Week 16 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! This blog post is a little late due the chaos of the Doran December... Christmas family gatherings and three family birthdays! We hope this post finds you enjoying your time with loved ones. With the short week and celebration, we did not do a Thoughtful Thursday project. If you have someone who needs lifting up in the New Year, please email Mrs. Doran at lauradoran@wlcsd.org. We are also in desperate need of Mystery Readers. If you haven't signed up yet PLEASE do and if you have... feel free to sign up for another slot since we've had so many go unfilled. Just check out the "Mystery Reader" page on the blog, pick your date and email Mrs. Doran so she can schedule you.

 We love reading and hopefully will get in some reading over the holiday break. We do RAZ kids two times a week in school. One of our focuses before break had to do with the comprehension questions after we read a book. We learned that it is important and SMART to look back in the book to get more information if we don't know the answer. We will continue to focus on this. Please encourage this at home if we are reading our books at home too.

 OUR BOOKS ARE FINISHED!! Some of us left them at school before the break so they will come home in January! They turned out great and we are proud of all our hard work. We also continued to work on letter writing and will work on letters for another week. Mrs. Doran gave all of us personal stationery so we could write thank you letters for the Christmas and Hannukah presents we receive this holiday season or just a hello to a friend or family member.

We took our assessment and at did very well. Our scores will come home in the new year. We also did some work with measuring which we loved. When we return we will be doing a mid year assessment before beginning Unit 5. The year sure is flying now!

Of course we also had an AWESOME party put on by the amazing moms of Gavin, Marcus, Carly and Miller! Thank you for all your hard work! To see pictures from our party, click HERE.

And finally, I want to thank you all for the kind cards, gifts and words! They mean the world to me and I, too, will be busy writing my letters of thanks. Wishing you all a very safe, healthy and happy holiday season. I look forward to seeing you all in the new year and Go Broncos! Row the boat!!! (My alma mater is heading to the Cotton Bowl if you have no idea what I'm talking about.)

:-D

Week 15 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! This week's Thoughtful Thursday went out to Jim. You can see his project by clicking HERE. If you know of someone who could use some encouragement, you can email Mrs. Doran at lauradoran@wlcsd.org.

 We are loving RAZ-kids and learning how we can look back in books to find answers. If we are doing the quizzes at home with you, encourage us to look back if we are unsure of an answer. We also have been reading holiday books and learning the history of Hanukkah and Christmas.

 In writing, we are still working on our publishing. It's been hard because we have also started working on a top secret project! Since we are all at different places, we are also reviewing how to write letters. Hoping to tie up everything next week, but we know it will be a busy one!

 In math we did AWESOME with place value. We learned how expanded notation 348=300+40+8 can help us understand the value of digits in a number. We also learned block ten short hand to help us add and subtract numbers. Next week we'll be reviewing measurement and will take our assessment on Unit 4 prior to the break!

 On Wednesday, we had TEAMS where we did a fun marshmallow challenge. We had to work together and problem solve as a team. We love TEAMS day and will continue this in January.


Just a reminder that next week is our last week of school in 2016. Please remember to turn in our wrapped Secret Santa white elephant gift prior to Thursday. We also can wear our pajamas on Thursday! It's going to be a fun week! Let Mrs. D. know if you have any questions!

Week 14 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! This week's Thoughtful Thursday project went to the Maryville Fire Department in TN who recently helped with the horrific fires there. You can see our project by clicking HERE. If you know of someone in need of some encouragement, please contact Mrs. Doran at lauradoran@wlcsd.org.

 We had a lot to celebrate this week! Three of our friends turned the Great 8 this week and we had fun celebrating them! Remember that if we have a birthday to celebrate to give Mrs. D. a heads up and that there are no edible birthday treats allowed.

 We worked on RAZ kids on Monday. Many of us are practicing reading at home as well. Practicing reading as well as the comprehension questions will really help us, so please set aside some time at home to read too.

 The rest of the week we focused on character traits. We liked sharing what we learned about our characters and the evidence we had to defend our thinking. Mrs. D. did not pull groups this week as she had a few students she needed to read with independently.

 Room 119 looks like a publishing agency. We typed our stories and are now editing them. They are not bad for our first time going through this process. Some of us are already working on our illustrations. Ask us what our targets are when we draw pictures for our books.

In math we spent a couple days on telling time and did very well. We are working on telling time to the five minutes. We also learned about am versus pm. Later in the week we started examining place value. We will continue to work on this next week as well. If you think we need a little extra practice in telling time, click HERE to see an instructional video Mrs. D. made as well as some practice problems.

 In social studies we compared relative location with absolute location. We are doing well with cardinal directions and had fun looking on a grid to pinpoint locations of different places.

 We ended our week with a special Mystery Reader. Madhav's dad came in and read us a special book and gave us a little assignment. He did a great job. We would love if you would come in and read to us. Check out "Mystery Readers" on Mrs. D's blog and sign up for a time today!

As you know, the winter season is upon us. Please remember to send us with our winter gear as we go outside as long as temperatures are not below zero. You may also want to consider putting an extra pair of socks in our backpacks as sometimes our socks get wet from all the fun we have in the snow. 

Have a great week!

Week 13 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! This week's Thoughtful Thursday project went out to Rachel. You can see our project by clicking HERE. There were some complications with Rachel's surgery so we continue to keep her in our thoughts. If you know of someone who could use a Thoughtful Thursday project, email Mrs. Doran at lauradoran@wlcsd.org.

 Perhaps you heard we had a little excitement in Room 119 this week! After reading an Elf on the Shelf book, an elf showed up in our class! We voted to name him Pickles. So far we've been on our best behavior since his arrival!

We also celebrated a birthday this week! Rachel turned the "Great Eight" and we enjoyed singing to her and celebrating! We have a few birthdays this month and if you'd like to celebrate, please let Mrs. D. know. Check out "birthdays" on the blog to see options of what we can do. Please remember no edible snacks are allowed. This is a school rule.

The other exciting part of the day was when we got to read on RAZ-KIDS! We had so much fun and love reading the different leveled books. These are our A-Z books but if you prefer we have a paper copy book, just email Mrs. Doran. We have loved RAZ KIDS so far and hope to use it once or twice a week in the classroom.

In writing most of us finished our Realistic Fiction pieces. We all found one word (or more) in our writing and changed it to make it better! Most of us are now moving on to publish our writing on our chrome books. We're really getting good on our chrome books. If you want to see what we're doing, our chome logins and passwords are on the back of our purple folder.

In math we continue to learn about new strategies in hopes of making us more efficient learners. We have done so much work on ways to ten that making a transition to use that strategy for subtraction was easy for us. We also took our Unit 3 assessment and did very well.

 We ended our week in a fun way... with a MYSTERY READER!! Brooklyn's mom came in to read to us and did a great job! We would love for you to sign up to be a Mystery Reader. We have not had many volunteers so please take a moment to click HERE to secure a date to read to us. We all hope to have someone special to us come in to read.

Have a great week!

Week 12 in Review

Greetings and Thanksgiving wishes from Room 119! It was a short week for us and while we weren't in school on Thursday there was a need out there for a family that needed filling so Room 119 rose to the occasion. Check out the project we made for Mrs. Sinclair's cousin, Devin, who passed away last week in a tragic car accident by clicking HERE. If you know of someone out there who could use some encouragement from some Sensational Second Graders please email Mrs. Doran at lauradoran@wlcsd.org.

 We spent a lot of time this week learning about Thanksgiving and realizing there are often two perspectives to history. We looked closely at our Scholastic Magazines where we saw history from the point of view of the Native Americans as well as from the point of view of the Pilgrims.

 Mrs. D. showed us how to access the videos we do as a class on our own chrome books. We also wrote this week about something we were thankful for. We are going to enter this holiday season with a "gratitude attitude". We published our thankful writing on our chrome books and will be back to work on our realistic fiction stories next week.

In math we learned how knowing our doubles facts and sums to ten can also help us in subtraction. We've been doing great in our math thinking and strengthening our math foundation. Keep an eye out for our Unit 3 journal pages. We are on schedule to have our assessment on Wednesday or Thursday. Check out Connect Ed (our login and password are on the back of our purple folders) if you want more information about what we are learning.

We had LLE's learner of the month assembly on Wednesday. Did you know our learners are not chosen by Mrs. D. but by US. We have been voting anonymously on our chrome books for peers we think are deserving. Next week we will be choosing a friend who we think shows kindness regularly.

We were VERY excited to have a Mystery Guest this week. Our old friend Greyson (who moved away) came back for a visit. It was so great to see him and hear about how he is doing! Remember we LOVE Mystery Guests and readers. Please click HERE to see our Mystery Reader schedule and email Mrs. D. a date that will work for you to come and read to us.

Finally~ if you follow Mrs. Doran on twitter or on our class facebook page, you've probably seen some of our manequin challenges. Below is not a manequin challenge but what it looks like in our class during Reader's Workshop. Mrs. D. took this on her way back to the table where she meets with us. Have a great week!

Week 11 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! This weeks' Thoughtful Thursday project went out to Mrs. Heinke's Step-dad. We were happy to be able to lift up Pete and send him some of our best jokes. You can see our project by clicking HERE.

We continue to work hard on our reading in our small groups and as individuals. As a class we learned what the word "genre" means and read a variety of books. Ask us the what we learned about in reading this week.

We have been reading realistic fiction books lately, so it was time to write them. We've been working all week on our books and hope to finish up next week. We then hope to publish them on our chrome books.  Ask us about our story.

In math we've been working on building our number sense and different addition and subtraction strategies. Playing games helps us in this area. Don't forget to check out Connect Ed to see additional games we can play and check out our daily lessons.

We continue to talk through our thinking and then write it down. Being able to defend our thinking or teach it to someone else really helps us cement our own learning. Next time we answer a question, ask us how we did it.

Author, Maria Dismondy, came this week for an assembly. We really enjoyed it and got to hear her newest book. If you would like to know more about Maria Dismondy, you can check out her website HERE.

Did you know that we play most days for 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the afternoon. Research shows that giving our brains a break from structured activity is good for us. Mrs. Doran loves seeing the learning we do through play. We problem solve on our own and learn about each other.  You may have heard that Mrs. D. was fighting sickness much of the week and stayed home in bed on Friday. She was told we were in great hands with Mrs. Bandy's student teacher turned guest teacher. Mrs. D.'s doing better and looks forward to seeing us again on Monday. Have a great week!

Week 10 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! This week's Thoughtful Thursday went out to the family of Star Wars fan, Bill. You can see our project by clicking HERE. Mrs. Doran has already heard from the family who responded in a way Bill probably would have, "Love it, we do!"

 We were happy to wish our friend Brooklyn a happy 7th birthday! We loved singing to her!

It was a short week with Parent/Teacher Conferences and the election. We had our own election in Room 119. The candidates all did an amazing job and were very gracious winners and losers. Mrs. Doran was so proud of them.

We have been learning about different genres in Readers Workshop. At this time we are focusing on fictional genres. Mrs. Doran has not been making books since many have been coming back to school daily. If you would like to continue getting books to keep at home for your library, email her and let her know.

In math we've been working on fact families. We learned that you can write four number models (or number sentences) in one family. For example: 4+3=7, 3+4=7, 7-4=3 and 7-3=4. When we write subtraction facts we need to remember the biggest number comes first.

We continue to work on our own individual targets in Writing Workshop which is one of our most favorite times of the day. This week we also wrote some very special letters to send to active service members overseas. Thank you to all who sent in extra candy and money. We are so excited about this project. You can see a video of what we did by clicking HERE.

We loved having a special Mystery Reader come in on Friday. Olivia's Nana came in and surprised us. She chose a great book all about Veterans. We learned a lot about what a Veteran is from the book and were able to tell our 5th grade buddies about them later in the day when we wrote letters of thanks to Veterans. If you would like to be a Mystery Reader in Room 119, please email Mrs. Doran.

Thank you all for coming in for conferences. We had a great turnout and Mrs. D. hopes you left with a good understanding of how we are doing in Room 119. As always, if you have any questions, please let her know. Have a great week!

Week 9 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! Last week's Thoughtful Thursday project went to the young uncle of one of our friends. You can check out his project by clicking HERE. If you know of someone in need of some encouragement, please email Mrs. Doran at lauradoran@wlcsd.org.

Speaking of Thoughtful Thursday, we were very excited that we had a surprise visitor come to see us. Miss Jackie (former TT recipient) was in the area at a doctor's appointment and came by Room 119 for a visit. We got to ask her questions and meet her dog, Arrow, too! Ask us about it!

Our reading focus this week was on Realistic Fiction. In addition to our individual targets, we worked on differentiating nonfiction from realistic fiction.

 In writing, we created a list of "No Excuses" when we are working. We have since added another. Our stamina is growing and we are also beginning to edit more which is really exciting!

One of the writing activities we did this week was create "Turkeys in Disguise." After we chose our disguise for our turkey, we had to write clues about the disguise. We typed those clues all by ourselves using our google accounts. We're hoping we'll have them all done so they can be in the hallway for conferences. We LOVED using chrome books.

In social studies, we continued our study of communities by learning that some communities are based on the space they share or their region. We also talked about the differences between wants and needs and how wants can vary from community and region but how our needs are all the same.

We loved an activity we did where we worked in groups to sort pictures of different communities. We had to talk about our thinking and then share why we grouped the communities the way we did and what they had in common. We learned the words Rural, Suburban and Urban too.

We did not have a Mystery Reader this week but hope that you will consider being one. Click HERE to see our Mystery Reader scheduled. You can also click HERE (or Skyward) to see our Conference Schedule on Tuesday.

And finally... We started our week with a GREAT Halloween Costume! Mrs. D. wasn't a fan of Halloween on a Monday, but she did love that Halloween was on a half day and that she has such amazing parents who put on a great party for all. She took lots of pictures and videos for those who couldn't attend so you could "see" what we were up to. You can check out that video (and the annoying song she put it to) by clicking HERE.

Have a great week and don't forget to vote on Tuesday!