Week 27 in Review

Greetings from Room 119!  This week we did not have a Thoughtful Thursday Project because our Thursday was very packed with a fun Field Trip and our Variety Show! We are in need of people to do Thoughtful Thursday Projects for so if you know of anyone who could use some encouragement, please email Mrs. Doran at: lauradoran@wlcsd.org. We did make a nice book for our friend, Memphis, to wish him well at his new school!  We'll miss him!

It's reading month and we've been doing a lot of independent reading so Mrs. D. can meet with individuals to test reading since she'll be writing report cards very soon! It's hard to believe we're almost in our last card marking!

Many of us forgot our nonfiction books last week (working on them at home).  If you were someone who didn't remember their book, Mrs. D. will send some examples home for you next week.  We also had our traditional Writer's Workshop which we loved! We are all working on our individual targets! Remember to practice those targets in homework too!

 We had fun on our Field Trip on Thursday! We went to see Peter Rabbit. We had read two different books on the story. While they had some similarities, they were also quite different.  We were great not only at the show but on the bus too! Thank you parent volunteers!

 Of course we also had our big Talent Show debut!  We did an AWESOME job!  Someone sent Mrs. D. a video of our day show that you can see HERE.
Mrs. D. forgot to take any pictures about math but ask us what attributes are and also what polygons are!

Not sure where our friend Jonny was in this picture that Mrs. Ashley snapped back stage!  If you took pictures/ videos, please send them to Mrs. D. and she'll work on that "extra" video she does each week then.  She'll also get around to posting them to the class Facebook Page.  It was a busy weekend for the Dorans. :-)

Week 26 in Review

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

Did you hear?  Although the doors were locked, leprechauns got into Room 119 and they made a MESS!!  We did find some of their gold and jewels but mostly had to clean up after them.

Our Milkweed bugs are growing bigger each day and unlike our other insects, they turn into nymphs (little insects) and just keep growing bigger and bigger.  In addition to science, we did social studies this week.  Ask us what symbols are and some American Symbols. Also ask us what liberty means.

In writing we finished our nonfiction books about insects which included a table of contents, diagrams, captions, bold words and headings. Some of us have a little more work to do and we are also finishing up our glossaries.  We did a great job!

We are looking forward to sharing our books with our 5th grade buddies, but first we shared them with our friends to see if we needed to make any changes.

 In math we've been learning about fact families. Ask us what we know about fact families.  1. Fact families share the same 3 numbers. 2. There are two addition and two subtraction facts (when not doing doubles facts). 3. The big number comes first in subtraction and last in addition.

 It's reading month and we had fun dressing up as characters and sharing our favorite books. We also had Flashlight Reading on Friday.  Since many of us forgot flashlights, Mrs. D. supplied us all with glow sticks to read by.

 We got to see our AMAZING 5th graders perform in Annie (WOW!). They did a great job in our day show and also in their evening show (where Mrs. D. brought her daddy and daughter). LLE's got Talent!! Don't forget we have our Talent show THIS THURSDAY!! We'll be performing it for our friends in the afternoon when we get back from our field trip.

Our Mystery Reader was unable to make it on Friday but will reschedule. Hope you had a GREAT St. Patricks Day!  To see more from our week, click HERE. Have a great week!

Week 25 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! We had a busy and fun week of learning and although our Thursday was jam-packed, we still made time to lift someone up in need.  You can click HERE to see the project we made for Connie!  If you know of someone who could use some encouragement from some Fabulous First Graders, please email Mrs. Doran at lauradoran@wlcsd.org. We also lifted up our classmate Micah who was in the hospital last week.  Mrs. D. made a video for him with a special twist for our Star-Wars-Loving-Friend.  You can check that video out by clicking HERE.

If you ask many of us, the highlight of our week was our awesome Insect Projects!  Thank you to all the amazing family members who helped us.  It was very evident when we shared, that while the model was a group effort, we learned a ton and shared our learning with our friends.  You can check out all the insect fun by clicking HERE.

We had another friend celebrate her birthday with us this week!  Happy Birthday, Evelyn!  We loved celebrating with you!

It's reading month!  We finished the Marvelous Land of Oz and LOVED the surprise twist at the end.  It was one of those books where as Mrs. D. read the "twist" words our eyes got wide and our mouths dropped open.  Great books can do that to you and we continue to improve our reading to have more and more of those experiences!

Along with becoming great readers, we're also really working on our writing.  We have been working on nonfiction books all about Insects complete with a Table of Contents to direct our readers to where they want to go.

You may have noticed that Mrs. D. likes to get us up and moving~ even in math.  As we worked on name-collection boxes (an Everyday Math thing to help us understand that there are many ways to show numbers) Mrs. D. had us go on a number hunt and sort the different numbers into REAL boxes (or baskets).

Numbers can be shown with number models (addition and subtraction problems), tallies, money and more!  We even had fun making our own number cards and having our friends sort them!

 A goal for us now is also to put that learning to pencil (or interactive pen) and paper (interactive white board).  Mrs. D.'s target is to give us more practice in our math journals as we get closer to becoming second graders.

We now have THREE types of insects learning with us in Room 119.  We have some class mealworms left, milkweed bugs and now crickets! Perhaps they will become thoroughly educated (like the woggle-bug from Marvelous Land of Oz).

 The playground has finally dried out so all winter gear was sent home for good (we hope). Getting out to play in the fresh air is wonderful for our growing minds and bodies!

 We had so much fun on Friday when Mrs. D. gave us each a glow-stick, turned out the lights and shut the blinds!  Books are so much fun! "March is Reading Month" ROCKS! We have a fun opportunity to share the books we love next week by dressing up as a favorite character from a book.   To learn more, click HERE.

And as always we ended the week with a excellent Mystery Reader!  Kaitlyn's mom came in and read a wonderful and creative book to our class!  She did a great job and we were a perfect audience!

As always, this was but a snapshot.  Check out more by clicking HERE.

Have a wonderful week!

Week 24 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! Happy March!  It's reading month and we've had many fun activities surrounding reading.  Mrs. D. was bad and didn't take pictures of writing, math or science though we did those things too.  In math we worked on how we can use what we know about double facts to help us with other facts.  For example: we know quickly that 4+4=8 so 4+5 must equal 9. We also got some new insects (there will be pictures next week) and many of us got new 'pets' by taking home our mealworms.  Of course we had a Thoughtful Thursday project where we lifted up Connie. You can see her project by clicking HERE.

Our week was a little shorter than planned because of icy roads. Despite our snow day we packed in a ton, including celebrating Dr. Seuss's Birthday!!

We had visiting Michigan author, Lisa Wheeler, come in and talk to us about her books and about what authors do.  She stressed the importance of beginning, middle and end which was neat because that's something we work on. You can learn more about her by clicking HERE.

 We also had a visit from Teri Les who works for the district at the Educational Service Center (ESC).  She also had two children who went to our school. She did a great job reading to us.

Of course we did a lot of reading of our own! We've really been moving on our reading and everyone has been making great progress and most importantly... enjoying the books we read!

On Friday some of our teachers did a Readers' Theatre for us (that's Mrs. D. on the right). We were a great audience and laughed a lot at some of the lines.

We also had an assembly for our LLE Leader of the month.  Last month we were focusing on Integrity and we were all very excited for our friend, Nathan, who was the leader of the month. This month we are learning about the Loon Lake Learner who encompasses all the PBIS traits.

 We ended the week with a special Mystery Reader visit from Lucas' older sister who also is a Loon Lake Alum.  Lucas was very excited to see his sister and she did a great job reading to us.

As always this is a snapshot.  Mrs. D. did take more pictures which you can see by clicking HERE. We hope you can all come visit our Insect Museum next week! Mrs. Doran can't wait to see our projects!  Have a great week!