We finished up a busy week with a visit to the computer lab where we played the Everyday Math Games.

Diana, Noah, and Siya were our readers for the day.  GREAT READING!

We had a visit from the Bartlett Fire Department on Thursday:

On Sunday, Mrs. Perrone and I met with students at the Bartlett Library.  In addition to Mrs. Perrone's students, Daniel, Alyssa, and Lily were able to come.  We will schedule another date shortly, but I hope MORE can come!  It's a lot of fun!

I will be at a district meeting on Monday and Tuesday.  Mrs. Haseman (a retired 3rd grade teacher who is FANTASTIC) will be our guest teacher.  And, of course, our student teacher, Ms. Fischer will be teaching as well.  Your children are in GREAT hands and learning will continue as usual!

Happy Reading!

Tuesday Tales

Another extraordinary day (one of our vocabulary words!).  We are learning about text features of fiction books and using Poppleton as our mentor text.  It was great to hear students connecting their understanding of personal narratives with what they are learning in reading.

Anjali was our child of the day and read a chapter of a Henry and Mudge book.  Thanks, Anjali!

Of course, during the early part of the morning, we also went to have our photos taken.  Great outfits with crazy socks!

In writing we wrote our first drafts for our response to the book we read about Admiral Byrd:  Black Whiteness.

We only had time for a brief lesson on making change during our math time, so we will continue on with that tomorrow.  But we did work on number sense, problem solving, and more during our math workshop time.

Tomorrow as part of Red Ribbon Week and discussing making good choices, we will walk the new Liberty Walking Track....taking time to discuss good choices.

It will be warm, so dress accordingly!

I hope everyone is taking time to use TenMarks.  Explore the site...check out the videos.  I will be making assignments that are geared more toward what your child needs to work on, so get to use to manipulating the site.

Monday Moments

The days just seem to go in blur....after specials, we finished reading our book about Admiral Byrd and Antarctica,  Then we spent time in readers workshop in strategy groups, reading, and writing responses to our reading.

In math workshop we worked on frames and arrows with two rules.  We also had an opportunity to listen to our Child of the Day, Ian, read The Lost Sheep. 

Once again, we are switching our library day with the first grade classrooms.  They have a field trip on Wednesday so they will use our library time on Tuesday, and we will go on to the library on Wednesday.

Tomorrow is picture day so don't forget to wear your best and with some crazy socks for Red Ribbon Week!

Fun on Friday!

The highlight of the day was Isiah's mother who read a book to the class that she wrote!!  We have GOT to get an autographed copy for our GOLDEN BOOKCASE!!  She also read a book that she is working on and told us about all the revisions she has made.  We learned it helps her to read it out loud...just like we do with our stories!  Thanks for sharing!

Isiah was the Child of the Day as well.  We enjoyed listening to him read: Here Comes The Strikeout!

The character in the book had to work hard to get good at baseball...just like we have to in school to get better at our academics.  Thanks for reading, Isiah!

Beginning on Monday, we will have a student teacher in the classroom through mid-December.  Ms. Fischer is from Aurora University.  We look forward to welcoming her to our community.

Next week, we are switching our library time with the first grade classes because of a field trip they are going on.  We will go to the library on Wednesday instead.

Thursday Thrills

Caitlyn was our child of the day.  We enjoyed listening to her read a chapter from  Pinky and Rex book.

We also want to thank Allison for donating two books to our classroom in celebration of her birthday.  Happy Birthday Allison and THANK YOU!!

Victor was the first to vote for his favorite character at the Bartlett Public Library.  Stop by, pick out a few great books, then vote for your favorite character.  And don't forget Oct. 28 when Mrs. Perrone and I will be there at 3:00 to read a few great books with everyone!

Of course the big news from today was Nature Dan.  Here's a preview and I'll post more pictures over the weekend:

Tuesday Tales

Busy day that began with a visit to the library.  Mrs. Swan read a Monarch Book:  POP! - a book about the invention of bubble gum.  Fun and informative!

We read Butterfly's Dream today looking closer at the text.  We looked at what the main character (Bella) did, what she thought, and what she felt as we read.

During Writers' Workshop we began a new unit on writing responses to literature.  Today was the pre-assessment and tomorrow we will start diving in.

Math Workshop focused on place value, math facts, and counting different values of coins.

We also enjoyed a reading by K.C. of  Father Bear's surprise!

Don't forget we have a visit from Nature Dan on Thursday.  Sunday, October 28 at 3:00 meet me and Mrs. Perrone at the Bartlett Library.

Monday Marvels

After Monday morning specials, we began the day with a news report by Victor:

Great news reporting, Victor!

We are learning to dig deeper into text as we read The Butterfly's Dream. We are learning how readers look closely at the characters by what they do, say, and think.  We will continue this on Tuesday.

Today in math workshop we working on place value and math facts.

We also enjoyed Patrick as he read to the class One Piece Missing.

We will have a visit from Nature Dan (Bartlett Nature Center) on Thursday for Wacky Weather!  It will be GREAT!!!

We had originally planned to go to South Elgin High School to see a presentation of The Lorax.  Due to transportation issues, this will not be possible.  We are going to schedule an additional visit by Nature Dan at a later date for another offering from the Bartlett Nature Center that will coincide with our science standards.

Don't forget to return the conference request form and the signed progress reports.  Dates are filling up fast!

Schedule Change

There has been a change in plans for our in school field trip. Because Nature Dan from the Bartlett Nature Center is unable to talk to us about weather, we have decided to reschedule until he is available. That's how GREAT he is!!! Instead he will visit all the 2nd grade classrooms next week. The exact day and time will be discussed among the teachers, but Thursday will be a regular school day.

 We are continuing to learn about characters and character traits. Thursday we will be making a list of a variety of character traits what we have learned about.

We are also illustrating our personal narratives and writing about how we got our names. Thank you for completing the homework assignments on time.

In math we continue to learn about fact families, doubles, and the +1/-1 strategy. We are also working on problem solving and explaining our thinking, math vocabulary, and more!!!

Weekly News

Wouldn't you know it! I want to start posting pictures and videos of kids at work and my camera died on me this week...right in the middle of a recording I was making of Kendall reading. And....can't even upload to my laptop the pictures that I had already taken...dead as can be! So, until I can get a new camera...we will all have to visualize!!! Good practice for all GREAT readers! We had a busy week as we are learning about character traits. We have learned that we have to look at what they say, what they do, and what they think. We are using our last read aloud (Gooney B. Greene) and our new one, My Rotten Red-Headed Brother by Patricia Polocco. When we finish we will have a list of character traits we can use in our writing and reading. But....that's just the tip of the iceberg as we dig deeper into text. Common Core State Standards are all about digging deeper. Although I know EXACTLY what reading reading level each child in my classroom is at, reading levels aren't important when we start digging deeper. So, if you child brought a book home this week and you are thinking "they read every word without a single mistake" -that's great. It's the comprehesion beyond the literal level we are working on. Students also finished up writing personal narratives and we will start the publishing piece next week. If I can get a camera quickly we will be able to record them reading their stories as well. In math we continue to work on math facts and strategies for learning math facts. Yes----students MUST know their math facts to 20 fluently by the end of the year, and I have a benchmark assessmet of how accurate and quickly can they do them right now. BUT----ACCURACY is the key to being fast. I am backtracking with some of the students to make sure they understand how numbers come together and how they come apart to help with number sense. Accuracy MUST come first so I do not focus on time right now. It's ACCURACY first...speed later. Xtramath.org focuses more on speed at times, so if your child is not accurate use the Everyday Math games first! If you child can be accurate but just goes slow...use the games first and then XtraMath.org. Understanding leads to accuracy and that is first! Progress reports will go home on Tuesday, along with MAP scores and a sign up for conference sheet. Please indicate on the sign up a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice. I will do my best to accomadate as many 1st choices as I can, but DO give me 3 choices. It will be first come..first served....so get those back ASAP! Looking forward to hearing what everybody read over the long weekend! Happy Reading!