Week 9 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! This week we lifted up Janice's Pop-pop for our Thoughtful Thursday project! You can check it out by clicking HERE. Mrs. D. is also happy to report that the week was MUCH better so we'll be starting up Doran Dollars again on Monday. We are going to keep the cards in place so you can see how we are doing as well.

 We've been thinking about the thinking and sharing strategies we notice ourselves using. By sharing our strategies, others can try them out too! Also we need to thank Scarlett's mom for two AMAZING cots that she gifted to our classroom. We LOVE reading in them (and they also get a lot of use at our indoor free-choice). THANK YOU!

Did you know that each week we dig deep into vocabulary? Mrs. D. reads us a book and on "Wow Word Wednesday" we pull out words we aren't as familiar with and try to put them into our spoken and written vocabulary! We are doing great with this!

Our personal narratives turned out great and we asked if we could write a book of our choice (personal narrative, fiction... etc). Mrs. Doran said we could but encouraged us to continue to use the strategies of planning we used in our personal narratives to help us with other forms of writing!

In Social Studies we learned about communities in rural, urban and suburban areas. We watched a video and practiced taking notes on important things we noticed. Then we got in groups and had to create a big picture of one of the regions we learned about. Next week we will look at all of them and determine if the pictures are of rural, urban and suburban and explain our thinking behind our answers.

In math we finished up Unit 2 learning about frames and arrows which helped us play with counting by different numbers forward and backward. Our test scores are in Skyward and we did a great job. If we did not do so well and would like to retake the test, just let Mrs. Doran know. Some of us made some mistakes that we probably knew the answers to. In Skyward it lets you know if you are eligible to retake a test.

We had our first PBIS assembly. Our class voted Jack to represent Room 119 as someone who regularly shows respect in the classroom. Next month the trait we will focus on will be kindness (a favorite of Mrs. Doran's).

We ended our week with a special Mystery Reader! Hassan's dad and sister both came in to see us. His sister (also a Room 119 alum) read us a story and did a great job (which did not surprise her former teacher one bit). Thanks so much for coming in to read to us!

Next Thursday Mrs. Doran will be out for an appointment. She hopes to get some great reports from the guest teacher. It is her policy to send out emails if our names are left for positive and not-so-positive reasons. Please encourage us to show kindness and be respectful of whomever is teaching and learning in Room 119. Have a great week!

Week 8 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! This week's project went out to a very special man named Wally. His project didn't use our familiar song but it turned out great! You can see it by clicking HERE. Thank you to everyone who donated to the Fun Run. Our class raised $690! Eli was our top earner collecting $130! He'll be treated to a pizza lunch with a friend and Mrs. Doran!

We didn't go to the media center this week... instead we visited a BAT CAVE! We had so much fun! Be sure to ask us about it and remind us to bring our two books next Wednesday when book check-out returns.

We continue to work on our first personal narratives during Writers' Workshop. We have been working on adding details and elaboration. Stay tuned!

In math we reviewed name collection boxes, looked at using tools like a number grid to add numbers in more efficient ways and dug deep into understanding even and odd. We will be taking our Unit 2 Assessment next week!

We continue to learn about communities in Social Studies. This time we focused on regional communities that we belong to as small as our home and expanding to our country! Mrs. Doran read showed us a cool book to really demonstrate this! Ask us about it!

On chromebooks this week, Mrs. D. showed us how we can get even more information and fun from our Scholastic News Magazine. Did you know you can visit our Google Classroom for all sorts of fun links. Ask us to show you how!

With our 5th Grade buddies we talked about books we are just "Batty" about! These bats will soon be flying outside of our classrooms! Mrs. Doran also started a new read-aloud to us. We are reading "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum. Please do not show us this movie just yet. It is VERY different from the book.

On Friday, some members of Room 119 showed their team spirit for the big football game this weekend. Mrs. D. chose her dad's alma matter. She is happy to report there was another big football game this weekend and HER team won. Go WMU Broncos!

We ended the week with a special Mystery Reader. Ben was so excited to see that HIS mom was the person to come and read to us this week. She did a great job and we loved the books!

Mrs. D. is happy to report that overall the week was a much better week than last. Room 119 is getting better at making choices that promote our learning and are great for our community! Let's hope we keep it up! Have a great week everyone!

Week 7 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! This week we lifted up Mrs. Doran's friend, Chris and his brother and mother after his dad passed away. In this case, we made one card and Mrs. D. copied them so each person could have their own special envelope of love. To see the project we made, click HERE.

 We had two birthdays to celebrate this year! Happy Birthday, Girls! They both opened up presents from home and we sang to them. Happy Birthday, Sienna!

Of course we also sang to them in Polish! Sto Lat! Happy Birthday, Ryleigh!

We continue to work on our reading while Mrs. D. reads with our class individually! Have you checked out Raz-Kids at home? Be sure to check it out or log in to iReady to work on extra reading at home. We also finished The Witches and have been begging Mrs. D. to read ONE MORE Roald Dahl book. She's pretty excited that we've fallen in love with his books as much as she has! So many books, so little time!

We started learning about (and writing) personal narratives this week. It can be hard to write about ONE event instead of listing many, but we're working on it. Ask us what our first story is about and how we've been planning and writing. We hope to finish our first book next week!

In math, we focused on sums of ten and doubles facts. If we can memorize these, this will REALLY help us with other facts. We call these two types of facts "Helper Facts" because they can help us with other facts. For example, if we remember that 5+5=10, we will easily be able to figure out that 5+6=11. We made some math pumpkins to put in a patch. Ask us if we made a double fact pumpkin or a sum of ten pumpkin and what this all means!

In social studies we are examining communities and what they are. We did a "chalk talk" to get out our ideas on the topic and we also made books about our community and brainstormed the many communities we are part of. We've been doing a great job!

We ended the week with not one but TWO mystery readers! Peyton's big sister was able to come in and surprised her and we even had time for her mom to read to us as well. They donated an AWESOME Halloween book for our shelves (THANK YOU) and also brought in candy. Because it was a difficult day, Mrs. D. held on to the candy and hopes to be able to give it to us next week.

Room 119 has an amazing group of kids but we are really struggling with keeping our every inner thought INSIDE and not letting it escape out and talk over each other. We've been having these same issues in other classes (PE, Music... etc.). Mrs. D. sent and email home and was so impressed with the support from our amazing community! We'll get there and can hopefully reinstate Doran Dollars again soon! ~Stay Tuned!

Week 6 in Review

Greetings from Room 119. This week's Thoughtful Thursday went to a member of our own class! We sent cards to our friend Leah to let her know we're thinking of her and hope to see her next week. You can see our project for her by clicking HERE.

We celebrated a birthday this week. It was fun singing to Peyton and we loved the book she opened from her parents. Sto-Lat!

 Mrs. Doran started reading us the perfect book for October. Ask us about what is happening in "The Witches." She is also still reading with each of us. She will send out emails to let you know what she notices about us as readers. Remember to check out Raz-Kids! It's a great way to practice reading and have fun!

Math is always fun in Room 119. We play a lot of games that reinforce our math skills. This week we focused on strategies that help us when adding, including the making ten strategy and doubles facts. We should practice our doubles facts so that they come to us quickly. This will help us to solve other problems.

Also in math we answered (and wrote) number stories (answered in math and wrote in writing). We are starting to learn about personal narrative writing, so we wrote a piece for a baseline so that we can see our writing improve over the unit!

Our math number stories are now displayed in the hallway. We wrote number stories with an October theme. We also made "Monster" bookmarks with our 5th grade buddies. We love meeting with them and will miss them when they're away at camp next week!

We were so excited that Mrs. Dianna (from Thoughtful Thursday) drove over 45 minutes to meet Mrs. D. and us! She brought us a pizza and juice box lunch AND a ton of supplies to help us in future projects. We were overwhelmed by her kindness (which she felt the need to do because of our kindness).  Thank you Mrs. Dianna!

On Friday afternoon, we ran for our Fun Run. Mrs. D. did her best to take pictures of us but we sure were fast. She put together the pictures and videos she took and you can see them HERE. Please turn in money for the Fun Run by next week Friday! The top earner in Room 119 gets a pizza lunch with Mrs. Doran and gets to bring one friend!