Welcome to Kindergarten

 Dear Kindergarten Families,

My name is Laura Doran and I am so excited to begin our new learning community together. It's been a different year, but I just know we're going to have a great time together.

We will have kindergarteners from two different buildings.

Click HERE for a quick welcome video from me:

I am including first name and last initial friends in our class for your reference!

See you soon,

Mrs. Doran

Neena A.

Calli A.

Gabriel A.

Lydia B.

William C.

Antonio C.

Evan E.

Gabriella F.

Carter F.

Haper G.

Jasper G.

Areet G.

Delaney H.

Alayna O.

Madison P.

Nikolas P.

Linkin P.

Olivia R.

Willow S.

Elizabeth S.

Everett S.

Ethan S.

Lila W.

Welcome to Room 119!

 

Welcome to Room 119!

I am so excited to be learning with you this year and while it will look a bit different, it's going to be GREAT! Now that you know you'll be learning with me, you may wonder who else you will be learning with. Below I am adding our class list of learners.

Mrs. Doran

Lily B.

Claire B.

Kelsey B.

Abigail C.

Avery C.

Sanmish D.

Kennedy F.

Peter G.

Lauryn J.

Lucas K

Abelardo M.

Huda M.

Maddox M.

Isabella P.

Laya R.

Justin R.

Mila S.

Oliver S.

Bella T.

Brendan W.

Adalaya W.

Caleb W.

Aadarsh Y.

The End of a Strange Year...

 

In March, I closed my classroom thinking we'd be back to school in April. Needless to say that didn't happen. What did happen was Room 119's Sensational Second Graders went "back" to school virtually. While heartbroken that we didn't get a proper goodbye, I feel so lucky to have gone through these challenging times with an amazing group that worked to hard and continued to grow as learners and amazing human beings. I am so proud of them and their amazing families who helped make this work. THIS was my final farewell letter to them.

Since all of our learning went virtual, parents were able to see our learning via flipgrid, google classroom, and other platforms. I did feel the need to close out the year here too as well.

Hopefully, "Days with Mrs. Doran" will one day return to Room 119. I look forward to meeting more amazing families but will always remember fondly the many I have worked with from 1998-2020.

Wishing you all the best,

Laura Doran

Week 25 in Review

Greetings from Room 119 and Happy “March is Reading Month”!Make sure you're keeping track of those reading logs if you want to earn a free treat. This week on Thoughtful Thursday we lifted up Lisa who is fighting cancer. You can see her project by clicking HERE.

On Monday we kicked off March is Reading Month with some fun Dr. Seuss books and a directed drawing video. We also made Cat in the Hat hats! We were also surprised with a visit from the Foundation for Excellence. We were happy to hear that we had been awarded a grant to help fund our classroom libraries! Thank you Foundation for Excellence!!

We continue to read The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary. Ask us what's happening in the book. We love reading! Every Friday this month we are able to read with our flashlights or a glow-stick!

We were excited to see that some of our Brassica plants now have seed pods and were completing the plant life cycle! We were able to take them home and now we are growing grass and alfalfa seeds. We also continue to work on lab reports related to science and our own non-fiction books.

Every Monday we do a Visible Thinking Routine called "I used to think, now I think." This is usually something we do independently but this week we really enjoyed working with our table-mates. Ask us what we learned about tears and crying from "Mystery Doug."

Math was a lot of fun this week as we explored linear measurement. We learned about new units (yard and meter) ask us what we know about them and the tools we used to explore (measure tape, meter sticks, and yard sticks). Some of us even measured Mrs. Doran!

A very Happy Birthday to our friend, Libby, who turned the great 8! Sadly Mrs. Doran had been fighting a cold and was sick at home. Thankfully Mrs. Weaver took this great picture of the birthday girl! Sto Lat!

With Mrs. Doran sick, she did not get pictures of 
Friday's Mystery Reader who was Izzy's Aunt.
However, earlier in the week, Izzy's mom came in to read us a book about the coming of spring and a cool Hungarian custom. After reading the book, we were given bracelets to remind us of the coming of spring and she also donated the book to our school library! Thanks so much for coming in!

Have a wonderful week!

Week 24 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! It was a short week for us with not one, but TWO snow days. This also means that we need to reschedule our field trip. Mrs. Doran will let you know as soon as she has a new date. We also didn't do a Thoughtful Thursday project. If you know of someone who could use some encouragement from some Sensational Second Graders, email Mrs. D.  and she'll tell you what she needs. Also~ MARCH IS READING MONTH!! Be sure to have fun in your books and check out the Reading Month Calendar that was sent home.

When we got back from break we had a birthday to celebrate! Our friend, Shayne, turned the great 8! Happy Birthday, Shayne! Sto-Lat!

We continue to learn about non-fiction text features. Mrs. Doran also started a new read aloud called, "The Mouse and the Motorcycle" by Beverly Cleary! The book is one she read when she was our age.

We continue to work on our non-fiction pieces. Some of us have finished and are learning about and writing about a new topic. We love writing!

In math we are working on adding multiple two digit numbers together. An easy way to do this is to look for sums of ten. We know the most important thing in math is to get the answer right- then it is to become more efficient.  We also did reading and math lessons on iReady. Please try to do this at least once a week at home. You can log on by clicking HERE.

And finally we ended the week in our favorite way with a MYSTERY READER! Shayne was SO EXCITED to learn that his mom was our Mystery Reader. Unfortunately Mrs. Doran didn't capture the moment but got a cute recap that she posted on our class facebook page. Shayne's mom read a great book and we loved having her read to us!

If you're reading this on the weekend, remember that Monday is Dr. Seuss day! Wear red, white and black! Every Friday in the month of March we'll have flashlight Fridays where we read for fun with the lights turned out and the flashlights on! It's a lot of fun.

Have a great week!

Week 23 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! We had a fun week finishing up with our Valentine Day Party (Thank you volunteers!). You can see a video Mrs. D. made of it by clicking HERE. We also sent some love to a Papa in Room 119! You can see Papa Jerry's project by clicking HERE!

We love to read and after finishing up Ivan, Mrs. Doran read us some great picture book read-alouds. We read some nonfiction and we also got some time to read books WE like to read while Mrs. Doran met with some of us. Reading is a great time of our day!

We continue to work on our nonfiction writing books! This time of day has us writing and reading to get more information for our books. Our books are coming together great and some of us have even asked to work on them during "Free Choice" (which of course we can since we're fee to make a choice of what to do).

In math this week we took our Math Assessment (and Mrs. Doran didn't take any pictures). Tests came home and Mrs. Doran also recorded them in Skyward in case our test didn't make it to you.

We feel like we have enough data to answer the question that our Brassica plants grew better in artificial light than natural light. Our thinking was that the artificial light was on all day and night. The natural sunlight group had many cloudy days which may be why they didn't grow as well. We asked if those of us who had our plants in the window could move to the artificial light. We moved our plants and are eager to see what happens when we return from break! Hopefully we'll have some flowers to cross-pollinate!

We were excited to celebrate our friend, Kinsley, who is turning the great 8 while we are on break! We loved singing to her in English and Polish! Sto Lat!

Have a great break and we'll see you on February 24th!

Week 22 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! We made it to February and to our 100th day of school! Don't forget to bring Valentine Containers on Friday! It's going to be a great day. This week we lifted up Mrs. G. on thoughtful Thursday. You can see the project we made for her by clicking HERE.

Our reading and writing really went hand-in-hand this week. We are working on a Nonfiction Unit in both. We found nonfiction books on topics we were interested in and had fun learning new things. We recorded interesting things on sticky notes to both share with our friends and help us with our writing topics. We also finished "The One and Only Ivan" which is a fiction book based on a true story which we will learn more about next week.

After we learned a lot about our topic, we started to gather what we learned and organize it first into a "Table of Contents' to direct our writing. We are learning all about the different text features that you can find in nonfiction books. We'll continue working on this next week.

It was all about addition strategies in math. We've worked on many and have found a strategy that works for us. Knowing more than one strategy helps us check our work. We also learned about ballpark estimates. We'll be reviewing next week and taking our Unit 6 Assessment. Keep an eye out for a review coming home on Monday and we'll also be reviewing in school.

Global School Play Day was a blast and we were excited to participate in something that really is SO important. There is tons of research out there that supports the important role that play has in brain development and learning. Mrs. Doran posted all the pictures she took from the day on our class facebook page. You can also see a video she made by clicking HERE.

Have a great week!

Week 21 in Review

Greetings from Room 119. Mrs. Doran's Mac is still shot but she was able to work on our Thoughtful Thursday project from last week. Zachary's mom sent her the information about an amazing Veteran and we were more than happy to send him some love for Valentine's Day. You can learn more about him by clicking HERE and see our project by clicking HERE. 

We were very happy to celebrate our friend, Alyssa, who turned the great 8 this week! She donated two books to our classroom too! We loved reading them and adding them to our library!

In Social Studies we built off what we learned about Goods and Services and learned about Producers and Consumers. We took pre and post tests on this information and have learned a lot!

Our Brassica plants began to sprout. We have noticed that both plants have begun to grow. The plants in the artificial light are a little taller but have noticeably bigger leaves. The sun in our state hasn't been out all that much so we are guessing that that has something to do with it too.

We took our math assessment this week and as a class we did AWESOME! We began Unit 6 and learned about graphs. On Friday for our math-in we made lots of graphs and had a great time (Mrs. D. forgot to take pictures of that).

We finished our reading iReady assessments and Mrs. Doran is now in the process of testing some of us further. We are also beginning our unit on nonfiction books. Our new read aloud is "The One and Only Ivan." Though this is a fictional book it was based on "the shopping mall gorilla" named Ivan who really existed.

We finished up our Reflection Journals and they will be coming home next week. Some of us have not been writing as much and need to build on our stamina. You, too, could keep a journal with us at home. Just get a notebook and you can write to us and we can write back to you and tell you about our day's highs and lows.

We were excited to end our week with our Mystery Reader! Ella's dad came in to read to us. He did a great job  and we loved the book! You can see a video on our Class Facebook page of our Mystery Reader reveal. If you haven't signed up yet PLEASE see our blog and email Mrs. Doran a date.

Week 20 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! It was a shorter week and we did do a Thoughtful Thursday project (as pictured above) but Mrs. Doran has had some issues with her computer so the video is not ready at this time. The good news is we did the project a little early so it will be done prior to Valentine's Day which is when this project will need to be done by. Stay tuned!

We did not have school on Monday but WL had a great event at WLN where there was free food, displays and more. We hope you were able to attend!

Most of us have now finished up the math iReady diagnostic. We are really in need of headphones as we had a few more break this week, so if we do not have our own please consider buying some. Similarly, if you have any extra at home that you no longer use that you could donate, we would be grateful.

We finished our read aloud called "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" as well as a traveling journal we did to go along with the book. The end was very moving and many of us cried (including Mrs. D., which may have added to our tears). We are learning that great books can make you laugh, cry, be scared, and more. We can't wait to start our new book on Monday!

This week we reviewed the many strategies that we have learned to help us solve problems in math. Sometimes solving a problem in two ways is a great way to see that we got the problem correct. Next week we will take our Unit 5 Math Assessment. A review will come home on Monday. Also don't forget to keep those math month items coming in!

In our writing unit we are working on writing like a scientist. This unit is great for us this time of year because we also just got our science kits. To start our writing we started with a question and then made a hypothesis.

After we made our hypothesis it was time to test it. We all planted our own Brassica seeds. Some put their seeds under an artificial light and others opted for sunlight through the window. We can't wait to see what happens. As scientists we also wrote about the materials needed to conduct our experiment as well as the procedure.

On Friday we were so excited to have Alton's mom come and read to us. She read a great book and really really enjoyed us. We all know her because she is one of our amazing Motor Moms. Thank you so much for coming in.

Also Friday after school the PTA put on an Awesome Winter Family Fun Night! Their hard work was evident and a fun time was had by all! Thank you to all who donated items to our basket as well as to Ashton's mom who put all the items together making it look fabulous! Have a wonderful week!

Week 19 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! This week we lifted up Joy who is battling breast cancer. You can see the project we made for her by clicking HERE. If you know someone who could benefit from some encouragement, email Mrs. Doran and she'll tell you what she needs in order to do the project.

This week we did our reading iReady Assessment over the course of the week. Next week we'll be doing our math iReady Assessment. Please send in headphones if you have them, we had another few sets break this week.

We finished the Mercy Watson series and Mrs. Doran is reading us one book from the next series with the same characters called "Leroy Ninker Saddles Up" by Kate Dicamillo. The Mercy books are very different from Edward Tulane which we are reading now. Authors write for different purposes and different audiences. We love our reading time where we can try out and choose books that are just right for us.

As we finish up our opinion writing, we thought it would be fun to reflect on the "Mercy" books we read and choose our favorite book. We again had to support our opinions with reasons and examples. The majority of our class wrote pieces supporting "Mercy Watson: Something Wonky this Way Comes" though all supported their opinions with reasons and examples. Our opinion writing pieces will be coming home soon and we will move into nonfiction writing and lab reports.

In math we loved learning about arrays, which is a strategy to help us solve multiplication problems and repeat addition. We also learned some more strategies to help us add - like the open number line. We love math! We have been working on subtraction every Friday as well for Math Month. Don't forget to do those math packets so we can earn more snowballs!

We've been learning about goods and services and the differences between the two. We took a pre and post learning test and realized we really have learned a lot about this topic. It's fun to discover new things that we didn't know about before.

On Friday we finished the week with a special Mystery Reader. Cameron's mom came in and read us an awesome hockey story which was perfect for our hockey-playing friend. She did a great job and we loved the book!

Just a reminder that there will be no school on Monday, January 20th, as we observe the Martin Luther King holiday. We hope you will join us at Walled Lake Northern on Monday for free food and festivities beginning at 5:00pm. You can click HERE to learn more.