Week 9 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! We actually had two Thoughtful Thursday projects we did this week. When someone in our class is in need we double up, so you can see the project we made for our friend, Alton's Great-Grandma by clicking HERE and we also made a project for a strong 8th grader that you can see by clicking HERE.

In math we had a great review and we took our math assessments. Mrs. Doran will be getting them into Skyward soon and sending home checklists for you to see how we did. Please make sure you check Everyday Folders next week and sign and return them as soon as you can. Many wrote in their Reflection Journals that the test was easier than they thought!

We have been really focusing on mentor texts to help us with our own writing. It has been fun to share what we have seen in books by amazing authors and then working on doing it in our own writing. We also are working hard to edit with peers!

Mrs. D. forgot to take pics of us reading this week probably because she's been busy reading with us! One thing we did do is make some cool monster bookmarks with our buddies to hold our places in our books!

We ended the week the way we love to end it... with a MYSTERY READER! Roxie's mom did a a great job reading to us and we loved the Halloween book she shared!

Have a great week!

Week 8 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! We've been really working on our volume in our classroom and wanted to thank our amazing families for their encouragement, because it seems like it's getting a bit better! Keep up those pep-talks! This week we lifted up the only person who has gotten a Thoughtful Thursday project every year since Mrs. Doran started doing them. Check out Panda's amazing journey by clicking HERE. We need more people to lift up! If you know of someone who could use some encouragement, email Mrs. D. at lauradoran@wlcsd.org.

We loved celebrating Izzy's birthday this week! It's great to be eight! We sang Sto Lat to her and she got a new (and improved) crown from Mrs. Doran (no more tape needed).

We love our reading time, and Mrs. Doran has only a handful of us still to read with. We continue to read Roald Dahl's "The Witches" and comment often about it in our Reflection Journals. Now that iReady testing is done, please spend some time fitting in a lesson at home each week!

We are starting to really try to edit our writing and we do this both with a rubric we have and also with our buddies. We love our writing time. We continue to work on personal narratives but have asked for "Fiction Fridays" and since Mrs. Doran loves writers that love writing, that's what we've been doing!

We will be having our Unit 2 Math Assessment later next week so keep an eye out for an optional review. We worked this week on word problems, turn-around facts, and helper facts. Helper facts are those that help us solve other problems, so keep working on those sums of ten (addends that add up to ten) and doubles facts (1-10) to help build our math foundation.

We did a great job reviewing and digging deeper into rural, urban and suburban communities. We had a great discussion that while they have things in common, they are still different. Each table group was given a "type" of community to draw. Later, we all had to look at each drawing and decide if it was an ubran, rural, or suburban community and explain the reason we chose each community. Ask us about it!

With so much time on chromebooks with testing, we took a break from chromebooks on Friday and had some fun making "Math Spiders" and writing the steps we needed to be successful. The spiders turned out great and will be hanging in Room 119 soon!

In the hallway we have books we're "batty" about hanging in the hallway as well as some information we learned with our 5th Grade Buddies about bats! We love meeting with our buddies! Ask us what we know about bats! It's beginning to look a lot like Halloween! Please remember to send in your $5 for our party if you haven't already!

We ended the week the way we love to... with our MYSTERY READER! Ruby's sister came in and read to us and did a great job reading, "The Day the Crayons Quit." You can see Ruby's reaction to learning her sister was our Mystery Reader on our class Facebook page!

Wishing everyone an amazing week!

Week 7 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! We had a shorter week with the Jewish holiday but still got in a lot of learning and a lot of excitement. Of course one of our highlights was having the opportunity to lift someone up. To see the project we made for Myles, click HERE. If you know of someone who could benefit from some encouragement from some Sensational Second Graders, email Mrs. Doran at: lauradoran@wlcsd.org.

 We were SO excited when we got learned we were HIRED in Room 119 to do a class job and that we'd get paid with Doran Dollars! We made our own wallets (and some of us made our own licenses for those wallets).  At the end of the week we had our first auction. If you have extra party favors, or gently used toys you're looking to get rid of, please consider donating to our weekly auctions!

In reading we started to identify strategies we use when we come to difficult words and to really be aware of what we are doing as we read. We did a great job with this. Mrs. Doran continues to read with us to learn more about us as readers.

In math we learned that we can use doubles facts and sums of ten facts (facts we should know very well) as "helper facts" to help us solve other problems. For example, if we know 6+6=12, we know that 6+7=13. Similarly if we know 7+3=10, we know that 7+4=11. To help us cement our doubles facts, we also played some games like rolling and graphing doubles and fish for ten! These are great games to play at home too!

In social studies we continue to learn about communities. To get our brains ready, we did an activity called, "Think, Puzzle, Explore" about "Rural, Urban, and Suburban" communities. Most of us didn't know too much about this topic, but we explored it further and have learned a lot. We will continue this learning next week.

We are now all finished with our Reading iReady assessments and are almost done with our Math iReady assessments. Doing a lesson once a week at home would help us and can be fun. Remember we'll be working on chromebooks each week so you can send us in with headphones if you have them. Some of our earbuds are getting tangled and taking quite a bit of time for Mrs. D. to fix.

 It was an exciting day at LLE on Friday when Governor Whitmer came to LLE to learn more about the outstanding special ed programs in our building. She came to listen to some of our teachers and visit some of our classrooms.

We ended the week in our favorite way~ with a MYSTERY READER! Grady's mom came in and read us an awesome Halloween book all about Michigan. If you'd like to come in to read to us, click HERE to see available dates and email Mrs. Doran.

Have a great week!

Week 6 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! This week's Thoughtful Thursday went out to Mr. Jim. You can check out the project we made for him by clicking HERE. If you know of someone who could use some encouragement through a Thoughtful Thursday project, email Mrs. Doran at lauradoran@wlcsd.org.

It was SUCH a mixed up week! In addition to having Monday off for the Jewish holiday we had a fire drill, a bus safety assembly, a PBIS assembly (congrats to Caleb and Shayne), the Fun Run and lots of iReady testing. Of course we got in our free-choice time though and we did stay on schedule for math and word study.

At this time we have all completed our reading iReady test. Mrs. Doran will be reviewing our scores and it will help her in her instruction as she continues to learn more about us as readers. Please try to do 30 minutes a week of iReady lessons on your own. We finished Charlie and the Chocolate and Mrs. Doran can't wait to start her FAVORITE October read-aloud (also by Dahl). The Witches! Please don't watch this movie if you haven't (and be aware even after the book it may be a bit too scary for us- parental discretion advised).

Of course we do a lot of writing in Room 119 from our Me-Box writing, to writing throughout the curriculum. We didn't have any "formal" writing lessons this week due to the testing and other additions to our weekly schedule.

In math we've really been thinking about our thinking. We worked on word problems, writing them and solving them, doubles facts and sums of ten. We talked about strategies that we use and how we are learning not only to get the answer right but also to become more efficient in solving our problems.

We continue to learn about community and made our own little community books. We will continue to learn about communities. Please help us to learn our address and phone numbers is this is a great thing for us to know.

We had a lot of fun celebrating our friend Sophia who turned 7! Sto Lat!

 After our Fun Run we came in and had a special Mystery Reader! Ella's sister (and Room 119 alum) came in to read to us and did an amazing job! Please check out the "Mystery Reader" page on the blog for available days to come read to us if you are interested!

The Fun Run was SO much fun! You can click HERE to see a video of the shots Mrs. Doran was able to get. We ran FAST so she did her best!