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!