking the iReady test that Ms. Qonja told you about on Curriculum Night.  We watched a tutorial video about the test together that you can also see by clicking HERE.

 Have we told you that we have classroom meetings at "The Meeting Place?"  We problem solve together and talk about how we can make our classroom and school a better place.  We also talk a lot about Coping Skills.  Ask us about it!

Did you know that in addition to our Writer's Workshop every day, we also write about someone's Show and Tell?  Mrs. D's Show & Tell bag is coming around and we will all get a turn.  This activity helps us work on our oral communication skills and helps us write about details in our writing.

In addition to reviewing the Hundred's Grid this week, we also started learning about clocks (and a little bit about money~ more of that next week).  We are learning to tell time to the nearest hour. There are five words Mrs. D. made us learn to help us with telling time.  Ask us what they are! ("Start with the short hand!")

We are also learning how to write digital time.  We start with the short hand and write the number that it is pointing at. Then we STOP and write two dots.  Next we write the long hand numbers that we learned count by five.  We learned when the long hand points to the twelve it means "o'clock" and we write that with two zeros.

On Thursdays we are going to have EEKK during our Reader's Workshop time.  This is when we sit Elbow, Elbow Knee, Knee with a friend and read our books.  We choose if we read them together or take turns.  We also talk about the books we read.

Did you hear that we had a surprise visitor just before lunch on Thursday?  Mrs. Doran's youngest son came in to have lunch with her because it was his fifth birthday.  We got a kick out of seeing Mrs. D's son who will be going to kindergarten next year.

We ended our week with a special Mystery Reader!  Shannon's mom came in and read, "Click, Clack, Moo" to us!  It is one of Mrs. D's favorites and she was so glad she read it because Mrs. D. has a book called, "Click, Clack, Boo" that she will read to us next week.

As always, this is just a snapshot of what we did this week.  To see more pictures from Week 6, click HERE.

Have a great week!

Week 5 in Review

Greetings from Room 119!  We had a busy week of assessments!  Mrs. Doran is now finished reading with all of us individually and we will begin reading groups next week!  Our "Thoughtful Thursday" care package went to Dan and Nathan.  You can see our project by clicking HERE.

Did you know that next Friday, October 10th, is our Color Fun Run?  Not only is it a lot of fun but it is our PTA's biggest fund raiser of the year!  The PTA does so much for us, so be sure to join if you haven't already!  You do not need to attend meetings to join the PTA. If you have questions, contact Mrs. D.

Last week's Learning Target in reading was to use the pictures to help us solve words.  This week we learned how to get our mouth ready.  If we come to an unknown word when reading at home, remind us to use these strategies to look at the picture and to get our mouths ready and say the sounds we see!

 We love Writer's Workshop and Mrs. Doran has begun giving us individual targets.  Many of us are working on using capitals ONLY at the beginning of sentences, in names and in days of the week.  While working on our writing homework, encourage us to use lower-case letters and to form those letters correctly.

We finished up Unit 1 in the beginning of the week by working more with the hundred's grid.  This is a great tool that can help us add, subtract and skip count.  Many of us could use practice counting by twos and fives and also counting backward by ones.  This is an easy thing we can practice anywhere.  Even when riding in the car!

As mentioned, it was a busy week of assessments!  In math, we got to work in "offices" where we had privacy and Mrs. D. could read questions to us individually.  We also had hundreds grids to help us if we chose to use them.  Most of us did very well and the tests came home on Friday.  Please note that "B" stands for beginning, "D" stands for developing and "S" stands for secure.  If we had any Bs those would be things we should review and work on more at home.

We ended the week visiting our 5th Grade Buddies and then with a special visit from our Mystery Reader.  Grant's Nana came in to read us one of their favorite stories, "A Fly Went By" (also a favorite of Mrs. D's).  We loved the book and were a wonderful audience!

Please sign up to be a Mystery Reader.  If you haven't yet, Mrs. D. will be trying to contact you again next week.  As soon as everyone has signed up at least once, an email will be sent out to let you know that you can sign up for a second reading slot should you choose!

As always, this is just a snapshot of what we did.  To see more pictures click HERE.