Week 17 in Review

Greetings from Room 119 and Merry Christmas and perhaps Happy New Year (if you're reading this in 2019). We had a BUSY last week of 2018. We were asked to do five Thoughtful Thursday projects and we rose to the occasion. We made a project for Stephanie that you can see HERE, a project for Mo that you can see HERE, a project for a 2nd grade teacher name Ms. Mishael HERE, a project for Nate that you can see HERE and a project for Peggy that you can see HERE. Between these projects and our "secret" projects we made for our families, we were busy. 

 We were able to celebrate our friend, Adyn, who turned the great eight! Happy Birthday and Sto Lat!

We love reading. We read books where we learned the history of Christmas and ways in which people from different cultures celebrate this holiday. We also enjoyed reading our own books.

We have been logging into our iReady accounts to do math and reading lessons. Did you know this is something that we can do at home and it doesn't take long. Ask us about it. All login information is on the back of our Everyday Folder.

We finished our Unit 4 Math Assessments and scores are now in Skyward. If you have not yet returned our test and checklist, please do that soon so we can get our Doran Dollars.

A special thank you to Peyton's mom who treated our classroom to a yummy pizza party lunch! She also helped organize all our amazing volunteers who helped at our party! Thank you to everyone for all your hard work! You can see a video from that party by clicking HERE.

Mrs. Doran felt very spoiled with all the wonderful gifts. Hopefully her thank you made it home to you! She also gave us a book about Fly Guy and his pet. If we haven't read it to you yet, ask us to now! Have a wonderful break and we'll see you on January 3rd!

Week 16 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! Mrs. D. enjoyed meeting with you at conferences. She'd love some feedback on how you felt it went. If you attended conferences, please answer this short, one answer survey question that you can find HERE. It's totally anonymous. 

We also lifted up a special girl who has a long recovery ahead of her after surgery surgery. You can see the project we made for the cousin of a LLE family by clicking HERE.

 We've loved reading our books and noticing those adjectives. Many of us are also finding words with our word study patterns. Mrs. D. has loved seeing our different subjects overlap!

We finished the Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Did you know during our read-alouds we have rich discussions about what we're reading. We made connections, predictions and discussed the messages Kate DiCamillo wanted her readers to take away. These discussions happen so naturally when you read great books! We'd love if you'd find a favorite book from your childhood to read to us! This also helps build comprehension (and it's great family time).

This week we did some poem writing, but we also reflected on the first trimester of second grade. It's hard to believe that we're a third of the way through second grade! Time flies when you're having fun! We hope you enjoyed reading our reflections.

In math we focused on measuring in inches and in centimeters. We are going to review and take our Unit 4 Assessment next week. In January we'll start a new Unit and a new math journal!

Liam was very surprised when he found out this week's Mystery Reader was his big sister! She did an excellent job reading to us and we all loved the story!

Just a reminder that next Friday is PAJAMA DAY and our Holiday Party! Special thanks to all who have been planning the party. For those unable to attend, don't worry~ Mrs. D. will take lots of video and pictures for you! Have a great week!

Week 15 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! It was a full week! Our Thoughtful Thursday project went out to a special little girl who has been receiving love from Room 119 every year since Mrs. Doran started this project. She has far surpassed the life-expectancy that doctors predicted for her and we were honored to send her love. You can see her project by clicking HERE.

 As current families know, we did not win the $250 from the bank, so Mrs. Doran put a "Wish List" of items page on the blog. She has been blown away (and we've been cheering too) with the donations that have come in! WOW! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Our hearts are full!

Thanks also to all who came to Mrs. Aaronson's folk-dancing night! It was a fun night and Mrs. Doran's teenage daughter even put down her studying material to dance a bit! We are all so lucky to have such a fantastic music teacher!

Mrs. Doran has been reading holiday books and one was about an elf on a shelf! After she read it, one appeared in Room 119! Many of us were even saying we saw it move! Gingersnap has been a fun addition. Ask us about it!

Read. Read. Read. It's one of our favorite times of the day. Mrs. Doran continues to read us "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" and we hope to finish it next week. We also have been learning about parts of speech (particularly adjectives). As Mrs. D. has been reading with us, we've done well finding them in our reading material and then back to enjoying our reading treasures.

Once a week we get on our chromebooks and work on iReady Lessons and RAZ-kids. Did you know these are both things you can also do at home? All login information is on the back of our Everyday Folders.

We have had such fun learning about poetry! This week we practiced acrostic poems and someone even noticed we had one in our classroom. We poets have loved this unit so much that we are even writing poems in our free time! Great job, Room 119!

In math we've been learning about place value using expanded notation (which is something we actually do every day in our calendar routine). Since we've been picking it up so quickly, we had extra time to learn a new math game called Dreidel. Since we've been learning about Hanukkah, this was a fun tie in!

We wanted to play Dreidel every chance we got so during free choice we even started MAKING OUR OWN! The problem solving, imagination and creativity in play is awesome! This was a big hit for our Jewish and non-Jewish friends!

A very Happy Birthday to our friend, Ashley who turned the "Great Eight" this weekend! We loved singing to her in English AND in Polish! Sto Lat!

And finally we ended our week with a special Mystery Reader we all know (but one of us more so than all the others). Eli's Mimi (and beloved first grade teacher), Mrs. Hoger, came in to read to us a great book called "After the Fall" that we've seen on Mrs. D's shelf. It was a great book and we enjoyed having her come read to us!

Have a wonderful week! Just a reminder that parent-teacher conferences are Thursday. 

Week 14 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! It was a busy week but we had a lot of fun learning about new things all week. Our most important work of the week was lifting up the owner and friends of Bright Starr. You can see the project we made by clicking HERE.

This week we started poetry! We learned that not all poetry rhymes but they are all descriptive and so we also learned about words that are descriptive called adjectives. To help us learn about adjectives, we also learned about nouns and verbs! We LOVED becoming poets. We wrote poems together, shared our poems with friends and even took our writer's notebooks to the media center to write more after book check out!

While we enjoy our books in reading workshop we also look closely to see how authors use adjectives to help their writing become better. If we found an adjective in our book, we wrote it down to share with others while Mrs. D. worked with us to help us find them as well.

In math we've been learning all about how to tell time and we have really done a great job with it. If we need extra instruction, you can check out a video that Mrs. D. made HERE. To play a game she made called, "Beat the Clock" you can click HERE.

We ended the week with a special Mystery Reader. Jack's Nana came to visit and stopped and read an amazing book to Room 119. She then gave it to us to enjoy again and again! Thank you so very much, Nana!

Wishing all of our Jewish friends and family a Happy Hanukkah this week! Remember if you haven't yet signed up for conferences, please do so. The days are flying by and conferences will be here before you know it!