Week 16 in Review

Greetings from Room 119!  We hope you are enjoying your break!  Our 16th week of school was a short one and Mrs. D. shared out some videos via twitter but didn't post them here.  You can see a Thoughtful Thursday video we did for Mrs. Doran's friend, Greg by clicking HERE.

You can also see highlights from our awesome party by clicking HERE.

Can't wait to see you all soon!  Wishing you a very Happy New Year from the Dorans!

Week 15 in Review

Greetings from Room 119!  We survived our last full week in December which is an exciting time in first grade.  We spent time learning about the historical reason people celebrated Christmas and also continued to work on a top secret project that will go home with us on Tuesday of next week.  It sometimes seems that during the holiday season people need lifting up more than usual, so of course we made time for our Thoughtful Thursday project.  This week's project went out to Bo's Papa and  you can see it by clicking HERE.  We did a second project that Mrs. Doran will share out next week.

We also had TEAMS this week.  TEAMS is a team mixed with children throughout the school at all the grade levels and we work together building our community.  This month for PBIS we are focusing on Resiliency.  At TEAMS we worked together to "Save Freddy" (a worm).  We really had to be resilient and work together.  Ask us about it!

Speaking of resiliency, many of us have been practicing our reading regularly and making great strides!  Although the holiday break is around the corner (two days... someone IS counting), it is really important that we continue to read.  Taking a couple weeks off from reading WILL be very evident so please try to take some time to review and reread books from previous weeks.  No homework will be sent home this coming week.

We've worked really hard on our letter writing and have gotten really good.  When we return in January, we will no longer have show and tell in order to work more on writing. We will have a special "Star Student" each day and we will write letters to that friend to lift them up.

In math this week, we reviewed and worked with shapes and we also worked on making a tally chart and then graph it in a bar graph.  We also played games to help us with these skills.

Did you know that you can log on to Ed Connect and see the lessons we do each day in math? This is great to know if we are absent too. The website address as well as our password can be found on the back of our Everyday Folder.

On Friday, we celebrated our friend Savannah's 7th birthday.  She will be turning 7 over the break so we enjoyed celebrating with her before school is out.

We ended the week with a special Mystery Reader.  Nathan's mom came in and read us two wonderful stories.  We all know her because she is one of our Motor Moms.  We were a great audience and enjoyed both books.

Just a reminder that we DO have school on Monday and Tuesday and we are looking forward to our holiday party on Tuesday.  We have had some amazing parents planning all the festivities and of course Mrs. D. will take lots of pictures to share with you.

REMINDER!  MRS. DORAN HAS SENT MANY REQUESTS FOR MYSTERY READERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT HAD A LOVED ONE SIGN UP.  SHE HOPES TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON AS SHE WILL BE OPENING UP THE REST OF THE DATES TO ANYONE NEXT YEAR!

Week 14 in Review

Greetings from Room 119!  This Thoughtful Thursday project went out to the loved ones of Laurie.  We think of them and others who have lost loved ones this year especially during the holiday season.  To see the project this week, you can click HERE.

We want to say Happy Hanukkah to all our Jewish friends and families.  We learned a bit about the history of Hanukkah, read books, made menorahs and learned the dreidel game!  Next week we will learn about the history of the other religion celebrated in Room 119, Christmas.  If you have another December holiday you celebrate (that Mrs. D. missed), please email her.

We also had a lot of fun when Science Alive came and visited us!  They not only taught us about animals, we got an up close and personal look at them.  Check out the video that Mrs. D. made to see which of us got 'hugged' by a big animal named "Snuggles" by clicking HERE. When Snuggles gets to be his full size, he'll be able to hug all of us at the same time! WOW!

We are rocking on the letter writing!  We've really gotten better at remembering the five things we need to put in each letter (date, greeting, body, closing and signature).  We've loved sharing our letters!

Our math assessments went home from last week, please sign and return them on Monday. This week we talked about measurement and comparing things in order by length.  We will work more on measurement next week as well.

You may have heard all the fun we've had being map makers this week.  Mrs. D. took a picture above her head (which is why some of us are cut out of the picture) when we walked the halls of LLE and made a map of our school. We've had so much fun and many of us have been making extra maps at home.  We also ASKED to have map homework next week.  Ask and you shall receive!

A special Happy Birthday to Katelyn who celebrated her seventh birthday a day late because she was sick.  We sure missed her on her special day but had fun celebrating with her when she returned. If you have a birthday that falls over break or in the summer and would like to celebrate in Room 119, let Mrs. D. know.

Of course we ended the week with a special Mystery Reader.  This week Madi's mom surprised her by showing up to read us a great book!  If we still don't have someone special signed up to read to us, Mrs. D. will be contacting you this week.  In January she will open up the remainder of the dates for those who would like to come in again to read. Mystery Reader really is the highlight of our week so we hope that you will consider signing up if you haven't.

Have a great week!

Week 13 in Review

Greetings from Room 119!  We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  An email went out on Friday to those parents interested in helping and/or planning the holiday party this month.  If you want to help and did not get an email, please contact Mrs. Doran.  

Our Thoughtful Thursday project this week was a little different.  You can check it out by clicking HERE.

We had a difficult week in Room 119.  Many of us have taken to 'tattling' on our friends.  Some of us may be doing this thinking we are being helpful. Some of us are doing it to get those who 'wrong' us in trouble, but either way, it's been really hard for Mrs. D.  We read some books, made a T-chart (on tattling vs. reporting) and had a good discussion on the topic.
Unfortunately, some of us still aren't able to understand the difference between tattling and reporting and this behavior is continuing (it was even something Mr. O. noticed when we were picked up from PE).  Because of this, those of us who are tattling are going to pull a card.  We need to be reflective before interupting Mrs. D. to report behaviors and ask ourselves.
1. Is someone hurt and needs OUR help (they are unable to report it themselves)?
2. Am I trying to help someone or get someone in trouble?
3. How have I tried to solve this problem on my own or what coping skill have I used?
Please talk with us about this at home and if you have any questions, let Mrs. Doran know.  We had some "tattling" cards pulled on Friday morning and that seemed to help us stop and reflect in the afternoon.

Have you heard about Bob? Mrs. D. read us a book called "Elf on a Shelf" and Bob suddenly showed up!  Ask us about Bob.  We also have been learning about Hanukkah and hope that our Jewish friends are having a good holiday!

This week we celebrated Rachel's 7th Birthday! We sang to her and read a special book she got from home and unwrapped in front of us.  Remember we have a "no-edible birthday treats" SCHOOL policy.  Check out the blog for more info and please email Mrs. D. to let her know if you'd like to celebrate.

We've been working hard on our reading and we're really moving along nicely.  Please be sure to remind us to read those paper books each day. They don't take long and really help us on our fluency.  If you find that the books Mrs. D. is sending home are too hard, please let her know.

We are working on writing letters this month so we'll be able to write "Thank you" letters during the holiday season.  Ask us how many things we need to make sure our letters have (5-date, greeting, body, closing, signature).  We also are making sure that each of those five things gets to start a new line and to put commas after our greeting and closing.  We'll be working on this all month.

In math we continued work on frames and arrows and solving pattern problems.  We also took an assessment.  Mrs. D. will be sending this home next week for you to look at, sign and return.

Last month's PBIS trait of the month was kindness and Grant was recognized as a student who regularly shows kindness to others.  He was very excited and we all cheered for him.  This month's trait is resiliency.

We ended our week the way we love to... with a Mystery Reader!  Miller's mom came in and read a wonderful book to us! Mrs. D. will be sending out an email to those of us who haven't signed up yet to read.  She'd like to have all of us have someone special come in to read.  It truly is the highlight of our week!

Have a wonderful week!

Week 12 in Review

Greetings and Happy Thanksgiving from Room 119!  We had a great (but short) week which ended with us performing the ABCs of Thanksgiving to 15 classes, the office staff and Mrs. Aaronson.  We did a great job and you can see it all by clicking HERE.

 We spent some of our week getting ready for the play.  The boys (our Native Americans) got to finger paint their vests so Mrs. D. let the girls do some finger painting too.  We also all made Native American head pieces complete with shape and color patterns (see, we can make learning fun!).

We also learned that Native Americans wrote with pictures and learned some of the meaning of those pictures.  We all tried to write like they did and did a great job.  The girls' pictures went home and the boys' pictures are on the backs of their vests.

We learned a lot about Squanto (a great friend to the Pilgrims) by reading a biography about him. Ask us what we learned about Squanto.  His life was very difficult and we learned that some people in history were not very kind.  Squanto certainly chose kindness.

We love our writer's workshop and had fun meeting our targets.  Next week we will be learning all about how to write a letter so we'll be able to write thank you letters over the holiday season.

 We also wrote some silly turkey stories that we loved sharing with our friends.  They'll be going in our Writer's Portfolio soon!

In math we practiced skip counting and used something called 'Frames and Arrows" to complete patterns and find rules in patterns.  We will work more on this next week and our homework will also cover this.

Thank you to all who donated non-perishable items for our food drive.  This picture was taken after just one day of collections (and there was more food under the table).  Together with our school, we collected over 1500 items to go to the Hospitality House (the exact number is sitting on Mrs. Doran's desk at school).

Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving and if you're up early and at the parade, be sure to look for two turkey teachers!   Mrs. Doran and Mrs. Turek will be continuing their annual tradition of walking in the Turkey Trot while their sons run it!

Week 11 in Review

Greetings from Room 119!  We had a great week together and are excited for our upcoming Thanksgiving Play.  This play will be on Wednesday and we will be performing it ONLY for the students and staff at school.  Don't worry, Mrs. D. will videotape it for you.  It is very short which is why we do not have parents come.  We also did a Thoughtful Thursday project for the daughter of a former LLE teacher.  You can see the project by clicking HERE. 

Speaking of Thoughtful Thursdays, Faith (who recently had brain surgery), came in to read to us and did a wonderful job.  She is a teacher in the making!  She also brought us some smarties, pencils and erasers.

In reading this week, we finally started our reading groups again.  You may have noticed that the books that came home for most of us were a bit harder.  If at any time you feel these books are too difficult, please let Mrs. Doran know.

We continue to do a great job in writing, building our stamina and working on our individual targets.  Soon we will be learning all about how to write letters - just in time for the holiday season (thank you notes).

In math this week we concentrated on how we can use a number line as a tool to both add and subtract.  We also used it to solve story problems.

 We ended the week with what many of us called the "Best Day Ever!"  This was because we got to watch the movie, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."  We talked through the entire movie but this time it was OK because we were comparing and contrasting the movie with the book we just finished.  We also did a venn diagram (using rectangles instead of circles) to compare and contrast.  Some of us showed interest in watching the original movie about the book that most of our parents are probably familiar with.  This version is even more different than the one we watched with Mrs. Doran.

And finally we ended the week with a special Mystery Reader.  Katelyn was so excited when she discovered that it was her Aunt who came in to read to us.  She did a great job and read us a wonderful book starring Pete the Cat.  She even donated the book (along with OTHER Pete the Cat books) to our classroom!  We are so grateful and can't wait to check them out in our Room 119 library and read them during workshop!

We got a lot of snow this weekend so don't forget to send in all that winter gear!  Be sure to write names on all our snowpants, mittens and hats.  Black snowpants all look a lot alike.